Lawmakers wary on budget cuts No actions agreed upon; special session nears BY VALERIE BAUMAN The Associated Press
Legislative leaders were noncommittal Monday to Gov. David Paterson’s plan to cut at least $600 million from the state budget in Medicaid, pork barrel spending and aid to local governments. Paterson proposed $1 billion in spending cuts for the Legislature to consider at its special session Aug. 19, suggesting they try to find at least $600 million to cut. With about a week before the one-day session, Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver had little to say about the governor’s proposal, which they had just received on Monday. The plan would not include any reductions in school spending. “We will review the proposals advanced today by the governor and will continue to work with the governor and with our colleagues in the Senate,” Silver said in a written statement. Skelos applauded the governor for taking steps to reduce spending, but offered a few reservations. “It’s important that the governor and Legislature not take any actions that would force local governments to raise their local taxes,” Skelos said in a statement. Paterson suggested the state cut financial aid to local governments by $250 million, about 6 percent. Silver pointed out that his chamber had forecast a recession months ago. Skelos noted that Senate Republicans had passed the governor’s tax cap and said New York needs to do more to root out Medicaid fraud. But neither specifically supported any cuts. Among Paterson’s proposals is cutting $50 million in funding for the City University of New York. He’s already trimmed a similar amount in the State University of New York system. The biggest proposed reduction would be $505 million in Medicaid funding, including $169.4 million cut from nursing homes and $99.4 million from hospitals. The Greater New York Hospital Association and SEIU, a union representing health care workers, described the cuts as “staggering” and warned they “would devastate New York’s health care infrastructure and severely threaten access to care.” “In just a few short weeks we have gone from suggestions of shared sacrifice to making hospitals and nursing homes into sacrificial lambs,” said William Van Slyke, vice president of the Healthcare Association of New York State. Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said Paterson’s proposed cuts come when “New York State is facing serious fiscal challenges and spending well beyond our means.” Paterson ruled out tax increases “for the time being,” including the Assembly Democrats’ call for a higher income tax on those making $1 million or more. The proposal doesn’t include reducing state school aid, which was boosted a record $1.8 billion in April to more than $21 billion. Education spending is pushed by the strongest lobbyists in Albany, including the New York State United Teachers union and the state School Boards Association. Another $132 million in Paterson’s proposal would come from postponing some legislative programs approved this year, but he didn’t identify them. He would also limit pork barrel spending by legislators and his office to $100 million for specifi c programs, charities and projects. Paterson said he wants cuts that will offset future overspending. When Paterson called for spending cuts July 29, the majority Senate Republicans and Assembly Democrats immediately ruled out trimming their highest priority programs.
Carl Strock THE VIEW FROM HERE Carl Strock can be reached at 395-3085 or by e-mail at carlstrock@dailygazette.com. More ways for governor to cut spending
A couple weeks ago, when Gov Paterson declared the state to be in deep financial trouble, I questioned whether he would have either the will or the desire to cut the really big spending that the state indulges in, that is, spending for schools and for Medicaid, and now we have the answer, which is mixed: Yes, he is ready to cut Medicaid. No, he is not ready to cut schools. In a proposal released yesterday he said he will ask the Legislature to lop $506 million off Medicaid spending in this fiscal year, but he specifically exempted school aid from any reduction. Seeing as how school aid goes up by record amounts every year has gone up 10 percent this year and is projected to go up another 11 percent next year, to something over $20 billion, that is not encouraging. Rather, it’s a tribute to the great lobbying power of New York State United Teachers. As for the other cuts, they do not necessarily result in savings to us, the taxpayers. The governor proposes reducing aid to local governments by $250 million this year and $420 million next year, but unless local governments are able to reduce their own spending proportionately, the difference will simply be added to our property tax bills. He also proposes cutting pork barrel, or “member item,” spending in half, for a savings of $100 million, but like the other proposed reductions, this one depends on the cooperation of the Legislature, and given that individual legislators need these pork barrel allocations to curry favor with their constituents, I will not bet on the success of it. If your local assemblyman or senator can’t get his name in the paper for bestowing $10,000 on the local youth group or senior citizen center, he is going to feel very deprived. The problem is that income to the state government in the form of taxes is not going up as fast as spending, on account of broader economic troubles and most especially troubles on Wall Street, where financial wizards gambled rather recklessly on high-risk mortgages. Meaning they lent a lot of money to people with poor prospects of being able to pay it back and then sold and resold the shabby debt among themselves as if it were solid gold. Wall Street profits used to mean a flood of taxes pouring into Albany, and now the flood is reduced to a river. Revenue to the state is still going up by about 2 percent, but spending is going up 11 percent. Hence the crisis. Hence the need to cut. As a toiler in the increasingly arid field of private-enterprise journalism, I cannot help but look menacingly at the public payroll, now easily available for public inspection, as a potentially fertile place to cut which the governor has not mentioned. I admit it galls me to see my cotoilers in this field make the transition to government where they do what is to my mind the much less noble work of writing press releases and get double the money for it. It seems to me an inversion. So I ask myself if the state could not achieve a significant savings simply by cutting in half the pay of every public information offi cer who used to be a journalist. My motivation is not entirely pure, I admit. I believe honest journalists (me, for instance) should make twice as much as the writers of promotional press releases. And while the governor is at it, he might cut in half the pay of all those 20,000 state employees who make upwards of $100,000. How would that be for putting state government back in line with reality?
http://www.dailygazette.com CAPITOL Backs stiffening to budget restraints Paterson spending cuts plan irks special interests BY MICHAEL GORMLEY The Associated Press
Ttrying to balance the budget “on the backs of seniors and disabled New Yorkers,” while the Greater New York Hospital Association and the state’s powerful health care workers union say Paterson’s cuts would devastate hospitals and threaten New Yorkers’ access to care. The New York State United Teachers union on Tuesday said Paterson’s proposed $50 million cut to the City University of New York is “inconceivable” and would devastate higher education. They are targeting lawmakers Gov. David Paterson is facing concerted opposition to his plans to restrain New York spending, while time runs out on any chance of action by the Legislature in its emergency economic session next week. Powerful special interests were lining up Tuesday to block Paterson’s call this week for $1 billion in cuts to health care, local governments and other areas that state lawmakers want to protect. The Home Care Association of who have been less than enthu-New York has accused Paterson of siastic about Paterson’s proposed cuts this legislative election year. A day after Paterson’s announcement, there was no sign of negotiations under way to work out any spending cuts that could be voted on Aug. 19, the day Paterson called the Legislature back for an emergency economic session. “I think it’s too much, too soon,” said Stephen J. Acquario, executive director of the New York State Association of Counties. “Cooler heads need to prevail,” he said. “The expectation that the Legislature can address a problem of this magnitude in a matter of days is just unreasonable.” The inevitable result of Paterson’s cuts, he said, would be to raise local property taxes. Such opposition will be bolstered by a $1.5 million TV ad campaign against the Democratic governor’s proposal to cap local property tax growth at 4 percent a year. The Working Families Party, influential among Democrats, is teaming with the Alliance for Quality Education that has helped secure record school aid increases in recent years. Paterson’s cap, supported last week by the Republican-led Senate, would hold local property taxes — most of which is school tax — to 4 percent growth a year unless local voters overwhelmingly choose to spend more. AQE and the party endorse the Assembly’s “circuit breaker” to give elderly and middle class homeowners a break by basing their school tax more on income than house value. The television ads to run in Albany, Buffalo, on Long Island and in New York City, Rochester and Syracuse call Paterson’s tax cap a gimmick and a scheme that devastated schools in other states. “Tell David Paterson that hurting schools is the wrong answer,” the ad states. The ads come as Paterson’s popularity is rising. A Quinnipiac poll last week found 64 percent of New York voters approved of the job Paterson was doing, up from 56 percent in June. The tough fi scal talk by the governor, now in his fifth month on the job, was credited for the rise. “New York has overspent for decades, relying on the hope that tax revenue — primarily from Wall Street — would cover our bad fi scal habits,” said Paterson spokesman Errol Cockfield. “If we end this practice now, we will save critical services over the long term and protect the jobs of hardworking employees across the state. “Health care cuts are never good, but we have the opportunity to prevent much greater harm to people who depend on health care by making these cuts now rather than waiting for the economic situation to get worse,” Cockfield said.
First published: Wednesday, August 13, 2008 If Gov. David Paterson truly wants to address the deficit issue, it is time to stop legislators from doling out millions of dollars as Joe Bruno did in his last days in office. The days of free money are gone.
I have an idea on how the state can save some, no lots, of money.
How about cutting the $80,000 to $100,000 middle-management positions that are political appointments from all the departments?
When I started at the Department of Motor Vehicles in 1972, we had a commissioner, two deputy commissioners, and 15 department heads. When I left in 2003 we had a commissioner, five or six assistants to the commissioner, five or six deputy commissioners, 15 division heads and 10 to 12 department heads. Why such an increase in the middle-management level when the department was running very well?
The reason was the politicians needed to repay their supporters. The department didn't run any more smoothly and didn't increase the number of workers who actually do the work. We also started computerizing more and more, but the positions not being filled are the lower-level employees while we continue to replace middle-management people. And what about the people who retire, collect a pension, and then go back to the very same job as a consultant, at higher pay?
Want to save money, Governor Paterson? Check it out.
This is exactly what happens when we allow the government to establish all our programs and create larger government agencies to run them. We need to cute back on all unnecessary spending and learn to live within our means and ignore the special interest groups that are sucking the life out of the state.
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