January 11, 2008
NYSAC 2008 Legislative Conference
Join your county colleagues from across the state on January 28, 29, 30, as we gather at NYSAC’s 2008 Legislative Conference in Albany. Governor Eliot Spitzer, Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, Speaker Sheldon Silver, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and Comptroller Tom DiNapoli will all speak at the conference.
The line-up of workshops will provide valuable insight into the issues and challenges facing today’s county leaders. NYSAC will also present the impact of the Governor's Executive Budget that's scheduled to be released on Jan 22nd.
For more information and to register, visit our Website at www.nysac.org.
Pre-K Reform Tops NYSAC Legislative Priorities
The state-county partnership that was established to cap the local share of Medicaid is likely the best example of a win-win scenario that you could find in modern day New York State Government. The Medicaid Cap provided immediate relief to county taxpayers and acted as a catalyst to bring programmatic reforms that have helped significantly reduce the growth in State Medicaid expenditures. With an eye toward building on this model and creating another win-win opportunity, the NYSAC Board of Directors has adopted the following five key legislative priorities for 2008, including:
Remove Counties from the Pre-School Special Education Program
The Pre-School Special Education Program creates a significant financial impact on local property taxpayers, yet state policy limits a county’s administrative ability and restricts their fiscal oversight. To address the local fiscal burden and foster needed reforms, NYSAC recommends the removal of counties from the fiscal and programmatic responsibility for this program.
Fully implement the Local Medicaid Cap as Part of an Expanded Medicaid Reform Effort
The state-county partnership that was established to Cap the local share of Medicaid costs provided immediate relief to property taxpayers and stabilized future growth in expenditures. Although the local Medicaid Cap does not completely shield counties from Medicaid growth, the positive results derived and the benefits obtained by the State, leads us to believe that by building on this initiative we can foster additional reform and positively address other inequities in state/local fiscal policy.
Reform State Policy for Housing State Prisoners in Local Correctional Facilities
Counties across the State have struggled with the escalating costs of local jails, while state prison populations have dramatically declined. The policies that have lead to State reductions have created an undue hardship on counties by requiring them to house state prisoners, including State parole violators and “state ready” inmates, without providing adequate compensation for these services. NYSAC believes that a more coordinated approach that balances state and local resources would provide substantial real property tax relief.
Encourage New Private Investment, Job Creation and Business Retention by Improving New York State’s Business Climate
The creation and retention of good jobs is a high priority of county government. State and county governments must work closely together to make New York State a better place in which to live and work by reducing the costs of doing business in our communities. The State, in active partnership with local decision makers, needs to implement new policies and programs which lower the overall property tax burden through the reduction of state mandates; target state investments to emerging business sectors that create jobs; reduce regulatory burdens that stifle business innovation; and make educational investments that encourage new applied research, promotes new business development opportunities and provides our citizens with the knowledge and skills they need to successfully compete in a global economy.
Pursue Mandate Relief Measures to Reduce Local Fiscal Burdens
State policy makers should seek the elimination of unnecessary state requirements, make the state more responsive by requiring state payment of mandates it deems essential and establish alternative methods for performance and implementation. By providing new flexibility aimed at reducing local fiscal burdens and permitting greater administrative flexibility, local governments are better positioned to address the State’s excessive real property tax burden.
In addition to these Key Legislative Priorities, NYSAC has developed a comprehensive 2008 Legislative Program that makes recommendations across the multitude of services that county governments provide for the citizens of New York State. Copies of NYSAC’s 2008 Legislative Program are available on our website at www.nysac.org or by contacting the NYSAC offices. (Ken Crannell)
State of the State Message Focuses on Property Taxes
“We need to start getting real about our property tax crisis...We cannot grow if property taxes continue to force young people out of the state and our seniors out of their homes,” said Governor Spitzer, in his second State of the State Message. “A rebate check may temporarily ease the pain, but it doesn’t cure the disease,” conceded the Governor, who called for the creation of a bipartisan commission with strong legal powers that will develop three sets of recommendations to address the State’s real property tax burden.
The commission, chaired by Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi, is charged with examining unfunded mandates on both school districts and municipalities, proposals to make the State’s tax relief system fairer to the middle class, and a proposal for a fair and effective cap on school property taxes. According to the Governor, “A tax cap is a blunt instrument, but it forces hard choices and discipline when nothing else works…When combined with real reform of unfunded mandates and a blueprint for providing a high quality education at a more affordable cost, a cap will allow us to invest wisely in our schools while achieving the goal of controlling property taxes.”
Other highlights of the Governor’s speech include the following.
Education/ Higher Education
- Build greater school and school district accountability by setting improvement targets, tracking of process and intervention in schools that are still failing.
- Hire 2,000 new full-time faculty members for SUNY and CUNY over the next 5 years, including 250 eminent scholars.
- Create an “Innovation Fund” for cutting-edge research at public and private colleges, similar to the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health.
- Simplify the process of transferring from a community college to a four year SUNY or CUNY school; give students full credit for academic courses completed.
- Create endowment of $4 billion through the financing of lottery revenue, which would generate $200 million in operating funds each year.
Health Care/Medicaid
- Expand the Children’s Health Insurance Program with State funds.
- Create secure, electronic medical health records as part of the HEAL NY Health IT grant program.
- Create a “Doctors Across New York” program to provide physicians and clinics grants and enhanced reimbursement rates designed to encourage new primary care physicians and specialists to establish or join existing practices in rural and inner-city underserved communities.
- Provide additional Medicaid support to outpatient services in hospital clinics, community clinics and doctors offices and pay added amounts to physicians practicing in underserved areas of the State.
- Continue to work on the Stem Cell Research fund, created last year at $600 million.
- Update Medicaid reimbursement for inpatient hospital services to more accurately reflect the resources required to provide hospital care and more closely track inpatient costs.
- Develop standards to enable Medicaid to stop paying for events that should never happen and pay reduced amounts for events that could have and should have been prevented.
- DOH will review and monitor the care received by Medicaid beneficiaries to ensure that it conforms with clinically sound and well established quality and safety criteria.
Taxes, Economic Growth and Mandate Relief
- A $1 billion Upstate Revitalization fund to help the upstate economy
- 2008 Executive Budget Proposal will provide another round of property tax rebates to homeowners (Middle Class STAR).
- Forward several mandate relief proposals in local government procurement reforms and improvements to the Shared Municipal Services Incentive Program.
- Reform the Wicks Law with legislation reflective of the leadership negotiations held in 2007.
- Implement reforms to various statutes to help promote coordinated highway services.
Public Safety
- Push for legislation to expand the State’s DNA databank to include samples from all penal law convictions; improve the methods of collection and preservation of evidence; and greatly enhance the ability of defendants to use DNA evidence to prove their innocence.
- Supplement Operation IMPACT by deploying an additional 200 State Troopers in urban upstate areas with the highest crime rates to help support existing local anti-crime initiatives. The Troopers will work with local police agencies to reduce gang activity, combat gun violence and conduct forensic processing of crime scenes.
While the State of the State Message provides an avenue for the Governor to broadly identify policy proposals for the coming year, the specifics of his plans won’t be known until the Governor releases his Executive Budget on January 22. (Ken Crannell)
Governor to Unveil Economic Development Blueprint in First Ever State of Upstate Address
Governor Eliot Spitzer will announce the details of his plan to spur the resurgence of the Upstate Economy during the first ever State of Upstate Address on Wednesday January 16th at Buffalo State College in Buffalo New York. Over the past year, Empire State Development and its Upstate Chair Daniel Gunderson have been conducting blueprint sessions across New York State soliciting input on the development of comprehensive strategy to revitalize the Upstate Economy.
In his State of the State address this week the Governor stated, “Reducing costs alone is not enough to jump start the kind of economic growth we need if New York is to become the best place to live and do business in the world…It is imperative that we revitalize our upstate economy…Now it is time for us to come together and do for Upstate in our time what our predecessors did for New York City a generation ago.”
During his address the Governor stated that it was his intention to propose a $1 billion Upstate investment fund, provide for fast tracking of new power plant construction whose technology assists in combating global warming, and to invest in higher education to insure that New York State, and particularly economically depressed areas of Upstate New York have the skilled workforce available to compete in a growing global economy. Upstate New York has been plagued with both loss of jobs and population, with 28 upstate counties losing population since the last census in 2000.
The Governor’s plan is expected to include new investments in infrastructure to make upstate sites shovel ready for new business development, creation of new distribution centers to assist agricultural sectors and to promote sustainable development building on regional assets.
The details of the Governor’s Upstate Economic Development Blueprint will be the subject of a presentation by the Upstate Chair of Empire State Development, Daniel Gunderson, during the closing plenary session at the upcoming NYSAC Legislative Conference at the Desmond Hotel in Albany on January 30th. (Jeff Osinski)
State BOE Delivers Court Ordered HAVA Implementation Plan
Last week, under Federal court order, the NYS Board of Elections submitted a plan to comply with the Help American Vote Act (HAVA). This plan comes after two and a half years of delays and missteps at the state level and almost ensures that taxpayers will be forced to cover the cost of implementing HAVA. The submission includes a temporary compliance plan for disabled voters and a long term fully HAVA compliant plan.
On behalf of New York State’s 62 counties, who are now charged with the entire election process—from poll worker training to purchasing and maintaining new machines—NYSAC is concerned about how this turn of events will affect county property taxpayers.
NYSAC, in conjunction with the local election commissioners have long argued that if counties are required to purchase voting machines for temporary HAVA compliance in 2008, we are going to exhaust the finite pool of federal funds and will be forced to go to our local taxpayers to cover the cost of fully compliant voting devices in 2009.
Counties and local taxpayers will have to pay for the state’s inaction, and will have to grapple with the confusion and chaos of having to implement these eleventh hour plans at the local level in time for the next election.
Enacted in 2005, New York State’s election reforms consolidated the entire election process to the county level. From the beginning, NYSAC has voiced concern that these reforms would directly impact property taxpayers.
The State’s failure to launch a plan to implement election reforms that meet the requirements of HAVA in a timely manner has put all of our county governments in the difficult position of having to purchase both temporary ballot-marking devices and then later purchase the HAVA-compliant voting devices. The limited amount of Federal funding ($190 million) will not cover the costs of implementing both plans.
NYSAC has lobbied state and federal election officials in opposition to a temporary compliance plan as our property taxes are at an all time high and counties do not need another mandate forced on to the backs of New York’s already beleaguered property taxpayers. County governments and county property taxpayers cannot afford and should not pay for the State’s inaction. NYSAC will continue to monitor the Court’s decision about whether to accept the State’s latest proposal. (Adriano Bongiorno)
2008 County Directory
NYSAC is currently updating its roster of thousands of elected and appointed county officials in New York State. The directory will be available in April. To order a copy of the 2008 Directory, visit www.nysac.org/About/documents/2007DirectoryOrderForm.pdf.
Coming Next Week
Monday, January 14th – The State Senate and Assembly will be in Session.
Tuesday, January 14th at 1 p.m. -- State Senate hearing "to examine the increase in parole release rates for violent felons in the New York Correctional System," in LOB Hearing Room A, Albany.
Wednesday, January 16th -- Governor Eliot Spitzer will deliver a State of the Upstate Address at the Performing Arts Center at Rockwell Hall on the campus of Buffalo State College.
