Tuesday, September 23, 2008 - 5:07 PM EDT DiNapoli showcases ‘open book’ Web site The Business Review (Albany)
People interested in knowing how much money their municipality collected in taxes can do so now without traveling to city hall thanks to a new Web site created by the state comptroller’s office.
The site, www.openbooknewyork, includes revenue and expenditure information for 3,100 local governments. Users can search by city, county, fire district, school, town or village. The information goes back to 1996.
State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli announced his plans to create the Web site in June. The purpose of the site is to show how much New York’s local governments spend and collect in taxes.
For example, in 2006 the city of Schenectady reported $92.2 million in revenue and $94.9 million in expenditures.
The site also contains searchable databases of spending for more than 100 state agencies and more than 60,000 state contracts.
“New Yorkers have a right to know how their tax dollars are spent, and Open Book delivers that information in just a few mouse clicks,” DiNapoli said.
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
What is this 2006 expenditure that is listed under Cultural and Recreation? $120K that is not accounted for under "Recreation Services" or "Youth Recreation". Whose recreation, then, does this fund?
Why does Guilderland with a population 39% greater than Rotterdam to police and 10 times the square milage to patrol than Rotterdam have only 15% of their town expenditure going toward their police while Rotterdam has 25%? Almost a half of million dollars more spent on police than Guilderland.
Maybe Mertz was on to something when forming the police commission. To bad the other board members who shared his political stripe didn't have the balls to follow through.
GOP leadership blinked first, now the taxpayers have to pay.
Your town of Rotterdam is not 6.93 miles and the population is closer to 30,000 than 21,148. Rotterdam is about 36 sq miles- not 6. Check the latest census for the population Johnny.
#2- Didn't you learn your lesson the 1st time you tried to play with numbers and falsely claimed that the police budget was 27% of the town budget. Must I remind you that that time (as Police Commissioner) your report was full of 1/2 truths and inaccuracies and you were taken to task for it.
#3- This time you include the $500,000 plus budgeted in Rotterdam on paramedics that is not funded in other police budgets to come up with your 24% figure. What else are you lumping into the police budget to do your fuzzy math?
You have to ask yourself- what person in the town of Rotterdam would be so upset with the above story in the Gazette about Mertz that they would defend him and spew this nonsense about the Republican Party caving to cops,etc. WHo would waste their time attempting to manipulate stats to make the police look bad? Who would spend their time touting the police commission and criticizing Town Board members for "not following through" with Mertz's agenda with the Police Commission of appointing and promoting his cronies. You could not name one positive that came out of the Police Commission.
Fortunately even your own party has come to its senses and is tired of your nonsense.
This has nothing to do with the Republicans caving to anyone. Simply put- when you told them that you felt you could have a better chance of getting reelected in the town if you took the position of attacking the police and their contractual benefits and you continuously misstated facts and argued with everyone about everything- they had enough. Your party won't have ya- I will drop off an enrollment form for you. I think that you would make a great Conservative. Good riddens
The mole told me that gadfly has resurfaced and is looking for a few good men to assist her in collecting proxies. Check with Tedisco in the morning and ask if you and all of the other staffers can "take their own time" to go collect a few proxies with her. She has a great shot of controlling the Conservative Party in a few days......
Sorry to disappoint, I'm not Mertz. I am a lifelong resident of Rotterdam though. Mertz went against the grain of traditional Rotterdam politics, and it got him in trouble.
As to the Open Book statistics, they speak for themselves. I give the numbers off of the comptrollers website. It's fairly simple math, you divide the part by the whole then move the decimal 2 positions to the right and you have your percentage. We'll do it together.
4,983,727.00 divided by 21,002,910.00 = .2372657 or 23.7% or rounded up 24% That means police expenditures are 23.7% of total Rotterdam expenditures. Unless the State Comptroller's numbers are wrong.
I noticed another interesting trend. The retirement benefits for police and fire represents 1.4% of total expenditures over the 10 year period in Rotterdam. Which is very small standing by itself, but when comparing them with surrounding cities and townships, you then realize that most if not all police and fire retirement expenditures represent less than 1% of the budget over those same 10 years.
Mertzy knew the po-po had it sweet in Rotterdam at the expense of the taxpayers. The mistake he made was pointing it out and thinking that any politician in Rotterdam had the balls to confront it.
You can divide whatever you want. Does the State Comptroller's report state that the $500,000 to $600,000 spent on paramedics is included in the $4,983,727. Or is it just a figure from the town budget that includes paramedics and probably may other things that other towns dont have in the police budget.
Let me help you with the other figures you also lied about.
#1- If you Wikipedia Town of Rotterdam NY you will find- above Councilman Mertz's name- the number of sq miles of the town....36 sq miles or 600% more than you cited
#2- Below your name, I mean Mertz's name is the population of the town- 28,316 in the year 2000. Again, you were off by 30% . Although for you- being within 30% is a drastic improvement.
Now, you choose to cite figures spent by the state on retirement benefits. Can we trust your numbers this time?
Rotterdam payed out $2.9 million in police and fire retirement benefits between 1996 and 2006. In those same ten years Rotterdam's expenditures were $193.5 million. Ya ready for the math?
2.9 divided by 193.5 = .014987 or 1.49% or rounded to 1.5%.
In those same 10 years Guilderland payed out 1.4 million in police and fire retirement benefits, and their expenditures were $301.2 million. Math......
1.4 divided by 301.2 = .003984 or .398% or .40%. less than a half a percent.
I did the same for Colonie, a larger police department, figuring I would get a larger number. Here we go with the math again.
Colonie payed out $7.8 million in police and fire benefits between 1996 and 2006, and their expenditure were $844 million over that span.
7.8 divided by 844 = .0092417 or .924% or .92%......Still less than 1%.
I'm gonna keep on looking to find a more generous town than the great Town of Rotterdam
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