Big Budget Ax

By Scott Feldman

The fiscal picture from Albany is not pretty. Governor Paterson says $2 billion in spending has to be cut from the state's $120 billion budget that ends March 31st. So, where's the money coming from? Paterson is looking for billions in cuts in Medicaid, along with midyear reductions in school aid. The possibility of cutting Medicaid outrages advocates for the poor, sick and senior citizens. Bill Ferris, a New York state lobbyist for AARP says, "Cuts could deny personal care services to an elderly person living alone, cuts could deny a homebound senior a meal, as well as force a family to institutionalize an elderly loved lone because they no longer have the caregiver support in the community to keep the person at home."

School Superintendents are clearly nervous about potential cuts to their districts. Connetquot Supt. Dr. Alan Groveman tells me midyear school aid cuts are much more difficult to deal with than those that begin with the budget cycle. Connetquot could tap a reserve fund to make up some of the shortfall this year. But administrators, clerical, teachers, counselors along with a whole host of after school activities and programs could be cut. Groveman says for every million dollars less the district gets in school aid, taxes would go up about 85 dollars annually for the average homeowner, if the district wanted to keep the programs alive for next year. 

Parents are clearly not happy. One mother of five told me her kids are in all kinds of after school activities. But an 83 year old retiree on a fixed income says he just can't afford to pay higher taxes.

Albany lawmakers head back to the capital on Nov. 18th for a special session. They're facing some tough choices. But it is what it is. Governor Paterson knows he's going to get a lot of resistance from legislators and others. A lot of what he is asking to be cut he fought to protect during his years as a State Senator. But as he told the New York Times, "I'll feel the pain my stomach, but my conscience will be clear." 

Comments

[Wayne DiMarzo]

Check Dr. Grovemans latest contract at connetquot . 210,000 a year and 545 dollars a month for auto expense. Didnt hear him say he was cutting any of that. Always the little guy gets cut. Maybe news 12 should peruse local school district administrators contracts and see who can afford to be reduced or cut.

[John]

We could save almost one percent of that goal by not paying the people who spent us into this mess. I mean, when Patterson says he'll "feel it in his stomach," he doesn't mean the starvation or hypothermia that some others will. Not at nearly two hundred thousand dollars a year, he won't. Likewise, the eighty thousand dollar a year legislators.

http://seethroughny.net/Payrolls/EmployeeSearch/tabid/69/Default.aspx

Hey, add in the Comptroller, Attorney General, Judiciary, and LIPA, and that's another few percent. Is Kevin Law really worth the money, given our electric bills? Obviously, Albany thinks he's more important than school aid.