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well Cicero said it best didnt he and HE is a true conserv so he says, so WHO does Suhrada represent NO ONE!

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You must be a self hating Italian

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I'm not sure what makes me a self-hating Italian, but I'd love for you to elaborate?

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SCHENECTADY COUNTY
Officials see up to $16M shortage Budget picture looks bleak for 2009
BY MICHAEL LAMENDOLA Gazette Reporter

    When the Schenectady County Legislature last November passed an “austerity” budget for 2008, legislators warned that there could be more difficult fiscal times ahead. Well, the warning bells are now ringing.
    Two months into a new fiscal year, county officials are confronting a revenue shortage estimated at between $12 million and $16 million looking toward 2009.
    At least three Democrats are calling for a minimum tax increase coupled with budget cuts, and the county has started working on its budget months ahead of schedule; it must adopt a budget by Nov. 1.
    County officials are also suggesting they may take steps this year to reduce costs to lessen 2009’s problems. The scope of the reductions has not been determined.
    “We are starting the process early. When you lose a million here and there, you have to look at the budget earlier,” said Legislator Philip Fields, D-Schenectady, chairman of the Legislature’s Ways and Means Committee. “There are gaps in revenues, which are estimates and they change.”
    County Manager Kathleen Rooney, who develops the tentative budget that goes to the Legislature in October, said “overall, we will have less money,” compared to projections, and “we may need to look at things differently. We are doing a number of things to mitigate any potential hits.”
PLANNING, NOT PANIC
    County Legislature Chairwoman Susan Savage, D-Niskayuna, called the revenue projections part of the planning process and urged calm.
    “The county is a solvent corporation. We are undertaking a real-round budget process, which is to continue looking at ways to maximize efficiences [and] work toward a streamlined budget in 2009,” Savage said.
    In the end, Fields said, “we will balance the budget. The balance is not there yet. It is premature to say what the results will be, but certainly we may have to start thinking about things to sacrifice. We are not looking at balancing the budget on the backs of taxpayers.”
    Fields plans to hold a special meeting Saturday to outline the county’s financial predicament. He plans to invite economists and representatives of the New York State Association of Counties.
    “We can bring the problem to the people and let them understand the tough decisions we may face,” Fields said. “It is going to take a lot to get there. Mountains will have to be moved.”
    Mark Lavigne, spokesman for the state association of counties, said Schenectady is not alone in its fi scal problems. “There are other counties, like Chautauqua and Rockland, facing shortfalls.”
    He said “right from get go, and before you look at the governor’s budget, you have a 3 percent increase in Medicaid spending. And that’s without any additional programs and service cost increases.”
LOOKING FOR CUTS
    Schenectady County adopted a $283.4 million budget for 2008 with a 5 percent increase in the property tax levy. The budget itself only grew by 1 percent in expenditures from the prior year.
    The initial tax levy increase was 9.7 percent. To reduce it, the Democrat-controlled Legislature cut around $3 million from the budget. The items cut came from so-called discretionary areas in the budget, areas such as supplies and equipment, staffing and professional service contracts.
    Under the adopted budget, a homeowner in the city with a house valued at $110,000 would pay $1,107 in county taxes while a homeowner in Glenville would pay $773 for a house with the same value.
    Legislators say approximately 80 percent of the county budget is mandated, leaving approximately $30 million open to cuts. Non-mandated areas include services for senior citizens, veterans and youths, public health and the library system, among other departments.
    Fields said the county’s fiscal problems reflect a mix of many factors. He said the county will see approximately $7 million less than expected in sales tax revenues and $1.5 million less in mortgage receipts between 2007, 2008 and 2009 due to a worsening economy. Except for one year, the county has budgeted conservatively for these revenues. It over-estimated the fi gures for the 2008 budget.
    The county also will lose approximately $2.7 million in federal revenues for the Glendale Home, the county-owned nursing home, and for the county’s program for children with special needs, Fields said. The county expects to spend more than $7 million in 2009 to subsidize the Glendale Home.
MANDATED BURDENS
    Should Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s Executive Budget take effect, the county could also lose an additional $1.5 million in state aid and would have to pay more for some mandated programs. The governor’s budget shifts approximately $77 million in costs to local counties in 2008 and 2009, the state association of counties said.
    Fields said the county expects to see large cost increases in 2009 in areas over which it has little or no control. Employee health insurance and wages will increase by $3 million; the county’s debt will increase by $1 million due to interest in bonds as part of the GE sales tax repayment settlement; and the county will see a $1 million increase in local Medicaid program costs, despite a state government cap.
    The county is also under state mandates to increase the number of correctional officers at the jail and to correct deficiencies in the county courthouse, costs that will add hundreds of thousands, if not millions, to the county budget, Fields said.
    “We would like to see changes in mandates; they are onerous,” he said.
PATRONAGE PROBLEM
    Minority Leader Robert Farley, R-Niskayuna, sees the county’s fi - nancial problems differently.
    “They spend way too much money. It’s not a revenue stream problem; it is a spending problem,” he said.
    Farley accused Democrats of adding to the cost of government by hiring people for patronage positions in government.
    “They have far too much patronage,” he said.
    He listed the $80,000-per-year job Democrats gave to former Legislator Edward Kosiur in January as well as several staff jobs in the county Legislature department.
    Republicans followed the same practice when they controlled county government for 37 years, said county Legislator Vincent DiCerbo, D-Schenectady. A review of the list of management-confi - dential employees shows numerous well-connected current and former Republican Party officials, ward leaders, deputy mayors and party chairmen and their children and relatives.
    Some current and past GOP patronage appointees include pharmacist Ralph Comanzo, a former GOP majority leader; Assistant Public Defender Joseph Litz, brother of Republican Rotterdam Town Justice Ken Litz; and Chief Defense Trial Attorney Stephen Signore, brother of Republican former Rotterdam Supervisor Joe Signore.
    Farley said Republicans in the Legislature “offered many solutions, and they have not accepted anyone of them. They don’t care to listen, and now it has come back and bitten them on the tuchis.” Republicans “stand for fiscal responsibility, and we will stand up and fight for our taxpayers,” he said.
    DiCerbo said Republican proposals listed savings based on guesswork or were not workable when analyzed.
TAX PAIN POSTPONED
    Two Democratic members of Fields’ Finance Committee, as well as Fields himself, said the Legislature should have raised property taxes by the cost of living to help offset the current revenue predicament.
    “We should have had a minimum cost of living increase, but you have people in towns where the county tax is a good size and who are feeling the pain of taxes,” Fields said. “We tried to minimize the pain, but if you keep taxes low, you create a seesaw level and perhaps have higher taxes in future years.”
    DiCerbo, chairman of the Legislature’s Economic Development Committee, said “taxes should have been raised.” He said the county now faces “drastic cuts or increases in property taxes, sales tax and fees.”
    One thing the county cannot do, he said, is tap its fund balance, a practice commonly used in prior years. The current fund balance is approximately $15 million, which is less than the 7 percent or 10 percent recommended by the state comptroller’s office and down from $30 million a few years ago.
    “It is a serious issue, and we are definitely worried. We do not want to jeopardize the county’s longterm financial picture,” DiCerbo said. “I will consider deep cuts and tax increases.”
    Michael Petta, D-Schenectady, said during the past two years, “I wanted them to put in a 2 percent or 3 percent increase, and we should have been more conservative with sales tax revenues.”
    Petta said Democrats instead put in a zero percent tax increase one year and raised the amount of sales tax they would collect. “As a result of the recession, they ended up $3 million less than expected” for one year, he said. “They were overly optimistic. They felt with all these new places opening, it would boost sales tax.”
    Petta said he would consider increasing the county’s sales tax by one-half of 1 percent; it’s now at 8 percent. The increase would generate $8 million to $10 million in revenues for the county, he said.
    “I am not looking forward to this,” Petta said.
    The county’s fiscal crunch could cause it to delay some major capital projects, such as dealing with the county library and the TrustCo building.
    The library is slated for a $7.7 million rehabilitation, paid for in part with county money. The county purchased the TrustCo building several years ago to serve as a new county office building.

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EDITORIALS
Get serious and cut county budget

    It’s hard to imagine a bleaker financial picture than the one painted by Schenectady County Manager Kathleen Rooney in her 2009 budget proposal. It would cut 50 jobs (most of which are currently unfilled anyway), numerous programs and services, and raise taxes 13 percent.
    But as bad as that sounds, Rooney’s budget didn’t even include a couple of other big budget priorities — renovating the former Trustco building on Erie Boulevard, which would allow the county to move its offices there and fi x up its current office building to fulfill a state mandate for extra court space, and library renovations. While the aging main library’s heating and ventilation system is currently being replaced (with money set aside under this year’s budget), expansion plans the county was interested in are apparently being put on hold.
    Times are indeed tough, but no other county in the region has proposed so large a tax hike. The county can’t very well raise taxes 13 percent this year, then come back again next year — when the state is putting even more pressure on it to get court expansion done and a federal payment for the nursing home is reduced — and raise them another 13. Something’s gotta give, unless the state agrees to give the county more money or stop imposing all those costly mandates. (Despite the best wishes of county legislators, neither of those seems likely to happen.)
    Clearly, the Legislature’s Democratic majority will have to engage their Republican counterparts during upcoming negotiations. So far, it appears they’ve done their best to keep the Republican minority out of the loop. That’s inexcusable. But both sides will need to check their partisan interests at the door for there to be any meaningful progress.
    So far, neither side has seemed willing to tackle one of the budget’s truly big-ticket nonessentials — the county nursing home. Though thanks to a one-time federal payment of $5.5 million, it will only require a subsidy of $4.8 million next year, that subsidy will rise signifi - cantly again in future years. County leaders — some of whom, or their family members, make their living in health care or related businesses and who thus appear to have a confl ict of interest on the subject — must ask themselves honestly: Do taxpayers really want a public nursing facility enough to pay that kind of money? Is the current Glendale Home, or a new county-run facility, absolutely necessary?

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SCHENECTADY COUNTY
County dropped from top tax list
Ranking based on Census data
BY MICHAEL LAMENDOLA Gazette Reporter

    Schenectady County has dropped out of the Top 10 of most highly taxed counties in the United States as a percentage of home value, according to an analysis by the Tax Foundation.
    The county fell two places to 12th in 2007, the third year of decline, based on data released in September by the Census Bureau on owner-occupied housing. In 2005, Schenectady County was eighth highest. It is unclear when Schenectady first made the Top 10.
    Nine other counties in New York, led by Niagara, were in the Top 10 in 2007. One county in New Jersey fills out the list.
    No Capital Region counties are in the Top 10. The next closest county, Rensselaer, ranks 47th on the list.
    According to the analysis, an owner paid in taxes 2.3 percent of the $159,000 value of a home in Schenectady County in 2007. A homeowner in Niagara County paid the highest, 2.9 percent, based on a home valued at $95,800. The na- tional median is 0.95 percent.
    Last year, the Tax Foundation’s list caused a stir in the community when Schenectady was the 10th highest county in the United States in taxes as a percentage of home value.
    The ranking quickly became political fodder, used by Republicans to attack majority Democrats in the Schenectady County Legislature and elsewhere.
    The Tax Foundation also looked at median property taxes paid on homes in 2007. By this measure, Schenectady ranked 71st in 2007; it ranked 77th in 2006. Westchester, Nassau and Rockland counties made the Top 10 in this category with the counties in New Jersey representing the remainder.
    The median property taxes paid on homes in Westchester County was $8,422 in 2007. In Schenectady it was $3,728. The national median is $1,838.
    Schenectady County Legislator Philip Fields, D-Schenectady, was pleased to hear the latest report. “It means we have been budgeting to minimize growth in property taxes,” he said. “It is good, but I wish it was better.”
    The Tax Foundation analysis considers property taxes in aggregate. Fields said the aggregate includes a combination of some or all of the following: city, town, village, school and county taxes. He said county taxes in Schenectady represent the smallest piece of the aggregate, with school and city taxes representing the largest share of the total.
    Minority Leader Bob Farley, RGlenville, said the news was not good. “It is nothing we should be proud of. It is something we should be ashamed of. We are not making progress. People are getting driven out of their homes,” he said.
    The foundation describes itself as “a nonpartisan tax research group based in Washington, D.C.”

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It would cut 50 jobs (most of which are currently unfilled anyway)

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Schenectady County budget proposal gives raises to top officials
Friday, October 3, 2008
By Michael Lamendola (Contact)
Gazette Reporter

SCHENECTADY — Most of the top managers in Schenectady County government are slated to receive raises in next year’s proposed budget, which carries a 13 percent tax hike.
Two exceptions are County Manager Kathleen Rooney and Social Services Commissioner Dennis Packard. Neither will see raises; Rooney’s will remain at $123,000 and Packard’s at $131,122.
The county Legislature must approve the raises before they can take effect. It has to adopt the tentative $279.9 million budget before Nov. 1. If the budget is approved as is, the average taxpayer in Schenectady County would pay an extra $125 in taxes annually.
The raises average about 3 percent, but some managers also receive longevity steps. Therefore, some could receive salary increases of 5 percent or more, depending on how long they have worked for the county.
“These are not performance-based raises,” said county Legislator Bob Farley, R-Glenville. The raises mirror those awarded to the county’s unionized workers through contract agreements reached last year and this year, he said.
Managers did not receive a raise in the current budget, said Legislator Philip Fields, D-Schenectady, chairman of the Legislature’s Ways and Means Committee. County Attorney Chris Gardner said last year was the first time in years that management employees did not receive a raise.
“The county manager put in raises to boost morale in the non-union staff. The management staff has a lot of experience in issues related to the county, and there are managers who are making less than union employees,” Fields said. “In some ways, I think the manager is trying to equalize this disparity.”
Fields said the Legislature will review the manager’s budget in coming weeks, and the raises and “many more issues will be discussed.”
Farley said the proposed management raises should be removed from the budget.
“They are not contract employees. They are all patronage employees. They should not be getting a raise when we are in such fiscal distress,” he said.

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SCHENECTADY COUNTY
Raises proposed for county managers
BY MICHAEL LAMENDOLA Gazette Reporter

    Most of the top managers in Schenectady County government are scheduled to receive raises under next year’s proposed budget, which projects a 13 percent tax hike.
    Exceptions include County Manager Kathleen Rooney and Commissioner of Social Services Dennis Packard. Neither will see raises in their salaries; Rooney’s will remain at $123,000 and Packard’s at $131,122.
    The county Legislature must approve the raises before they can take effect. It has to adopt the tentative $279.9 million budget before Nov. 1. If the budget is approved as is, the average taxpayer in Schenectady County would pay an extra $125 annually.
    The raises average about 3 percent, but some managers also receive longevity steps. Therefore, some managers could receive salary increases of 5 percent or more, depending on how long the employee has worked for the county.
    County Legislator Bob Farley, R-Glenville, said, “These are not performance-based raises.” The raises mirror those awarded to the county’s unionized workers through contract agreements, he said.
    Managers did not receive a raise in the current year, said Legislator Philip Fields, D-Schenectady, chairman of the Legislature’s Ways and Means Committee.
    “The county manager put in raises to boost morale in the nonunion staff. The management staff has a lot of experience in issues related to the county and there are managers who are making less than union employees,” Fields said. “In some ways, I think the manager is trying to equalize this disparity.”
    Fields said the Legislature will review the manager’s budget in coming weeks and the raises and “many more issues will be discussed.” The first two reviews are set for 6 p.m. Tuesday and 7 p.m. Thursday in the Legislature’s Chamber, County Office Building.
    County Attorney Chris Gardner said 2008 was the fi rst time in years that management employees did not receive a raise. Democrats took control of the Legislature in 2004; Republicans controlled it for three decades prior.
    Farley said the proposed management raises should be removed from the budget. “They are not contract employees. They are all patronage employees. They should not be getting a raise when we are in such fiscal distress,” he said.
    The county settled with Local 847 of the Civil Service Employees Association, which represents some 800 employees; the 200-member Service Employees International Union Local 1199; and the 25-member SEIU Local 721.
    It reached agreement last week with the 150-member Sheriff’s Benevolent Association and a smaller unit of correction officers. The Legislature must ratify the agreement.
    Legislator Joe Suhrada, R-Rotterdam, said the county pays some of its department heads more than the state pays its commissioners. Two of the county’s highest-paid managers, Finance Commissioner George Davidson and Planning Commissioner Ray Gillen, would make $141,437 and $155,228, respectively, in 2009 if the raises are approved. By contrast, Dr. Richard Daines, commissioner of the state Department of Health, earned $136,000 this year.
    Suhrada said the county needs to trim its expenses this year, and he proposed that county legislators cut their pay in half as an example. County legislators are paid $14,093 annually. Leaders receive stipends that can push their pay to $16,499. There is no pay increase proposed for legislators in the 2009 budget.
    “We have to stop acting like a Third World country looking for aid,” Suhrada said.
    The state has already trimmed billions of dollars from its budget as a result of the current recession and Gov. David Paterson is calling for further cuts in a special session Nov. 18. The state cuts could further aggravate the county’s fiscal problems, legislators said.
Here are proposed salary increases for some of the top managers in county government, with their 2008 salary listed first: District attorney, from $123,394 to $127,096. County attorney, from $106,306 to $109,495. Public defender, from $105,300 to $108,459. Director of public works, from $105,797 to $108,971. Director of information services, from $90,000 to $92,700. Sheriff, from $89,328 to $92,008. County clerk, from $84,483 to $87,017. Director of human resources: $89,725 to $92,417. Director of Real Property Tax Services, from $80,094 to $82,497. Director of facilities, from $82,264 to $84,732. Engineering director, from $80,409 to $82,821. Special assistant to the commissioner, youth, from $80,000 to $82,400. Director of communications, from $79,584 to $81,972. Clerk of the county Legislature, from $77,250 to $79,568 Probation director, from $75,714 to $77,985.