Collins offers input on state budget
ALBANY — Gov. David A. Paterson has been issuing challenges to stakeholders in the state budget process to not just complain about fiscal problems, but to come up with solutions.
A group of upstate county executives say they are now taking him up on the offer to try to get Albany to listen to decades of complaints about a problem they say is dragging down the state economy: unfunded state-imposed mandates on government- provided services.
“He said, ‘Bring me solutions.’ We’re taking that literally,” said Erie County Executive Chris Collins, who joined the heads of county governments in Monroe and Onondaga counties Wednesday at the Capitol to start a new effort at lowering the cost of running local governments by reducing the Albany- mandated services, such as certain Medicaid benefits, that are paid for by counties.
The push came as pressure mounted on state lawmakers to return to Albany before the November elections to make cuts in the state budget because of the crisis in the nation’s financial system.
Paterson estimated that up to $1.2 billion in state revenues will be lost as a result of the recent corporate collapses on Wall Street and at American International Group, the nation’s largest insurance company. Paterson said he is looking at possible dates in October for lawmakers to return and trim spending.
The county executives formed a 10-member panel that in the next three months will study the fiscal problems created by unfunded mandates and offer ideas to state officials for fixing the runaway costs.
Lawmakers and governors traditionally are reluctant to rescind benefits, such as certain types of treatments paid for by Medicaid, that have been approved in years past. And with the state facing its own potential fiscal crisis as a result of the nation’s financial troubles, Albany will be in no position in the coming year to pay for programs now shouldered at least partly by counties.
But Collins believes that the national economic crisis will prod Albany to consider steps it ordinarily never would. “With the meltdown on Wall Street, I hope for the first time ever the political will may now exist in Albany to cut benefits,” he said.
The county leaders did not propose specific cutbacks; those will be part of the report by the panel they created.
Besides Medicaid — the local costs for which eat up all the $200 million in revenues raised by property taxes in Erie County— Collins cited as among the unfair mandates a program that provides special services for children younger than 5 who need help to get ready for going to school.
He said the county pays the costs of the program — $23 million a year — but has no authority in running a program administered by local school districts. When children turn 5 and schools have to then pick up the costs, Collins said, pupils are “miraculously cured” and no longer offered the services.
The state already is looking at a deficit of $5 billion or more for next year in the wake of this year’s budget, which will total about $120 billion.
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