Politics on the Hudson

The Republican-led Senate today passed legislation to repeal the notification provisions of the Wage Theft Prevention Act.

Gannett’s Albany Bureau reported yesterday about the repeal effort. The act requires every private employer to provide workers a document verifying their salaries and basic information each year.

“Other than costing businesses to lose countless hours and waste millions of dollars, this mandate has done nothing to help employees or create new jobs,” Sen. John DeFrancisco, R-Syracuse, who sponsored the bill, said in a statement. “We have to eliminate mandates like this to make New York more competitive so businesses can focus on growing and creating jobs rather than keeping track of more paper and paying fines if they don’t.”

Businesses hailed the bill’s passage today. It passed 34-23. The measure now heads to the Democratic-led Assembly.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said today that he supports hydrofracking, so long as its outside the New York City watershed.

“We in New York City have been opposed to fracking in the watershed and along the conduits that get the water from the watershed down to the city,” Bloomberg said in Albany today.

“But other than that, natural gas is a lot less polluting – it’s not perfect – but it’s a lot less polluting than coal, which is really the only practical alternative in this day and age for generating power. We have to get that gas out of the ground.”

The state Department of Environmental Conservation’s proposal to allow hydrofracking would keep drilling outside the New York City and Syracuse-area watersheds. A final decision on whether to proceed with fracking is expected later this year.

Bloomberg, the billionaire businessman, said if it’s safe, the drilling would be a good energy source.

“With appropriate safeguards, I think fracking is something on balance that is better for this country than the alternative,” he said.

The Senate Republicans’ proposed congressional map puts Democratic Reps. Gary Ackerman and Carolyn McCarthy in the same district covering parts of Long Island and Queens, but doesn’t pit any other running incumbents against one another, Sen. Michael Nozzolio confirmed today.

The Senate GOP’s plan would also carve up retiring Rep. Maurice Hinchey’s district, according to Nozzolio, who co-chairs the Legislature’s redistricting task force. Hinchey, a Democrat, represents a district that currently stretches from Ithaca to Poughkeepsie, and has announced his retirement at the end of his term.

Nozzolio, a Republican from Fayette, Seneca County, said the GOP’s analysis of 2010 census figures calls for the elimination of one seat between Long Island and Queens, making the decision to cut Ackerman’s seat a sensible one. (Ackerman represents the 5th Congressional District, which includes portions of Queens and Nassau County.)

“We looked at the population of this state and analyzed the demographics,” Nozzolio said. “By the time you get from the tip of Long Island into Queens, you’re shy a congressional district in terms of population.”

But Assembly Democrats have cried foul over the Senate GOP’s attempts to eliminate two Democrat-held seats, rather than one Democrat and one Republican. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan, said the Republicans’ insistence on two Democratic districts has been a “stumbling block” in negotiating a joint congressional plan.

Nozzolio said all of his conference’s decisions were made on population, not politics.

“We looked at the demographics and we had to establish the loss of a district before you got to the end of Queens, and that is what we based our decision on,” Nozzolio said.

The Senate’s plan would keep 44 counties whole, according to Nozzolio. He said one district would be drawn entirely within Monroe County.

Meanwhile, both Assembly Democrats and Senate Democrats are expected to file their full proposals in federal court at some point today. Neither conference has released their full maps, but both houses say they’ll carve up Hinchey’s district.

UPDATE: Ackerman’s office just supplied a statement in which the congressman calls both the Senate GOP’s and Assembly Democrats’ proposals “attractive.”

Here’s Ackerman’s statement, in full:

“It appears the legislative parties have created two plans: One with an attractive and enticing Long Island district including constituencies I have had the great pleasure of representing for two decades, the other with an attractive and comfortable district in Queens containing my political base and longtime roots, most of which I have represented during my 34 years in public office.

I commend the legislators for their work.”

Mayors and county executive across New York warned Wednesday that local governments face a dire fiscal picture if the state doesn’t lower growing pension costs.

Monroe County Executive Maggie Brooks said local governments could face bankruptcy without pension reform. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said more city money goes to retirees’ pensions than police, fire and sanitation services combined.

Public employees’ unions are opposing Cuomo’s push, arguing that a new pension tier was implemented just two years ago.

“Wall Street nearly melted down the economy and got bailed out, but future nurses, teachers, highway workers and school bus drivers are supposed to give up hope of retirement security,” said Stephen Madarasz, spokesman for the Civil Service Employees Association, the state’s largest public-employees union with 265,000 members.

“The threat of bankruptcy hangs over every single municipal government in this state because of escalating pension costs,” Brooks said. “The facts are clear, and the facts are very disturbing.”

The growing pension expenses have prompted some municipalities to borrow off the state pension fund to cushion their annual payments. About $200 million was amortized this year by 162 entities that have public employees, according to the state Comptroller’s Office. That’s up from nearly $44 million in 2011.

White Plains Mayor Thomas Roach said borrowing to pay for pension costs is bad fiscal policy, but an indication of how serious the problem is.

“The road to hell is paved in amortizing pensions,” he said. “All you are doing is taking a current operating cost and pushing it down the line.”

Gov. Andrew Cuomo today released four more months of his public schedule—September 2011 through December 2011—giving a glimpse of who he is meeting with behind closed doors.

In a nutshell, it appears to mainly show that he met a lot with his top aides. The schedules have been criticized for not detailing all of Cuomo’s meetings, but Cuomo has said he’s trying to be more transparent about who he meets with and when and where.

Here’s the schedule for October, for example. The rest are here.

October 2011

Education groups held a rally at the capital today in support of rural and small city school districts.

Gannett’s Aaron Scholder reports:

Education advocates rallied in Albany today to lobby for an increase in funding to small and rural school districts that have been hit with cuts in recent years.

State legislators including Sen. Thomas Libous, R-Binghamton, Sen. Patrick Gallivan, R-Elma, and Assemblywoman Barbara Lifton, D-Ithaca all voiced their support to 800 or so students and educators in attendance.

School superintendents, educators and students from rural districts took issue with $250 million set aside in Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s proposed budget for competitive education grants, asking him to use that money to restore cuts to rural districts. Organizers included the Alliance for Quality Education and New York State United Teachers.

Funding for rural and small city schools in the state has gone down $1.2 billion since 2010, the groups said. Cuomo’s 2012-13 budget proposal restores $160 million of those cuts, they said.

Libous, the Senate Deputy Majority Leader, said he’s in support of competitive grants, so long as rural districts are given their “fair shake.”

“I like the idea of competitive grants,” Libous told the advocates. “But not until we get our fair shake of state aid. We need to get what’s fair to us before we even talk about competitive grants.”

Speakers at the rally said they need the additional funding to prevent a drastic reduction in programming afforded to students as well as funding for the districts’ teachers.

“We should make sure whatever money we do have and are able to find, that we make sure that it’s distributed in a fair formula that helps schools who need it the most, low-and-middle-income schools,” Lifton said.

District superintendents expressed their frustration at Cuomo for what they see as ignoring rural areas of the state.

“Gov. Cuomo isn’t advocating for students from our schools, he’s just advocating for the rich ones,” said Stephen Tomlinson, the superintendent of the Broadalbin-Perth School District, which serves Fulton, Montgomery and Saratoga counties.

Here’s video of Libous addressing the crowd:

Westchester County Executive Robert Astorino urged Gov. Andrew Cuomo to keep pushing for a 401k-type option for new public workers in his pension reforms, saying it is an option that public employees should have.

“I think the governor was right to include that in the package to give workers a choice, and I hope he stands firm on that,” Astorino told reporters after a news conference today with local officials to support Cuomo’s pension proposal. “I think that’s an option going forward that we need to start doing.”

Cuomo has pushed for a 401k-type option, but indicated earlier in the week that’s he flexible on his plan—like Gumby. He has indicated that the option would only be a small portion of the savings, yet has drawn the most criticism.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg wouldn’t opine on whether the 401k option is critical to pension reform, but did say that the days of having defined benefit plans in the private sector are over.

Still, Astorino, the Republican county executive who is viewed as a potential GOP rival to Cuomo in 2014, said a 401k option is reasonable, and he would encourage lawmakers today at the Capitol to support it.

Astorino was joined at the news conference by county executives and mayors from across the state, including Monroe County Executive Maggie Brooks, Rochester Mayor Thomas Richards and White Plains Mayor Thomas Roach.

“We’ve got to be bold now. We got to not tinker around the edges. The problems are too big for us to pretend they don’t exist,” Astorino said. “I’m going to hold firm that they should have defined contributions. It’s an option for future workers. It does not change anyone’s status today.”

Updated throughout.

The majority parties in the Senate and Assembly have both proposed to eliminate the district of retiring Rep. Maurice Hinchey, but don’t agree on where to cut a second seat.

Assembly Democrats and Senate Republicans will file separate plans today for carving the state into 27 congressional districts. The state will have two fewer congressional districts in 2013 than it currently has because its population is growing at a slower pace that other states.

Speaking to reporters after meeting with Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Silver said the Assembly’s map will split up Hinchey’s district, distributing his constituents to neighboring districts. The district currently stretches from the Southern Tier to the Hudson Valley, including the cities of Ithaca, Poughkeepsie and Binghamton.

Hinchey, a Democrat from Hurley, Ulster County, earlier this year announced his plan to retire at the end of his term.

“It’s obvious the Hinchey district is one,” Silver said. “We’re not eliminating, but we obviously have to consolidate some districts.”

Senate Republicans, meanwhile, will propose to eliminate the seats of Hinchey and Rep. Gary Ackerman, Senate GOP officials said. Ackerman is a Democrat whose district includes parts of Queens and Nassau County. (Hinchey’s is the 22nd Congressional District in the map at left, which is of the current districts. Ackermans is the 5th Congressional District.)

The Senate GOP plan would keep 44 counties whole, according to the officials, who did not specify which counties were included.

Silver, a Manhattan Democrat, said his conference’s plan would consolidate a number of districts in Queens and Nassau County to deal with the second eliminated seat.

There would be at least one incumbent Democrat and Republican in the same district in Queens, according to Silver.

“There’s a whole conglomeration of them in Queens and Nassau that would be consolidated,” he said.

Plans from the Assembly Democrats and Senate Republicans will be made public later today, as a panel of federal judges required the conferences to submit their proposals by the close of business.

When asked if Rep. Bob Turner’s seat would be eliminated, Silver said a number of districts would be affected. Turner is a Republican from Queens who won in a special election to replace Democratic Rep. Anthony Wiener.

“It’s part of the Turner seat,” Silver said. “But clearly Turner would be running, and significant portions of his district would be in tact. (Democratic Rep. Gary) Ackerman would be part of a district. (Democratic Rep. Joseph) Crowley would have a part of the district. It would be a fair fight for the second seat.”

It wasn’t immediately clear if Silver was saying Turner, Crowley and Ackerman would all be drawn into the same district. The Assembly’s plan is expected to be made public later today.

Mayors and county executives this afternoon are planning a news conference to back Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s pension reforms, saying that the cost of pensions are crippling their budgets.

Led by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the group, New York Leaders for Pension Reform, includes the county executives from Westchester, Rockland, Monroe and Dutchess.

Cuomo told reporters today that he’s looking to save as much money as possible in a pension deal with the Legislature—even as he’s suggested earlier this week that he might be willing to move off his proposal to have a 401k-type system for new public employees.

But Cuomo said it has to include a new pension tier—despite some lawmakers’ contention that changes could be made within the current system, such as cracking down on pension abuses.

“Any resolution I seek will be a resolution that brings the maximum amount of savings. That’s what it’s about, right?” Cuomo said.

He said that pension costs for governments in New York went from $1 billion in 2002 to about $12 billion now, fueling higher property taxes.

“The tax burden is just crushing New Yorkers. So we can’t afford the increased cost of public pensions,” Cuomo said.

At a packed Red Room news conference today, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that all 62 district attorneys in New York, as well as all 58 county sheriffs and more than 400 police chiefs are endorsing his plan to expand the state’s DNA databank

Cuomo’s proposal, which passed the state Senate last month, would require DNA samples to be collected from anyone convicted of any misdemeanor and any felony in any state law. He said it would include crimes such as felony driving while intoxicated, aggravated animal cruelty and prescription drug offenses.

Some Assembly Democrats and civil-liberties groups have questioned the expansion, saying it could infringe on people’s rights. Cuomo disagreed and urged the Legislature to pass the bill this year, saying it shouldn’t be part of the “Albany game” where it would be tied to other policy issues.

“It’s a state-of-the-art fingerprint. That’s all it is. It is a better tool to prove identities,” Cuomo said. “That’s all it is. And if you have the information, why wouldn’t you want to use it?”