Do you think your local government is screwed up? Listen to mine.
I live in Erie Co., NY (Buffalo is the big city here). Since December, we've been in a budget crisis.
A little history:
In December, County Executive Joel Giambra (Republican) put forth two budget proposals - the "white" budget and the "red" budget. The white budget kept pretty much the same level of services that we are used to. The red budget shut down most county services: parks, libraries and the zoo. All we needed to do to get the white budget was to pass a "penny tax." That is raise the sales tax to 9.25% (4% state and 5.25% county).
This "tiny little tax increase" didn't go over too well. Giambra couldn't get a 2/3 majority. He finally got it, then the state assembly had to approve it, which they did. For final passage, it had to pass again (by 2/3) and once again it failed (one Democratic legislator switched his vote back to "no.")
Investigation by the local media found that the so-called red budget (which would be adopted by default) protected the patronage jobs. Giambra had a least 25 friends and relatives on county payroll, including a personal driver, making $81,000/yr.
As you can guess, this hasn't gone over too well with the county taxpayers. Giambra blames the state Medicaid system. He's partially right about that - NY state pushes half of the costs of Medicaid to the counties, and the costs keep increasing. Giambra, however, has shown incredible tone deafness on the issue.
www.buffalonews.com :
After finally cutting $108 million in government spending and hotly debating whether they had done the right thing, Erie County lawmakers Thursday presented a judge with a balanced county budget for 2005.
"I have been an advocate for reform, and it's possible I'm getting more reform than I ever really wanted," said Legislator Barry A. Weinstein, R-Amherst. He was one of many who said a new era has dawned as officials heed residents' demands to shrink the size of government before raising taxes.
"We are not fixing roads; we are not doing much of anything," said Charles M. Swanick, R-Kenmore, minutes before Thursday's historic vote. "We are pretty much in shutdown mode.
"I believe that by the middle of March people will feel the impacts," he said.
While Erie County hasn't raised taxes this decade, combined tax rates across all local governments set the property tax burden here at 42 percent above the national average. Taxpayers in recent months warned that they wouldn't accept a county tax hike of any kind, including the proposed new penny on the sales tax that would have raised that levy to 9.25 cents on the dollar.
Residents seized on the fact patronage jobs and pork-barrel spending always seemed to survive, even in the lean years.
Finally in 2005, the $2.25 million in legislators' pork has been wiped out along with many, though not all, of the patronage jobs countywide.
I don't support a further tax increase. Buffalo has not participated in the economic recovery of the 90s. High taxes are partly responsible. However, I don't see a win in this situation. We're paying the same taxes for less services. Also, Joel Giambra loses. He was looked at by the state party because he was a popular county executive in a Democratic county. His career is over now (he's already stated he's not running for re-election). This seems to be a case of how not to run government. Giambra accomplished one thing, though. He managed to make Buffalo mayor Anthony Masiello look less incompetent by comparison.
I don't know the answer. If I was running the state government, I would probably relieve the counties by bringing back all the Medicaid costs to the state. This is just moving the problem around, obviously. The state needs to address the rising costs of Medicaid, most of which is from nursing home care. How? I don't know. Health care costs are a crisis all over the country. New York has one of the most generous Medicaid programs in the country. Do I want to throw people off Medicaid? No, of course not. What is the answer though?