Politics on the Hudson

 At a meeting scheduled for Sept. 29, the State University of New York’s Finance and Administration Committee expects to receive reports on how its campuses will implement $40 million in reductions, according to H. Carl McCall, chairman of the committee.   With the latest round of state budget cuts last month, SUNY will be losing $96.3 million in funding. Most of the loss will be absorbed by the SUNY system, but it will be up to campuses to make the rest of the reductions, McCall has said.

   In earlier budget reductions, SUNY lost about $50 million in state operating funds. The impact on campuses so far has included fewer courses, larger class sizes and unfilled faculty positions.

   Gov. David Paterson has ordered spending cuts because of an ongoing economic slowdown and projected state budget shortfalls. In light of the problems on Wall Street this week, the governor could call the Legislature back to do more cutting.

   The State University of New York has to cut the second-largest amount of money, behind the Department of Correctional Services, to comply with Gov. David Paterson’s orders to reduce current budget spending by $630 million. SUNY has to make $96 million in deductions, compared with $168 million for DOCS.

   SUNY officials have not made any details public yet on how they will achieve the savings.

   “SUNY is in the process of developing a financial plan to address the current budget challenges,” spokesman David Henahan said today. “The financial plan is expected to be presented to the SUNY Board of Trustees Finance and Administration Committee for review and consideration in September.”

   Paterson last month called for the $630 million reduction as part of his plan to close a potential budget gap caused by a troubled economy and plummeting revenues. The Legislature trimmed the budget by $427 million this week. That includes $680,000 in cuts to community college funding.

   The Senate is in session now, debating the agreed-upon $411 million in state budget cuts (about two-thirds of what Gov. David Paterson proposed). The Assembly passed the legislation last night. Paterson and legislative leaders are speaking to the media this hour. The governor called this week’s special session because of the state’s looming fiscal crisis.

   Sen Liz Krueger, D-Manhattan, said during the debate she would vote for the cuts, but with a heavy heart. The legislation will cut emergency food programs in a time of crisis, AIDS assistance and higher-education funding. Some programs may have to close their doors as a result of the reductions, she said.

   Sen. Stephen Saland, R-Poughkeepsie, said reductions are needed to deal with the budget crisis. He commended the governor for his leadership in the matter.

   Some of the local programs affected by cuts include:

  —$63,000, Westchester policing

  —$39,000, transit local assistance, Westchester (governor proposed $26,000)

  —$30,000, Putnam Hospital Center (governor proposed $250,000)

  —$9,000 from the Nyack Hospital Foundation (governor proposed $75,000)

  —$7,000 from Westchester Regional Medical Centers (governor proposed $55,000)

  —$6,000 from the Mental Health Association—Rockland (governor proposed $50,000)

  —$3,000, Rockland Association of Learning Disabled (Paterson proposed $25,000)

 —$2,000, Putnam County Sheriff (governor proposed $13,000)

   The Westchester Putnam Workers Training Program did not get a funding reduction, although it had been in line to lose $2,000.

While health-care groups decried Gov. David Paterson’s proposed budget cuts today, the Citizens Budget Commission of New York City had the opposite reaction. The governor laid out ways the state could reduce spending by more than $1 billion, including cuts to Medicaid and local governments.  

Carol Kellermann, president of the non-partisan watchdog group, said the governor deserves credit for offering a specific plan. Cuts to Medicaid, a health-care program for the poor and disabled, should be the first made, she said in a statement. These are her other comments:

   “New York spends far beyond national norms for Medicaid, and its costs should be reined in.   “While the governor’s proposed cuts in local aid may be admirably intended to spread the pain broadly, the CBC’s proposals to eliminate ineffective economic development programs and close unneeded prisons would save far more money with no harm to public services.

   “We applaud the governor for coming forward with a set of options that encourages debate on how to curb spending. The governor is right to keep pressure on the state Legislature and to insist that tax increases be considered only as a last resort.”

State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced this afternoon that he is expanding his pension-fraud investigation to include all 37 Boards of Cooperative Educational Services in the state. He is seeking information about the nature of employment agreements BOCES offices have with professional consultants.

This is the second expansion of a probe that started by looking into potentially fraudulent employment arrangements between public school districts and lawyers. The attorney general widened that this week to encompass all forms of local governments across New York, incuding more than 4,000 county governments, villages, towns and special districts. Previously, his office issued multiple subpoenas to lawyers and firms on Long Island and upstate.

“We have reason to believe some BOCES may have unclean hands in this situation and there may have been financial benefits for the BOCES to list professionals as employees instead of as independent consultants,” Cuomo said in a statement. “There appears to be chronic fraud that has occurred across New York State for many years, and we will work until we get to the bottom of it.”

Fradulently placing people on public payrolls “can cost New Yorkers tens of millions of dollars by giving pension benefits to those who would otherwise be ineligible and by giving unwarranted state aid to school districts,” Cuomo said. (more…)

During a meeting in Buffalo today, the Empire State Development Corp.’s Board of Directors authorized grants of up to $5.5 million for downstate under the NY Communities Initiative Program. The money will go to projects in Orange, Rockland and Ulster counties:
—North Main Street in the Village of Spring Valley, $2.5 million.
—The Kirkland Hotel in Kingston, Ulster County, $500,000.
—The New York International Plaza in New Windsor, Orange County, $2.5 million.

The purpose of Restore NY is to revitalize urban areas and stabilize neighborhoods as a means of attracting residents and businesses.

County Executive Andrew Spano’s office just issued a press release outlining the priorities for his visit to the state Capitol today. Spano and Deputy County Executive Larry Schwartz are meeting with lawmakers and state officials to express concerns about Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s proposed budget.

According to the press release, Spano’s top concerns are:

•The cost of pre-school special education programs.

•Spitzer’s proposal to make counties pay a greater share towards child and family welfare costs.

• The need for increased funding to the Regional Emergency Medical Services Council, which provides emergency medical services to nearly 1 million people.

• Obtaining more funding for that Westchester’s public transportation system, which, according to Spano, does not get as much money as the similar sized system operated by Nassau County.

“Keeping local property taxes down and keeping residents safe are our key concerns,’’
Spano said in the release. “We are concerned about items in the state budget that shift costs onto local governments as well as deny us the aid that we are entitled to so we can reduce the local property tax burden on our residents.’

   New York State United Teachers wants to enter the fray over whether state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli should have the authority to perform so-called performance audits—anything that falls outside a financial audit—on charter schools. The New York Charter Schools Association, the New York City Center for Charter School Excellence and more than a dozen charter schools recently filed suit against the Comptroller’s Office on the matter. They argue that the publicly funded but privately run schools are already regulated by state institutions and shouldn’t be audited on things like whether they are meeting the goals in their charters or their efficiency.

   NYSUT, which represents 585,000 teachers, school-related professionals and higher-education faculty, is seeking permission to influence the case by filing a friend-of-the-court brief.

   “Charter management wants to define itself as a public entity when receiving tax dollars but redefine itself as private and unaccountable to the state comptroller when spending those tax dollars,� NYSUT President Richard Iannuzzi said in a statement.
 
   “Knowing where dollars go, how students do and how charters select their student body are essential to education policy decisions,â€? he said. (more…)

The New York Civil Liberties Union and the National Coalition Against Censorship say state Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver shouldn’t have threatened to punish Columbia University for hosting a talk by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

“Official threats to penalize Columbia for hosting the talk not only make a mockery of the open discussion and debate that distinguish the university setting, but also contravene constitutional imperatives,” spokesmen for the organization wrote in a joint letter to Silver, City Councilman David Weprin, City Councilman James Gennaro, Assemblyman Dov Hikind, U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner and John McArdle, a spokesman for state Senate Republicans. “The First Amendment is meaningless if it does not extend to unpopular and controversial speech.”

The organizations wrote in response to comments made by Silver to The New York Sun in which he suggested the state withhold capital funding and other financial aid from the university.

Six months after Eliot Spitzer was sworn in, Yonkers Mayor Phil Amicone finally gets his first sit-down with the governor. The Republican Amicone is scheduled to meet with the Democratic governor at Spitzer’s mid-town Manhattan office Friday morning.

Describing the mayor’s agenda, Amicone spokesman David Simpson said Yonkers wants the governor’s help in fixing state-aid formulas for city and school operations. It’s long been City Hall’s contention that these formulas slight Yonkers in comparison to upstate big cities like Buffalo, Syracuse and Rochester. For instance, the state provides 43 percent of school construction and rebuilding projects in Yonkers in comparison to approximately 90, or more, for the others, Simpson said.

Simpson volunteerted that Amicone had not been able to meet the governor, “despite many attempts.” And in response to a question, Simpson said the governor has not made any visits to the state’e fourth largest city since Spitzer took office.

Aside from the assistance Yonkers seeks, Simpson said, this first meeting will be largely a get-to-know-you session and a discussion of the city’s interests, including major redevelopment efforts under way around the city.