Claiming common cause with their hosts, state legislators representing Westchester County told a business audience here that structural change is needed at every level of government in New York ”“ and already is under way in Albany.
Nine state Assembly and Senate members recently fielded questions from the Westchester County Association before about 300 persons at the WCA”™s annual New York State Legislators Breakfast. The lawmakers heard WCA President William M. Mooney describe the business group”™s recently launched Call to Action community education campaign, an effort by a coalition of business groups statewide to change the political culture of state government and curb state spending to make New York more economically competitive and business-friendly. Mooney said the WCA is preparing report cards on each lawmaker”™s stand on issues of concern to the business community for release before the November election.
“We are not the enemy,” Sen. Suzi Oppenheimer, D-37th District, told the crowd at Tappan Hill Mansion in Tarrytown. “We are your neighbors, your friends. We”™re trying to do the best we can. These are very difficult times. We want you to understand that we feel the pain with you.”
Oppenheimer, who chairs the Senate Education Committee, said she is sponsoring a bill, the Education Mandate Relief Act, that “takes off the shackles on BOCES,” Boards of Cooperative Educational Services, by allowing them to provide more shared services to school districts. The bill also prohibits the state from implementing new unfunded mandates for school districts after the start of a school year. It also allows schools to “piggyback” on contracts for shared transportation services.
The WCA has pushed in recent years for shared services and government consolidations to reduce property taxes, which in New York are 33 percent higher than the national average, according to the business group.
Assemblyman Richard L. Brodsky, D-92nd District, said Westchester would be “dramatically impacted” by cuts to the STAR school tax relief program for homeowners included in Gov. David Paterson”™s 2010 executive budget. Brodsky said he thinks the governor”™s proposed soda tax, projected to raise $465 million in revenue in 2010 to cut into the state”™s more than $9 billion deficit, “has disincentives for Pepsi to stay in Westchester.”
While calling its adoption last year “mistake-ridden,” Brodsky defended the Metropolitan Transportation Authority payroll tax as needed and “benefiting this community particularly.” The WCA and numerous other business groups in MTA”™s Hudson Valley commuter region want the year-old tax repealed.
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Brodsky said the state”™s pending adjustment to the MTA tax, as proposed by Paterson, will create greater regional equity. The rate paid by employers in the outlying Hudson region will be cut in half, to 17 cents per $100 of payroll, while employers in New York City will see their tax rate rise by 20 cents per $100 of payroll and so contribute 88 percent of total payroll tax revenues.
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Brodsky also noted that self-employed individuals and other small businesses will be exempt from the tax when the minimum income level for taxed employers is raised from $10,000 to $100,000 per year, as Paterson proposed.
Assemblyman Robert J. Castelli, the Republican from Goldens Bridge who won a special election this year for the vacated 89th Assembly district seat, said he has co-sponsored legislation to repeal the MTA tax. “I think it”™s onerous,” he said.
Castelli said while he has found “a much more collegial atmosphere” than expected in the Capitol, “The bad news is that conditions are a lot worse than many of us realize, especially with the budget.” Spending cuts should be made “with a scalpel, not with an ax,” Castelli said.
“Government needs to be redesigned,” he said. “We are the Titanic and we need to be a speedboat once again.”
State Sen. Jeffrey D. Klein, D-34th District, said some state spending cuts “are going to be devastating. With proposed Medicare cuts, “We”™re going to destroy our health care industry,” he said.
Klein, chairman of the newly created Senate Task Force on Government Efficiency, said regional collective bargaining for teacher contracts would eliminate the disparity in teacher pay between school districts in Westchester County. “If we can level the playing field, we can save school districts all kinds of money,” he said.
Klein said the state”™s $450 million a year in spending for overtime pay “is absolutely outrageous.” SUNY is one of the top overtime abusers, he said. Klein”™s Senate staff last year found the state potentially could save $23 million by reducing overtime costs at SUNY institutions.
“I think the days of giving state agencies a blank check are over,” Klein said.
Sen. Andrea Stewart-Cousins, D-35th District, said structural changes are already seen in Albany, “although they”™re nebulous, difficult to put your hands on.” For the first time in legislative history, Senate Democrats and Republicans are co-sponsoring bills, she said.
“Get the bad guys out,” Assemblywoman Amy Paulin, D-88th District, told the business group, “but at the same time realize that many of us are trying to make government better alongside you.”
