WPCNR County Clarion-Ledger. From Westchester County Department of Communications. (EDITED) March 29, 2008: County Executive Andy Spano Friday joined county executives across the state in denouncing the state’s latest budget proposal. He said that the decisions now on the table as the State hastens to adopt an on-time budget will cause local property taxes to rise.
During a press conference call in which more than 100 people participated, including 11 county executives and their representatives, county leaders from Albany to Westchester today spoke about how the state’s latest budget would force them to raise local property taxes. Under the plan proposed by Gov. Patterson, counties across the state would suffer a 2 percent across the board cut in funding and at the same time be expected to pick up more of the cost of state-mandated programs like child welfare and caring for juvenile delinquents.
“Governor Spitzer’s proposed budget was bad enough causing Westchester to pay $6 million more for various state-mandated services,” said Spano. “Now on top of this, Governor Paterson’s budget calls for a 2 percent decrease in state funding across the board. For us, that means an additional hit of over $2.8 million. Taken together, the state is imposing a property tax increase of almost 2 percent on our residents. It is unconscionable.”
Spano continued, “I know that the state has severe problems in this economy. But no one is hurting more than our local property taxpayers. Breakfast, lunch and dinner conversations are all about the price of gas, the cost to heat our homes, and worry over dwindling retirement funds. Our residents must not be asked to take on this additional burden. In crisis times like these, belts have to be tightened everywhere, not shifted. The State must reduce its own spending. There must be no more mandates, no expansion of current mandates and no cuts in state aid.”
Spano said he and the other county executives are ready to stand with the governor and state legislature if they make hard choices to reduce spending.
“In times like this, Westchester County government makes it own hard choices and finds ways to reduce costs, and trim expenses,” he said. “But what we don’t do is shift county costs down to our localities. On the other hand, if the answer is state cost shifts and funding cuts, our residents will need to know that future property tax increases are the result of the decisions Albany makes now.”
No cuts made, though.
Despite Mr. Spano's statement issued today, to the contrary, Mr. Spano, did not lower the County Budget when county sales taxes totaled higher than expected at the end of 2007. Instead, he raised it. Spano increased the budget to cover an expected $6 Million sales tax shortfall. However when the actual shortfall was just $1 Million no budget cuts were made by the county.
It would appear the county could cover the expected $2.8 Million Governor Patterson's budget now demands of the county with the unexpected sales tax money.
The demands on the county budget made by Governor Patterson's cuts may, though, hamper the county ability to increase salaries of County Legislators who have been lobbying hard for increased remuneration, which is now being studied by a citizen committee, appointed by Chairman Bill Ryan of the County Board of Legislators. That committee expects to deliver a report April 30 on the worthiness of the county legislators' requests for pay increases and committee chair stipends.
