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New Law Includes Two Thiele Proposals
to Reduce School Costs
Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele (I, D, WF-Sag Harbor) reported on Tuesday that the Mandate Relief Package adopted by the New York State Legislature and signed by Governor Cuomo includes two proposals he had offered earlier this session.
In April, Mr. Thiele introduced A.7149, which permits school districts to join
together to share administrative services, including that of Superintendent. The bill passed on Friday enables school districts with less than 1,000 students each to enter into a contract with up to two additional school districts with similar amount.
Such shared services were not permitted under previous law. The 2nd Assembly District contains nine school districts with fewer than 1000 students each.
Last February, Mr. Thiele introduced A.4022, which would permit school
districts to join together to provide transportation services.. The new law enacted last week
mirrors the Thiele proposal. Any school district may join together with another one to
provide such services or, to enter into a contract with another district to provide the services.
Commenting on passage of the laws, Mr. Thiele, a member of the Assembly Education Committee, said he had worked with both the school districts and taxpayers to find ways to reduce eduction costs without adversely impacting education quality.
"I am pleased," he added, "that Governor Cuomo included these ideas in the mandate relief proposal and that they have now been signed into law."
Levy and Legislature at Costly Odds
Hauppauge, NY –In case you missed this on Monday, County Executive Steve Levy vetoed 57 Suffolk Legislature amendments to the 2012-2014 Capital Program that would add nearly $127 million to the program.
Yesterday (Tuesday) the Legislature overrode all 57 of Capital Budget Vetoes.
“The legislature talked a good game about wanting to cut county debt,” Mr. Levy opined, “but this vote showed once again that it has been their actions, rather than the executive’s, that have increased borrowing over the years.”
Mr. Levy had introduced a capital budget and program that significantly cut spending and presented the lowest amount of bonding in 30 years; but the legislature approved an omnibus bill that would increase his proposal by 52 percent in 2012 and by 44 percent combined over the next three years.
“Some members of the legislature have been raising a clarion call lately about the county’s borrowing, and we are giving them every opportunity to put the appropriate action to their words,” Mr. Levy said.
In his letter to the legislators, announcing the vetoes, Mr. Levy wrote: “Suffolk County should be very proud that our debt level is so modest that bond raters identify this fact as justification for establishing our highest bond rating ever.”
Noting that the county debt level is 1/3 that of Nassau County, Mr. Levy added that his goal through this budget is to reduce the debt level from the present level. He said his proposed budget represents the lowest projected bonding since the Proposed 1982 Capital Budget.
The county executive urged legislators to sustain his vetoes at their general meeting on Tuesday. “If the legislature sustains all of my vetoes, the Adopted 2012 Capital Budget at $107,225,260, will become the lowest single-year budget since the 2001 Adopted Capital Budget. If sustained, the three-year Adopted Capital Program at $298,521,841 will become the lowest three-year program since the 2000-2002 program and the level of bonding, at $42,944,047, will become the lowest amount of serial bonds adopted since 1998,” Levy wrote.
With regard to the county’s overall debt burden, the county executive said that the bulk of that debt came from three different sources:
• A large portion of the debt was due to a correctional facility that the county was mandated to construct by New York State.
• The second was debt incurred for our open space preservation program that was wholeheartedly supported by the legislature, and the taxpayers approved from a completely separate source of funding the quarter-percent sales tax program, which has no impact on property taxes.
• The third source of debt was incurred through annual legislative overrides of Levy’s capital budgets that have added over $120 million dollars of projects to the Capital Program.
“Year after year,” Mr. Levy added, “my proposed capital budgets were less than the previous year’s adopted budget, yet the legislature routinely restored and increased projects in the program. The same is true this year, with the legislature poised to add $126 million more in funding to the 2012-2014 Proposed Capital Program, at a time when the operating budget can least afford the burden of added debt service in such a challenging fiscal climate.”
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