Astorino takes stock at one year
A packed house of 350 listened to the county executive step from the fray of his first year in office for an accounting and to field questions selected by the host, the Westchester County Association.
“There”™s no low-hanging fruit in New York when it comes to change,” County Executive Rob Astorino told the assembled Jan. 13 at the Westchester Marriott Hotel. This was the 14th “Breakfast With the County Executive” hosted by the association, whose President William M. Mooney Jr. and Chairman Alfred B. DelBello moderated.
Astorino cited a declining county tax levy this year of “1 to 2 percent,” saying: “Life is not going to change a lot, but it is life-affirming for our county.” He expects 2011 “to look a lot like 2010, with less money from Washington and from Albany. We are on the right path and, bumpy as it is, we just have to stay on it.”
The morning breakfast began with DelBello requesting a moment of silence for the shooting victims in Arizona. In a lighter moment later, the former county executive, Yonkers mayor and lieutenant governor offered solace for fiscal tardiness, saying, “I never submitted a budget on time.”
During the Q&A after the breakfast, Mooney said, “We have to get behind the culture of less spending. Nobody wants to hurt the government worker, but at the same time we have to change the climate of how things were done in the past.” Mooney has been named to the new state commission to address mandates.
Astorino said the greatest change in the last year has been in the way the public and officials view government: Taxes are more tied to actual need; services must be delivered better and more cheaply; and government must “help rather than hamper” business.
Astorino said the “big three” impacts on county spending were Medicaid, health insurance and pensions. He used the word “outrageous” to describe a system where many public employees do not contribute to their health plans.
“I was not elected to manage the status quo,” Astorino said. “I did not run to go along and get along.” He rehashed the line-item budget battles that saw the Democrat-controlled Board of Legislators override some 250 of his vetoes, but offered only words of comity toward the opposition, saying the people had spoken and he had to work within those parameters. “I think this open debate is healthy. It was not acrimonious. Now, let the people decide.”
Asked about increasing public-private partnerships, he said, “I am open to any idea, believe me.”
If the event had an overarching theme, it was one of modest accomplishments framed against a backdrop of challenging times, of a backslide stopped and a recovery begun.
On the topic of Medicaid spending, responding to a question from Brian O. Foy, executive director of the Westchester County Medical Society, Astorino said, “New York state spends more on Medicaid than Texas and California combined.” He ticked off a list of benefits New York provides that other states do not and said change would not be easy. “We can do it if the state has the courage to do it.”
Astorino said, “Spending has to be cut, really cut. We need to shrink the work force and they need to start paying for their health care.”