Politics on the Hudson

OK, so New York has more government workers, proportionately, than North Carolina. After all, we have New York City, for better or worse, and they don’t, and that must explain the discrepancy.

At least, that was the reaction of some people when they learned that New York State has 63 state and local-government workers per 1,000 population, compared to 59 in North Carolina.

That was one of the facts gleaned from census data by E.J. McMahon of Manhattan Institute’s Empire Center (and not the Fiscal Policy Institute, as  we erroneously said yesterday) to help explain why property taxes are so much higher in the Empire State than the Tarheel state.

But hold on. Common wisdom is once again wrong. David Shaffer of SUNY’s Rockefeller Institute reported on the NYfiscalwatch.org web site that the ratio of government workers to the whole population in New York City (one to 17) is actually a little lower than in the rest of the state (one to 16).

“Apparently the large and relatively unified local government structure in New York City achieves some economies of scale that are foreign to the vast and overlapping array of localities outside the city,’’ he wrote on the web site.

He pointed out that finding seems to strengthen the point that “government payrolls in New York seems disproportionately large, compared to North Carolina.’‘

There. Now the question is, what, if anything, should be done about it?

A Medicaid program that serves 60,000 severely ill people is strangling in red tape that wastes money and threatens to disrupt care, according to a report issued today.

The report from a non-profit group,  the New York State Health Foundation, urges the state Health Department and counties to work to end the practice of making people in the Excess Income Program submit medical bills monthly to get them paid by taxpayers.

“The excess-income program is a lifeline for New Yorkers who are most often in dire need of medical care,’’ said Dr. james Knickman, head of the foundation. “Unfortunately, the burdens placed on the patient are too complex and the administrative costs incurred by the counties and state are needlessly high.’’

The foundation couldn’t provide an estimate of the cost saving by simplifying the process by which the patients verify their costs, but said they would be substantial. And the authors said that care could also be improved.

A column we ran over the weekend pointed to the disparity in property taxes paid by owners of houses with the same market value in Flat Rock, N.C. and Delmar, NY, an Albany surburb.

The owner of the Delmar home (me) pays seven times as much as friends who own the Carolina property, we discovered on a recent visit there.

E.J. McMahon of the Fiscal Policy Institute did a little digging into census figures and came up with some reasons why:

-North Carolina in 2007 had 59 state and local government workers per 1,000 residents, compared to 63 for New York. Their salaries amounted to $292 per month per resident in New York and $197 in the Tarheel State.  If New York had the same proportion of government workers to its population and paid them what they make in North Carolina, Empire State costs would be cut by $22 billion, he estimated.

And in a category of spending that is mostly Medicaid, New Yorkers spent $3,158 per resident in 2007, compared to $1,876 forked over by North Carolina residents.

One mystery solved. But others present themselves: why are our costs so much higher and what are we getting for all of the extra spending?

A record number of complaints were filed against judges in New York for the second year in a row, according to a report issued today.

The report from the state Judicial Conduct Commission found that 1,923 complaints were received last year, 212 more than the year before.

The commission decided ot remove one judges from office, censure eight and publicly admonish six others. Another 20 judges resigned last year while they were being investigated.

Since the commission was created by the Legislature in 1975, it has received 39,457 complaints and removed 157 judges from office. Another 421 resigned while under investigation.

The state Assembly is expected to approve a gay-marriage bill next Tuesday, but the measure apparently still lacks enough support to pass the Senate.

Advocates think the bill will get several more than the 85 votes it got when it was first adopted two years ago. The decision by some other states to approve the unions – Maine most recently – also gives the idea some momentum.  In addition, Gov. David Paterson is a strong supporter.

But so far none of the 30 Republican senators has pledged to support it, and several of the 32 Democrats have said they are opposed. Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith, D-Queens, has said he won’t allow the measure to come to the Senate floor until it has enough support to pass.

New bumper sticker showing up around the Capitol: “Don’t blame me. I voted for the other John.’’

The “other John’’ is Republican John Faso, who was crushed by Democrat Eliot Spitzer, AKA Client number 9, in the 2006 race for governor. Spitzer is of course long gone, but his then-lieutenant governor running mate, David Paterson, who took over when Spitzer quit after his prostitution ties were revealed, has turned out to be the least popular governor in modern New York history.

Quick now: who was Faso’s running-mate?…Rockland County Executive C. Scott Vanderhoef.

The MTA bailout issue presented what is known as a “tough vote’’ for Democratic Assembly members from Westchester.  Five voted yes and two no on the measure, which was approved 86-56.

One who visibly agonized was Amy Paulin, D-Scarsdale, who was first recorded as voting no before changing her mind.

“My district probably has more commuters than any other district,’’ she said. “The fare increase they would see (without the bailout) is just outrageous.’’

But the new payroll tax on employers – 34 cents per $100 of salaries – was hard for any suburban lawmaker to swallow, she said.

But she did.

It wasn’t so tough for lawmakers from Rockland, which has far less MTA service than Westchester. all four four Assembly members voted no.

“Our business community has to pick up the tab, even though they don’t have customers or employees who use mass transit,’’ said Assemblyman Kenneth Zebrowski, D-New City.

New York’s Medicaid-fraud-control unit has been picked as the best in the country by the federal agency that oversees the program, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced today.

New York, whose $46 billion Medicaid program is by far the nation’s most expensive, recovered $263 million in civil damages and criminal restitution last year. The state’s Medicaid-fraud control unit got 150 convictions last year for provider fraud and patient abuse.

The federal Department of Health and Human Services noted that the New York unit recovered $6.64 for every federal dollar expended.

Medicaid pays for the health care of poor and disabled people. The federal government pays half the cost, with the state and local governments splitting the rest.

The money recovered includes that from cases uncovered by the state Office of Medicaid inspector general, a seprate unit from Cuomo’s organization, which regularly forwards cases to the attorney general for prosectution. Comptroller Tom DinNpoli also has a Medicaid-fraud unit.

The total recovered in New York also includes the $72 million share New York got as part of a $649 million national settlement with the Merck drug company, which was found to have overcharged Medicaid programs around the country for some of its products.

Two lawmakers today introduced a bill to provide government-financed universal health insurance in New York.  But a few key details,  like how much it would cost and just how it would be paid for, remain murky.

The Assembly sponsor,  Richard Gottfried, D-Manhattan, said he thinks the plan would actually be $20 billion to $30 billion cheaper than the $100 billion New Yorkers now pay for private coverage, plus co-pays and deductables.

The idea is to finance it by a Social Security-style payroll tax, plus a surcharge on the unearned income of wealthy people. But he said the rates haven’t been worked out.

Gottfried said the plan won’t be voted on this year, but presenting it now is meant to influence the thinking of Gov. David Paterson, who is expected to come out with a plan later this year or next.

Although the bill is obviously at best a long shot to be enacted, it does have this year for the first time a majority-party sponsor in the Senate, Tom Duane, D-Manhattan. And the state Medical Society, while not endorsing the bill, does favor getting coverage for the uninsured and providing more competition to private insurers.

Gov. Paterson earlier today touted  a “major reform initiative’’ he planned to announce this afternoon.  But what he had to say is, shall we say, unlikely to shake Albany to its core.

He proposed a bill that would put a cap increases in state spending at the average inflation rate for the past three years. It could be superseded under extraordinary circumstances if two-thirds of both the Assembly and Senate agreed.

“A spending cap will reform state government and make it more accountable to taxpayers,’’ Paterson said.

What he didn’t say, of course, is that there is nothing now preventing the state from limiting spending to whatever he and the Legislature decides. If fact, he has veto power over most spending. Yet overall spending before this year  (when the collapse of state tax revenues forced a brake on spending increases) has generally climbed much faster than inflation since 1996.

Senate Republicans  supported  similar ideas in the past when they were in the majority, but it has never passed the Assembly.