Most campaign promises are written in gossamer on the winds of political change.
And so it is in New York state where promises to ease the pain of unfunded or underfunded mandates go unfulfilled.
We have written on these pages how Medicaid and state pensions ”“ two of the largest mandates ”“ when taken together, would outpace a 2 percent property tax cap by 348 percent in a typical scenario.
Lt. Gov. Robert Duffy recently told a local group of business people that the property tax cap is a start. But mandate relief? Well, that will take time because they “have been in place for years” and are tough to undo. The state will never take over the counties”™ cost of Medicaid.
“The Medicaid Redesign Team is working on that to change the system,” Duffy said. “It is an overwhelming challenge.”
Well, we”™re all challenged ”“ small businesses, hospitals, nonprofits and taxpayers. And we”™re overwhelmed as well.
Unfunded mandates are like paying the school bully not to punch you in the face.
The tax cap, like the recent tax cut that was ramrodded through the state Legislature, is not enough.
Bedford Town Supervisor Lee Roberts said it best when she told reporter Patrick Gallagher, “The two percent tax cap ”“ as wonderful as it sounds to the community ”“ puts the town in a straightjacket.”
Taxes would have gone down in the town if it had not been for the mandated annual increases in state pension contributions. Bedford was forced to override the 2 percent cap and became one of the first towns in the Hudson Valley to do so. Other municipalities in the region are considering overriding the tax cap as well. This does not bode well for the future of our town and villages, and by extension, the businesses within them.
The tax cap was essentially an empty gesture without a mandate-relief tie-in.
Assembly members Robert Castelli and Amy Paulin say they will take up the good fight and bring mandate relief to the forefront in Albany.
But we all know that will be a sisyphean endeavor. Cuomo already told Paulin in no uncertain terms that he would not consider her plan to transfer the entire local Medicaid burden to the state.
So, if mandates are off the table as far as the governor is concerned, what about consolidating services and government to help ease the tax pain?
In April 2008, the New York State Commission on Local Government Efficiency and Competitiveness turned in a 76-page report that identified more than $1 billion in savings. That”™s billion. Those savings would be derived from restructuring or consolidating school districts, asking state workers to contribute a minimum amount for health insurance, consolidating police departments, coordinating snow-plowing and other highway department functions, and reforming the Wicks Law and other procurement measures.
All simple moves; no rocket science involved.
Lots of cost-saving measures here, governor.
How about giving it another look?
