EDITORIALS
Attack unfunded mandates
Counties’ commission must seek solutions, not just numbers
Updated: 09/28/08 6:51 AM
Officials of three upstate New York counties are understandably frustrated by the fact that as much as 71 percent of their budgets exist to cover mandated services, functions and expenses forced upon them by state government.
But if the newly minted Upstate Mandate Relief Commission appointed by the executives of Erie, Monroe and Onondaga counties is to amount to anything more than a whinefest, it will have to do more than ask for “relief.”
If those involved really don’t think counties should have to pay for such large portions of the justice, social service and health care systems, they will be obligated to say who should pay for the programs — or have the guts to say that they should be cut.
The fact that state officials have long lacked such political honesty is what the counties and their Upstate Mandate Relief Commission are out to document.
Agreeing that government should provide everything from health care for the poor to juvenile justice programs, then pushing large parts of the cost off on local levels of government, is a time-honored practice that is not unique to New York. It allows state-level politicians to take credit for services provided while dodging the blame for taxes raised.
County officials, meanwhile, have no power to trim, eliminate or even re-envision those programs and entitlements, but are left to explain to their neighbors why their locally set property taxes are so high or why other local government functions are shortchanged to keep up with state-required programs.
The 10-member commission, chaired by Rochester investment banker Geoff Rosenberger, will proceed from the assumption that the mountain of mandates increases property taxes, discourages business, even contributes to the area’s population loss and economic woes.
Probably. But the harder questions include wondering if local taxpayers would really benefit from a shift of the burden onto the statewide tax base, especially at a time when that source of income is being decimated by the Wall Street meltdown, or whether functions that might no longer be forced onto county government will be made up by state tax hikes, state debt or the creation of more of those independent authorities that manage to spend a lot of our money with precious little oversight.
This may be a political case of the best defense being a good offense. As battered as the state budget is, with the governor demanding millions in cuts and special sessions of the Legislature looming, a detailed accounting of existing unfunded mandates might at least discourage Albany from trying to balance its budget by shifting still more costs onto the locals.
And that might be well worth the effort.
