Westchester lawmakers overrode one of eight vetoes to the 2014 budget from County Executive Robert P. Astorino at a meeting of the board Monday night.
The 17-member county Board of Legislators voted unanimously to override Astorino”™s veto of $574,000 in non-contractual raises for prosecutors in the district attorney”™s office. The total budget for 2014 is $1.7 billion.
Astorino, a Republican, also vetoed funding for six capital projects and the hiring of a “director of water agency” in the Department of Environmental Facilities. Those vetoes held after legislators fell short of getting the 12-vote “supermajority” needed to override a veto. Democrats hold a 10-to-7 majority on the board.
The vetoing of capital work accentuates an ongoing philosophical difference between Astorino and the board, with the county executive believing that legislators should go through the same approval process for projects as subordinate departments. Board Democrats have taken the executive to task over that view, which has been a point of debate in ongoing legal actions against Astorino from board Chairman Ken Jenkins, a Democrat.
Mary Jane Shimsky, a Greenburgh Democrat, took issue with the continued capital-project vetoes. “We are the founding branch of this government and we are entitled to capital adds and we not treated like the Department of Whatever,” she said.
The vetoed items included $2.5 million in tree replacements post-Hurricane Sandy and $500,000 each for bridge projects in Mamaroneck on Mamaroneck Avenue and on Pondfield Road in Bronxville over the Bronx River.
The vote Monday marks the end of the 2014 budget cycle, barring the vetoed construction work coming back up as non-budgeted capital expenditures. The budget passed 16-1, with only retiring Rye Legislator Judy Myers voting against. The banner item of this budget process was $900,000 restored in subsidies to the Title XX program, a child day care program, that will open up 180 slots for children in working families. The budget comes with no tax levy increase and did not sap reserve funds, principals shared this go round by the legislative and executive branch, which may have resulted in a less-explosive budget session.
Astorino was sworn in January 2010 and during his first budget process, for the 2011 budget, he vetoed 249 line items, 247 which were overridden at a time when Democrats held a board supermajority. The 2012 budget came with 27 vetoes and 19 overrides. Last year, when approving the 2013 budget, most Democratic legislators walked out when two of their caucus sided with the seven Republicans to form a coalition and approve a budget deal.
The two Democrats who sided with the Republican caucus, Virginia Perez and Michael Kaplowitz, are expected to form a coalition majority for the 2014-2015 term that would see Kaplowitz as chairman of the board. Legislators in the coalition are scheduled to hold a press conference on the power-sharing agreement at county hall on Thursday morning.
