Another Voice / State budget
Albany must not transfer costs to local taxpayers
Updated: 11/15/08 6:58 AM
On Tuesday, state lawmakers will return to Albany to address the largest budget deficit New York has faced in our lifetime. This is not an easy task, to be sure, but one that must be undertaken to bring our short-term and long-term budgets into balance.
Traditionally, and far too often, when New York faces a budget deficit, state leaders shift costs to property taxpayers. That’s why New York businesses and homeowners pay the highest property taxes in the nation. As we confront this acute economic crisis, county government leaders from across New York State are standing up on behalf of our property taxpayers, who cannot afford to again close the state’s budget gap.
Counties are not looking for more state money, nor are we looking for additional local taxing authority. We are instead urging the state to restructure and eliminate unnecessary state spending and once and for all make a clear distinction between “cuts” and “cost shifts.”
Specifically, cost shifts still require county government to provide the same level of state services, just with less state reimbursement. This has the necessary consequence of transferring the cost of these mandated programs to the local property taxpayer. Cuts, on the other hand, require difficult and deliberate choices that can provide immediate and long-term budget savings, which are desperately needed in this time of economic crisis, and which, I might add, can be accomplished without cutting benefits or services to those in need.
Last week, county executives from across the state sent a letter to Gov. David
A. Paterson and legislative leaders calling for two things: To commit to balancing the state budget without shifting costs to property taxpaying homeowners and businesses; and to reduce state spending to match corresponding revenue, instead of shifting costs to the local level.
To help lawmakers reduce state budget spending, county leaders have proposed ideas worth more than $1 billion that would not raise property taxes. These proposals include:
• Reducing or eliminating nonmandated aid to localities’ programs.
• Reforming the New York State Health Insurance Program funding structure.
• Enforcing Early Intervention Program payment process.
• Restructuring the preschool special education program.
It is time for state leaders to balance the budget without increasing property taxes. County leaders across the state — both Republican and Democratic, urban and suburban, upstate and downstate — stand ready to partner with Paterson and legislative leaders to identify and support budget savings that do not shift the tax burden to our property taxpayers.
Governments at all levels need to do more than just communicate a problem. We need to coordinate on solutions to preserve our future.
Stephen J. Acquario is executive director of the New York State Association of Counties.
