A prominent Westchester County business leader sounded a rallying call for “political courage” and a cooperative effort of the public and private sectors to bring about urgently needed property tax reform in New York, while public officials in the county called for greater state involvement at the local level when testifying last week before a state commission exploring ways to make government more efficient and less costly for taxpayers.
The state Commission on Local Government Efficiency and Competitiveness, whose 15 members were appointed by Gov. Eliot Spitzer to recommend measures to relieve the state”™s $35 billion property tax burden through improved and consolidated local government services, traveled to Bear Mountain Inn and Conference Center in Orange County to hear input from officials in the region before issuing a report due by April 15, 2008. Speakers included Yonkers Mayor Philip Amicone, Ulster County Manager Michael Hein and three officials from the village and town of Ossining.
Commission Chairman Stanley Lundine, a former lieutenant governor and congressman from western New York, especially welcomed the viewpoint of the day”˜s sole speaker from the business community, Westchester County Association President William M. Mooney Jr. The association”™s chairman, Alfred B. DelBello, serves on the state commission.
Reviewing initial findings recently released by the business association”™s Property Tax Reform Commission, formerly chaired by DelBello, Mooney issued a forceful challenge and warning.
“I really look at this as a defining moment,” he said, for a state that ranks 47th out of 50 for its “business friendly” climate and a county, Westchester, whose property tax burden is among the three highest in the nation.
“If we don”™t solve this problem, the public sector, the private sector and the consumer together, we”™re going to get what we deserve. And right now we”™re getting what we deserve.”
“School taxes ”“ that”™s the elephant in the room,” Mooney said, a burdensome issue on which most speakers at the hearing agreed. Public education funding accounts for 69 percent of property taxes in Westchester, Mooney said.
For both public schools and municipal governments, “The money is clearly in labor costs,” he said. Another speaker, David Little, director of government relations for the state School Boards Association, said personnel costs account for about 75 percent of school district budgets, driven in part by competition for teachers among districts within a region.
Mooney said more than 30,000 employees work within Westchester County”™s 383 public-sector entities. The association has estimated that total compensation costs for those employees amount to more than $2 billion.
Mooney also pointed to a costly and inefficient duplication of services at the local level by “an outdated patchwork” of county, town and village taxing authorities. Those government entities number 4,250 statewide, according to the governor”™s commission.
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Urging government to adopt a business model for more efficient and streamlined delivery of services, the retired banker said, “Chase Manhattan Bank doesn”™t have 4,000 branches. We”™ve got 4,000 taxing entities in New York state. There probably aren”™t 4,000 ATMs in the state.”
Amicone told commissioners his administration was trying to run city services more like a private-sector business and build “a new economy” for Yonkers through private development such as Forest City Ratner”™s $600-million, mixed-use Ridge Hill project, for which ground was ceremonially broken earlier that day. Private development, he said, “is the only other alternative we have to putting the burden on the backs of taxpayers.”
“We need to run our cities more like business, and I think we can do that in part, but it”™s going to require more investment by the state and by businesses,” he said.
Amicone said his administration”™s cost-control efforts were hobbled by “a very labor-intensive, cost-ineffective” city school system, which accounts for 54 percent of the city”™s $815 million budget. Despite previous lack of support for his proposal from city school board members and state officials, Amicone said he thought there was still “some merit” to his attempt to put schools under the financial control of the mayor”™s office.
Amicone said “a real partnership” should be created between the state and large cities such as Yonkers with dependent school districts. He said the state should take a “stick-and-carrot” approach, providing more funding for city schools while requiring those schools to maintain a set standard of achievement. “Don”™t just put the money there as a carrot and sit back and wait for them to fail,” he said.
Village of Ossining Manager Linda Cooper said the state commission has “a daunting task” in recommending actions to reduce the property tax burden and “surmount home rule parochialism.”
The commissioners”™ likely opposition in efforts to consolidate local governments could be heard in remarks at the hearing by heads of the state Association of Towns and the state Conference of Mayors and Municipal Officials. Their comments were described by Commissioner William Johnson, a former mayor of Rochester, as “an ardent defense of the status quo” and by Mooney as “pushback.”
“That”™s not going to solve the problem,” Johnson said.
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