The county executives of the Hudson Valley say that the future of government requires innovation, cooperation and cost cutting to bring the region through the tough times. But mostly they say local governments need to get as financially creative as well-run businesses and be just as willing to make the tough decisions made by managers in private-sector enterprises.
And the counties must unite to fight unfair taxation, starting with the MTA”™s employment tax ”“ the so-called commuter tax ”“ which the leaders agreed would serve as an economic torpedo to the region”™s hopes of bringing in high-paying jobs.
These messages were delivered to a ballroom full of Hudson Valley leaders at the annual President”™s Day Breakfast of Pattern for Progress on Feb. 26. at the Poughkeepsie Grand Hotel; 350 people attended.
Dutchess County Executive William Steinhaus, Orange County Executive Edward Diana, Sullivan County Legislature Chairman Jonathan Rouis, Ulster County Executive Michael Hein and Putnam County Deputy Executive John Tully were joined at the podium by Pattern President Jonathan Drapkin to examine the question of how to “innovate for tough times,” in the words of Drapkin, who moderated the panel.
The theme of the gathering was summarized by Sullivan County”™s Rouis. It is time for county governments to “Blow up the model. We need to think about government in a different way and rethink how we deliver services,” said Rouis. “We need to innovate much like you do out there.”
Various specific innovations were suggested, including a suggestion by Hein for creating regional jails instead of forcing each county to build and operate its own jail. It is not something the executives could undertake without state officials cooperation. But Hein said the time is right to “Look at corrections in a regional perspective,” because the region is aging demographically and so the crime rate is likely to continue dropping, since statistically most crimes are committed by males younger than 30.
Ulster County has a new $100 million jail capable of housing about 400 inmates, Orange County has a new jail that could house up to 600 inmates. He said that with such facilities available, cooperation could save some $20 million in debt service for counties who have not yet built new jails and raise revenue for counties who board prisoners to help pay off the debt incurred in building the facilities.
Hein also advocated creation of a regional banking consortium to provide a pool of capital business can use to finance projects in the Hudson Valley that might otherwise have difficulty garnering financing in the current economic malaise.
Diana, of Orange County said executives are facing a “perfect storm” of trouble as the state, national and global economy all simultaneously melt down. He said he saw the trouble coming last year, before the current crisis started in earnest, and so instituted a hiring freeze, a freeze on equipment purchases, did an audit of county spending for Medicaid, created a business task force and undertook an energy audit for county properties. He said the county has gone so far as to “remove every other light bulb” from fixtures to save on its electric bill.
Tully said Putnam County also saw the downturn coming and instituted layoffs after officials realized “an unusual number of foreclosure notices,” were being printed in local papers. And he said that the foresight placed Putnam, “In a pretty good position to ride out what”™s left of this economic downturn.”
But the county is taking nothing for granted. Tully said, the downturn “Put a focus on consolidation of government services,” and added that in order to succeed at weathering the downturn, “We must keep our feet on the pedal of consolidation.”
The innovations are not all about contraction and retrenchment. Rouis said that Sullivan County is seeking to ride the green business wave by creating a green business park and working with the community college and creating a public-private partnership to create a curriculum for training a work force that can fill the jobs created by the green and renewable energy sector.
The region needs to take proactive steps to bring jobs here, particularly by creating housing. Steinhaus noted the vacancy rate for rentals in Dutchess County is about 1 percent, effectively meaning, he said, there is no available housing.
He decried “the disconnect” between general agreement the region needs housing for workers and the failure to build any significant amount of affordable housing. He noted housing decisions are actually made by officials at the town level and said resistance has consistently scuttled development of affordable housing. But he said the fight must continue. He said, “We cannot have a viable business community” without such housing.
The situation facing the county executives was summarized by Hein, who said: “We will come out of this. The question is, What will we look like when we come out of this?”
