County Budget Based on Fiscal Chicanery

For most of us conversations about the county budget are about as interesting as watching paint dry. The $1.78 billion budget passed last month by the Board of Legislators demands attention if only because we are among the county taxpayers left picking up the tab when revenues fall short of expectations, as they almost certainly will this year. A look at this budget will tell you that the money is not there to begin with. That’s a very big problem because we can't run a deficit like the federal government.

The board, led by Ken Jenkins (D Yonkers), produced this budget to one up County Executive Rob Astorino. After 12 years of skyrocketing taxes, the board, with most of the same players in place, would have you believe they underwent a collective conversion on the road to Damascus and have emerged as fiscal conservatives.

Astorino was elected a year ago with a mandate to cut the budget, and the final budget adopted by the board calls for a more than 2% tax cut. So even if the board’s motives were suspect, where’s the problem?

The problem is this: the 2011 budget adopted by our county legislators is very different from the one that Astorino proposed. He spent the better part of his first year in office peeling back layer after layer of Spano-era bureaucratic excess in an effort to determine essential programs and jettison the rest.

The board’s budget somehow performs the feat of adding back the programs Astorino cut from the budget, yet still promises a 2+% cut in taxes. How is that possible? By creating phony revenues and borrowing from the reserves — that’s how.

Many examples of this practice can be found in the 2011 county budget, but I've limited myself to three of the most egregious.

1. To cut $10 million from the budget, the board factored in NO raises for county employees in 2009, 2010, or 2011, even though six of the eight county unions are working with expired contracts and five of those six are subject to binding arbitration. When has an arbitrator ever awarded a union no raise over several years, let alone five unions? It won't happen — and the board knows this — yet they voted for it anyway. I call that dishonest.

2. The board predicted that revenue to the Labs & Research Department would increase by $1.5 million because of “enhancements” to the department’s business plan. The “business plan” hasn’t been written yet, let alone enhanced, and the board used the same story last year when it claimed the department would generate an additional $2.7 million in revenue. That money never materialized. What are the odds this year’s revenue will?

3. Astorino prudently canceled the county’s contract with the state to administer Section 8. It simply cost more to administer than we were reimbursed, leaving us short about $500,000 a year. In addition the county is responsible for the non-reimbursable retirement benefits, such as lifetime health care, for the county workers assigned to the program. Canceling the contract meant 38 layoffs. The board restored all 38 positions — with no contract. Go figure.

There are many other dubious calculations in the board’s budget but these alone should give you a sense of the integrity of the document.

In all fairness I contacted our legislator Judy Myers about the revenue projections in the budget. She got right back to me and pointed out a number of things in Rye and the surrounding communities funded by the money they put back in, which would be fine I suppose in a better economy. Myers, however, was unable to provide me with any facts to support her assurance that the revenue projections relied on real money.

This isn't a Democrat/Republican thing. Astorino called out the democratic majority on the board and he's right - they were responsible. However, fiscal chicanery favors no party as the newly elected Republican county executive in Nassau tried the same stunt — cutting taxes without cutting spending — and it blew up in his face, leaving Nassau with a bond rating in the cellar. Rockland’s credit rating was recently downgraded as well, primarily because its budget contained similar fantasy land assumptions. Clearly, as arcane as these details may seem, shoddy budgets have serious consequences long term.

When I say it’s not just an inter-party conflict, that’s not to say Ken Jenkins and his Democratic majority don't take particular delight in sticking it to the golden boy of the GOP, only that it’s clear from our 2010 State legislative session that even one-party rule doesn't necessarily mean civility, let alone accord, among politicians.

No, the Board of Legislators did this not because they're Democrats, but because they're politicians. The entire board is up for reelection this year and they're betting that you'll remember the tax cut and not the inevitable shortfall when the “projected revenues” don't materialize.

Will the elections in Westchester this year follow the statewide ones last year, where, even though there was political upheaval across the country, in New York we returned the same self-serving lifers to office? The outcome of this budget might be a factor — if we're paying attention.

Charmian Neary is a bored housewife and former political operative from Rye New York who is much better at politics than homemaking.