....July 22, 12:08 PM
 
 
   
I’m Mad As Hell And I’m Not Going To Take It Anymore

By MICHAEL SCHENKLER

In a recent page one story, the New York Times told of some of the more subtle impacts of operating New York State when the legislature fails to pass an on-time budget. A quick reading of the Times article makes one realize the damage done by our State Legislature is a lot more than just damage to our State’s ability to function effectively in financial markets. Those who wish to deceive don’t share the other negatives pointed out by the Times, which impact a lot deeper than merely cosmetic.

Those legislators who have called me made it clear that my series of columns critical of the many failures of the State Legislature has struck a sensitive chord in Albany.

While those who called me indicated that things are really worse than I’ve been saying, the fear of the tyranny wrought upon them by leadership should they speak out is worse than one could imagine. And while they feel trapped unable to achieve, as part of perhaps the worst performance by an abysmal NYS legislature of any year in history, there is no solution in sight. Assembly Speaker Democrat Sheldon Silver and Senate Majority Leader Republican Joe Bruno control their respective houses and the membership of each by controlling the money. They use it ruthlessly. Their redistricting pact perpetuates the status quo.

So if you hear some old-time legislators defending the failure of this year’s session to accomplish anything meaningful and calling the failure to pass a budget a noble thing, you can assume they are part of the problem. They perpetuate the do-nothing system. They likely are getting fat off of it.

And now, for the twentieth straight year the budget is late, and some defend it as noble. And off they go on vacation while those dependent upon State funds languish in neverland.

Consider the following:

Summer employment programs for low-income youth await annual funding — many of those who might have been productively employed now spend the hot days and nights on the streets. The Times estimates that number at about 10,000 14 to 17 year-olds.

College students trying to calculate the State Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) funds they need to pay for their education remain confounded and in the dark. Some may not be able to attend college come September because the legislature is on vacation, with no budget in sight.

The $3 billion construction funding for state and city university campuses is in limbo.

School boards throughout the State cannot make sensible hiring or programming decisions for September without the hard numbers from Albany. Some 45 to 55 percent of school funding for the districts across the State is approved with the Albany budget, so school systems, including New York City’s, must plan and spend in a business model acceptable only to legislators who point fingers instead of pass budgets.

Social service programs and not-for-profit agencies don’t know if their doors are closing or their budgets deeply slashed and so their services suffer, causing damage to their clients.

The NYS tax on clothing continues in spite of the Albany commitment to end it in June — shoppers travel to Jersey and elsewhere not spending their dollars in our State, costing an already shaky State economy more jobs and more income tax dollars. Businesses struggle against competition in other venues threatening the small businessman, a vital cog in the State’s economic recovery.

Promised adjustments to fund State-mandated programs enabling local governments, including the City, to use funds for more cops or improvement of services remain undone.

City homeowners don’t know if they are receiving their $400 rebate approved by the City Council, which many would throw back into the city economy to help it over the hurdle of sluggishness.

To those who defend the system in Albany, I say you are part of the problem. Justifying failure belies the decent standards by which we should live. When government fails, people of goodwill must demand change.

But sadly, all my writing won’t change a thing.

I watch as the New York Times, the Sun’s Jack Newfield, NY Civic’s and this paper’s Henry Stern and dozens of other journalists and good government groups join in the chorus and point to the totality of failure of the NY State legislature, and I know that it all won’t do a thing.

Sadly, the people have yielded control of the abysmal system to the dreaded system itself. And only the members can fix what is broken.

I recall the image of a maniacal TV anchor Howard Beale in the 1976 movie “Network,” addressing the on-air community and beginning the now universal chant, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.”

To our Queens members of the New York State Legislature, I say the time has come; your colleagues can’t be far behind.

The citizens are starting to chant already. Come out into the daylight and point your finger towards Albany and proclaim failure. Call up your colleagues and ask them to meet you back in the state capital and remain there demanding your leaders fix the problem. Or better yet, get new leaders.

Assembly members, Senators, how can you be on vacation while the kids are on the streets? While the City schools remain cheated? While social programs are dying? While the budget remains undone? While you are part of this abysmal failure?

Now, all together repeat after me, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!”

It’s going to get a lot hotter this summer!

Michael Schenkler can be reached via this contact form.

 
 
The Boy Cries “Wolf” Again, But Lobo May Be at the Door
By HENRY STERN

One of the themes of this column over the past two and a half years has been that New York City is in more fiscal trouble than it is willing to admit.

For the three Bloomberg years, FYs 2003, 2004 and 2005, the city budget as adopted has been balanced. State law requires it. In this administration, services to the public have not diminished substantially. Wages are increasing modestly, with 138,000 city employees now under agreements negotiated by the administration with employee unions. The police, firefighters and teachers will not, however, settle on the terms agreed to by DC 37. Their wage disputes will probably end in binding arbitration for the uniformed services and non-binding mediation for the teachers, as the law requires. This is because no union leader who agrees to a reasonable settlement is likely to be re-elected by the members.

The Financial Control Board has approved this year’s city budget (FY 2005) but forecasts a $3.7 billion deficit next year (FY 2006) and similar deficits for later years. Yet there appears to be no sense of alarm over this dire forecast. Mayor Bloomberg, in his recent testimony to the FCB, predictably praised the fiscal management of the last three years and warned that difficult times lied ahead.

So why aren’t alarm bells ringing over this impending fiscal disaster? The answer: no one really believes it will happen. We have had similar doomsday predictions for as long as I have been involved with city budgets, and yet by the time the budget is adopted in late June, the yawning gaps are always closed. So people yawn at the gaps, and they are not taken seriously.

We have documents, statistics and projections from the best authorities to prove the gap will exist. It is not an unidentified flying object. But the public is not truly alarmed by a bogeyman that disappears every June like snow from a mountaintop.

That is part of the reason — deep skepticism based on repeated experience — that the city is unable to achieve the structural reform that experts say is necessary for its financial health. This year, the mayor submitted the executive budget in April (as required by law). That budget contained $200 million in reductions, mostly in popular services directly affecting the public. The City Council held open hearings, listened to its complaining constituents and restored in June the $200 million the mayor cut in April. The mayor agreed to the restoration, and at the announcement of the adoption of the budget, the mayor and speaker shook hands and exchanged kind words.

The mayor and speaker, even though they are rivals, may both wish the fiscal disaster issue not to emerge for at least a year, because no one likes to make unpopular decisions like raising taxes or reducing services so close to what for elected officials is Judgment Day, Nov. 8, 2005.

The city’s hope is for an expanding economy, aided by the billions of dollars in New Yorkers’ pockets as the results of the Bush tax cuts (which enrich wealthy taxpayers, of whom we have many). We would benefit from increased activity on Wall Street, which accompanies a rising market.

That means bigger bonuses, which means more spending. It would also help not to have snow this winter, and to defer costly labor settlements until after the adoption of the next year’s budget.

In terms of dollars, what the city needs most is mandate relief from the state, particularly in Medicaid costs.

Billions of dollars are spent each year on programs that in other states either do not exist or are state-funded. The rapid increases in these costs plague not only New York City but counties and cities across the state, some of which are in more trouble than we are because their real estate tax base is much smaller. The fact that upstate communities have the same problem could be helpful in finding a bipartisan solution.

Any relief of these problems will depend on the State Legislature, which we have described at length in the past months as dysfunctional, gerrymandered, secretive and undemocratic, with all power in the hands of one man in each house. Even though the legislators are not up for re-election in 2005, and will be 98% certain of re-election in 2006, most of them have long since lost the initiative spark, if they ever had one. Their districts are so stacked in their favor that legislators are more likely to be removed by prosecutors than by voters, especially if they become careless in the conduct of their affairs.

May the looming shadow of an immense deficit lead to remedial measures this year by the authorities that oversee city and state spending. The sooner action is taken, the less severe it will have to be. But that mantra has never been heeded by our leaders, who are only induced to act when faced with insolvency.

Happy New Fiscal Year.
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Henry Stern can be reached at: starquest.nycivic.org

Not4Publication.com by Dom Nunziato
Michael Schenkler can be reached via this contact form.