The city’s best shot for a workable budget without major service cuts could come from County Executive Mike Hein and his promised — but still secret — plan to address Safety Net costs. Kingston bears an unequal burden of payments for the welfare program because of Ulster County’s unique practice of passing costs on to the municipalities in which recipients live. Kingston officials have long lobbied for the county to assume the Safety Net burden, thereby spreading out the cost evenly among communities. But the effort has been repeatedly stifled by county lawmakers from towns with few Safety Net recipients, whose constituents would pay more in county taxes under such a plan. Hein has promised to include changes to Safety Net funding in his own 2013 budget. But it remains unclear what his solution would be and what, if any, cost savings for Kingston would result.
Where’s the override button?
If city lawmakers vote to override the tax cap, they would not be alone. Last year 300 of New York’s roughly 1,600 local governments voted to break the tax cap (far fewer school districts, which need a 60 percent majority of voters, managed to override the cap). But Senor, who is backing a merger of county and city bus lines that, he said, will save Kingston$250,000, said that he would be reluctant to override the tax cap whether or not the state follows through with mandate reform.
“The people want government to start being more responsible and this was Albany’s way of doing that,” said Senor. “I’m not looking to override the tax cap. I’m looking for ways that we can be more business-oriented.”
Council Minority Leader Deborah Brown (R-Ward 9), meanwhile, sounded less confident. Brown pointed out that city departments were already bare-bones operations and conceded that it may simply not be possible to maintain essential services while remaining within the 2 percent cap.
“How far can you cut departments and still have basic services that the city needs?” she asked. “We’ll work for [a budget beneath the tax cap] I’m hoping we can do it. But never say never.”
1 comment
Philip Gurrieri says:
Sep 17, 2012
So, what is eating up the $$$ and as weird as it sounds, it seems that ‘people’ have become an obstacle to Victorian belt-tightening in order to ‘save’ money.
Why is ‘people-sufferings’ always the road of RePublicanism and the global-corporations making “jobs at a price” available? Why is ‘sickness’ a RePublican mandate constantly adding heavy regulations upon people? Follow the deeds and learn that the basis of their ‘regulatory’ practice is to protect the corporate_citizen from the “people_public” of this Divided Union as all RePublic’s are “divided_unions” between “corporatism” vs. inclusive entrepreneurship of “people” based “capitalism”….
Midtown in King James first capital is a true American_Mexican “Olde_World” community; enhance it…. Spanish is a Christian language; learn it! WE stole their lands in the same way that WE under the God_Satan stole the African people into godly bondage and Midtown has become a battlefield activated by pesticide spraying that is causing the “crazies” in the African_American community enhanced by a daily “Dow_chemical_Monsanto” DIE_T into a video game battlefield between the ‘shell-shocked’ former Iraqi peace in pieces contract soldiers that are now part of the new police forces and the DIE_T trained ‘enemy’….
Soon the police will have a FORT at the corner of B’way & Henry street so that the video cameras can capture ten next “actuality” show for after entercontainment programing future police training…
Save money by increasing punishment fees… Then proceed to laying people off from governments jobs without private sector employment available and thus adding to the unacceptable “people” welfare roles for RePublican’s to rant about. Instead of addressing the contracts with the corporate-citizen contractor’s because “no clause” for renegotiation’s were ever put into unless you are a “Born_Again” crusader for the Holy Ghost person “corporate_citizen”….
What happened to the “get paid” as we ‘dispose of our trash’ that was in the news a year or so ago? Has our DAILY DIE_T clouded our ‘thaught’ ability in favor of ‘punishment’ ability? Why is sickness so rampant, why is the a ‘new’ flu bug every year? Who do RePublican’s, by their deeds, represent? Are the new “Democrat’s” merely a “jackass” ready to compromise people to the ‘corporate_citizen”? It sure looks that way these days of weakling bullyism… remember: Only the weakling needs a weapon from a fist to a gun; only the weaklings are in need of weapons; invade my home and my physical body of organic meals will be in Hurley denying you the death of another mother’s “Little_Devil” Prince of Peace child….