Archive for November, 2008

PEF joins hundreds at “Better Budget” rally

Albany-Members of the New York State Public Employees Federation (PEF) carried signs that read “We’re All In This Together,” as they listened to speeches from groups concerned about how the state intends to close a growing multi-billion dollar budget gap.

Full Story: Better Budget

BALCONY Co-Chair Alan Lubin honored

BALCONY Co-Chair Alan Lubin was honored for his work on behalf of the Medicare Rights Center Wednesday Night November 12th in New York.

Lubin is seated in middle of photo along with other BALCONY supporters, Peter Slocum of the American Cancer Society (lower left) and attorney Jeffrey Krinsk (lower right) . Joining them are: Adria Linehan BALCONY Health Care Advocacy Coordinator, Lou Gordon BALCONY director, and Eleni Delimpaltadaki of Opportunity Agenda and a member of the BALCONY issues advisory council.

Uninsured Young Adults Forum – PSAs available for viewing

View these important PSAs:  Insurance

Sharing the pain in $2B cuts

Paterson’s plan set for release today has “reductions across virtually every area of state spending”

By Casey Seiler and James M. Odato

Gov. David Paterson will unveil $2 billion in budget cuts this morning, less than a week before the Legislature returns for a special session to address the state’s ballooning deficit.

The proposal will include “reductions across virtually every area of state spending,” said Risa Heller, the governor’s communications director, in a statement.

“Given the magnitude of this crisis, the only way we are going to be able to get New York’s fiscal house in order is through shared sacrifice,” the statement continued. “Just as families across the state must adjust to changing financial circumstances, so must our government and those who rely upon state funding.”

The cuts will be discussed in detail at a news conference scheduled for 11 a.m. at the governor’s New York City offices.

Some details of the proposals emerged on Tuesday. Sources familiar with Paterson’s plans for reducing health care expenses said across-the-board cuts are planned, with hospitals, nursing homes and home care programs being hit to different degrees. Cuts to the funds provided to hospitals and nursing homes could reach 8 percent, while home care may escape with a 2 percent reduction in aid.

In education, Paterson has been proposing almost $100 million in cuts to public colleges. He also wants university professors and other public employees to increase their participation in health insurance costs, said Alan Lubin, executive vice president of the New York State United Teachers.

Insurers will also suffer some additional costs: The governor is expected to ask for another $120 million in fees called “covered lives assessments” on health insurance policies, bringing the total revenue derived from the fees to well over $1 billion. The assessments tend to drive up the costs of policies.

Former Gov. Eliot Spitzer sought $190 million in additional covered lives assessment fees. After legislative push back, Spitzer won just $70 million for this year’s budget, leaving the remaining $120 million for another budget fight — apparently the one Paterson is now waging.

“They’re going back to the well on everything that’s been rejected by the Legislature in recent years,” a top legislative aide said.

The cost controls Paterson will propose today will likely approach $500 million in Medicaid savings.

Tuesday afternoon, Paterson was in Syracuse discussing the fiscal crisis at a town hall meeting — his second in two weeks. While he would not discuss details, the governor described the cuts as both painful and necessary.

“We’ll be operating a big knife, but trying to operate it like a scalpel,” he told the audience.

In Tuesday’s appearances and interviews, Paterson apparently for the first time broached two ideas for future consideration: a repeal of the gasoline tax cap, which is currently set at $2 per gallon, and the possibility of targeting education cuts so that wealthy districts sustain the most reductions ­— a measure that would have direct negative effects on Long Island, where state Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos has won significant additional funds for schools in his power base.

Following the hour-long town hall session — hosted by Susan Arbetter of WMHT — Paterson spoke to reporters on the likely reaction to his plan from unions, advocates and municipal leaders.
“I completely sympathize with the pain that they may have to ask of some of the members of their unions, some of the employees of companies, some of the operations of local governments that may be hindered,” he said.

“This is why I’m trying to make it clear how serious the situation is. And as long as I think I’m just dealing with those who haven’t fully understood the crisis yet, then I don’t mind doing it. But the kind of (criticism about) who’s winning and who’s losing, who got cut and who didn’t get cut — this is not a reality TV show; this is not a game. This is a very serious situation that involves the survival of the people of New York and the quality of their lives.”

Paterson had previously issued a call for leaders of the state Assembly and Senate to provide their ideas for cuts to his office, with a deadline of last Friday. None were offered.

“I think Republicans and Democrats have got to recognize how much the public is watching, how much citizens know how bad the budget deficit is,” Paterson said in his news conference. “So I think that whether you’re a lame duck, whether you’re a growing duck or whatever it is, that you don’t duck your responsibilities.”

“… This is not campaign time,” Paterson added. “During the campaigns, when I heard they weren’t going to cut this and they weren’t going to do that, I dismissed it — because nobody campaigns by telling you what they’re going to cut. But now it’s time for governance. And what leads to unsuccessful campaigns is a lack of good governance.”

Capitol insiders suggest that Paterson’s plan will be just the beginning of an elaborate back-and-forth with public-policy stakeholders — including the Legislature as well as labor unions and special-interest groups — that could continue well beyond the mid-December release of Paterson’s proposed budget and the installation of the new Assembly and Senate in January. The state budget has a March 31 deadline, although it has been exceeded numerous times in recent decades.

Next week’s special session will take place amid a thick fog of post-election politics. The Republican majority in the state Senate appears to be on its way out after last week’s losses, although the chamber’s Democrats have spent the last week dealing with a quasi-revolt by the so-called “Gang of Four,” an independent caucus that has threatened to withhold support from current Minority Leader Malcolm Smith.

One of the four, Senator-elect Hiram Monserrate, broke away from the group by announcing his support for Smith’s leadership over the weekend. The remaining three — Sens. Carl Kruger and Ruben Diaz Sr. and Senator-elect Pedro Espada Jr. — met Tuesday to discuss their plans; according to The New York Times, the three will not make their leadership pick until January.

Talking to reporters Tuesday, Paterson said any leadership dispute should be focused on the question of “who can govern better.”
“But I’m not hearing that in these conversations,” he said. “I’m hearing who’s going to get a better deal, who’s going to get a better committee assignment. One of [the four] said they want to be the majority leader. … And I would say that this is the sort of superfluous type of selfishness that’s gotten us into this mess in the first place. Right now, we need serious people who are ready to address this budget deficit.”

The Senate Republican conference is planning to meet at the Capitol today.

On Thursday, the Assembly’s Ways and Means Committee will hold its second hearings on the impact of the economic crisis. The committee will also review the governor’s proposals.

Casey Seiler can be reached at 454-5619 or by e-mail at cseiler@timesunion.com.

The knife

Likely elements of Gov. Paterson’s budget-cutting package:

Cuts to public colleges and universities of $100 million

Increased health care insurance contributions by state workers

An 8 percent reduction in aid to hospitals and nursing homes

A 2 percent reduction in home health care aid

For final detail of the governor’s plan, visit timesunion.com and the Capitol Confidential blog (http://blogs.timesunion.com/capitol) throughout the day.

“This is a very serious situation that involves the survival of the people of New York and the quality of their lives.”

Gov. David Paterson

OVER 200 NON PROFITS, SERVICE PROVIDERS, UNIONS AND FAITH-BASED GROUPS TO GOVERNOR PATERSON: CUTS ALONE WILL DEVASTATE NEW YORK’S FUTURE

Groups Providing Critical State Services Call on Paterson to Stop Exempting Wealthy New Yorkers from Budget Pain and to Use the Tax Stabilization Reserve Fund to Fill the Gap!

(Albany, N.Y)— On the day Governor Paterson is announcing billions in budget cuts, the Better Choice Budget Campaign and the One New York: Fighting for Fairness joined together to call on the Governor and legislative leaders to abandon a budget policy that calls on working families and vulnerable New Yorkers to bear the burden of the state’s fiscal crisis.

Working Men and Women Must Not Bear the Burden of NYS Budget Crisis

Statement by Alan Lubin and Bruce Ventimiglia, Co-Chairmen of BALCONY, The Business and Labor Coalition of New York.

The Wall Street Meltdown was not created by working men and women and they must not be forced to bear the brunt of New York State’s Budget Crisis.

Destruction of the public workforce, schools, state services and health care would leave our state with a terrible economy, hasten our decline and dramatically impact the ability of small businesses to survive.

The state must be more realistic in its solutions to repair the budget shortfalls. Just as the federal government has moved quickly to support the financial sector with almost a trillion dollars, so too must Washington provide the assistance necessary for New York State and other states.

NY public worker unions oppose reopening contracts

By Valerie Bauman

Three of New York’s most powerful public employee unions say they won’t reopen contracts to any concessions despite the state’s fiscal crisis, delivering an early blow to Gov. David Paterson’s plans to fill a $2 billion deficit next week.

“I don’t see any local leader wanting to come to the table to give something up,” said Richard Iannuzzi, president of New York State United Teachers. “So, if there’s an incentive being offered in exchange for what they would be giving up, then local leaders may entertain that.”

Civil Service Employees Association President Danny Donohue said reopening contracts is “not acceptable.”

It’s unclear what incentives may sway employee unions, which carry tremendous power with lawmakers in Albany.

Ken Brynien, president of the Public Employees Federation, said “nothing that comes to mind” would be incentive enough for his union to reconsider opening labor talks.

“I don’t believe that further reduction in staff would benefit the taxpayers of the state,” he said. “We’re having a difficult enough time providing services.”

Paterson wants $2 billion in spending cut from what remains of the $120 billion 2008-2009 budget. He just returned Monday to New York from Puerto Rico, where he was attending a conference sponsored by the Assembly Puerto Rican/Hispanic Task Force. Paterson said the recession, overspending by the state and Wall Street’s meltdown will result in $47 billion in deficits over the next four years if nothing is done.

“The governor will be releasing his proposals later this week,” spokesman Jeffrey Gordon said. “And he has said that, given the magnitude of our fiscal crisis, no area of state spending can be off the table.”

The governor is expected to issue further budget-cutting proposals Wednesday.

The biggest chunks of the state’s $120 billion budget are Medicaid and school aid, which have historically been protected by the powerful unions. But Paterson has said billions of dollars in cuts next year and midyear cuts to school aid are all on the table.

Even if the unions agree to contract talks, it’s unclear how much New Yorkers would know about the fiscal impact of contract negotiations before any agreements are ratified, said Lise Bang-Jensen, a senior fiscal policy analyst for the fiscally conservative Empire Center for New York State Policy. The state does often release a list of changes the contracts would include in advance, but that doesn’t always include fiscal details.

In New York, details of collective bargaining agreements with public employee unions are at times under a “shroud of secrecy,” offering local governments protection from public protest and the unions heavy sway during negotiations, Bang-Jensen said.

Johnson City, about 64 miles south of Syracuse, faced major shortfalls after the village board approved a new contract with the firefighters union to raise salaries by 33 percent in five years. Village officials later admitted salaries would actually go up by 41 percent in five years.

The village faces budget shortfalls and doesn’t have enough money to pay firefighter salaries after Jan. 29, 2009.

“We’re talking about a lot of money here, and the public should know in advance where it’s going and how much is being spent,” Bang-Jensen said.

Most of the biggest contracts in New York state spending are settled, including CSEA, PEF and the United University Professions.

Union officials say there are other ways to cut spending and supplement the budget without layoffs or concessions.

Those ideas would benefit unions by including tax hikes for the rich and eliminating the use of independent contractors instead of state employees.

Paterson Says Schools and Medicaid Face Cuts

By Danny Hakim

SAN JUAN, P.R. — Gov. David A. Paterson said in an interview on Sunday that he would almost certainly seek billions of dollars in cuts to Medicaid, as well as midyear reductions in school aid, to address New York’s worsening fiscal condition.

He also said he expected to urge labor unions to reopen the contracts they have struck on behalf of public employees as a way to avoid or decrease layoffs.

Such a step is reminiscent of measures taken by New York City in the financial crisis of the 1970s or moves made more recently by the Big Three domestic automakers to reduce their labor costs after years of granting steady raises and comprehensive health and pension benefits.

Those same types of wage and benefit concessions have long weighed on New York, though the catalyst for the state’s current predicament has been the collapse in tax revenue from Wall Street.

The governor, who spent more than two decades as a state senator representing Harlem, said he would be forced to cut even programs he sponsored as a legislator, and he expected to preside over a turbulent period for the state government.

“There’ll be protests, and because of the drastic nature of the cuts, those who protest will have very valid points, for which I don’t have any answer, other than ‘What’s your idea?’ ” Mr. Paterson said. “We’re not going to close a $12.5 billion deficit with 5 percent cuts to health and education.”

Asked if the cuts for education and health care programs would be in the billions of dollars next year, he said, “Unquestionably.”

His comments, made during an interview between sessions at a conference held here by Latino lawmakers from New York State, put to rest any doubts about the depth of the state’s fiscal crisis.

Some of the cuts will be sought when lawmakers return to Albany on Nov. 18 for a special session to help close a $1.5 billion budget gap for the current fiscal year, which ends in March, and to get an early start on next year’s budget. Any cuts would need support from the Legislature. And the governor will have to propose far steeper cuts when he introduces a budget next month for the fiscal year that ends in March 2010 — that budget will need to close a $12.5 billion deficit.

Cutting school aid in the middle of the school year, if it comes to pass, will represent an about-face from the sharp increases undertaken by former Gov. Eliot Spitzer to end years of court challenges by advocacy groups that contended that New York City schools were being shortchanged by Albany. The state has not made midyear school aid cuts since the early 1990s, and schools in New York City and elsewhere are already feeling the pinch as municipalities cut their own budgets.

Since taking over in March, after Mr. Spitzer’s resignation, Mr. Paterson has been aggressive in sounding the alarm about the state’s fiscal woes, at times even suggesting that his predecessor’s staff should have moved more quickly to prepare for the recession.

But the governor, who has sometimes made his liberal base uneasy with his newfound mantra of cost-cutting, has by far his toughest fights ahead of him. Reopening labor contracts would prove difficult, because state law bars the government from unilaterally altering the terms of such agreements, though the unions might face the threat of layoffs if they refused.

“They realistically see that it’s one of the options that I would have to examine, and I realistically understand that that really is a place that they don’t want to go,” Mr. Paterson said.

“There is only a harm if the union sees it as a harm,” the governor added. “As long as the union sees that as a viable option in lieu of layoffs, then I think you have a partnership.”

Mr. Paterson said he had not broached the issue with labor leaders in so many words, though he believed they knew it was a subject on the horizon.

“No one actually has said it, but we say things to each other like, what we said back in September was, ‘If this gets any worse, we know what we’re going to have to do,’ ” he said.

How the Legislature will respond remains to be seen; Mr. Paterson must negotiate with the Senate amid significant leadership turmoil.

Dean G. Skelos, the Senate majority leader and a Long Island Republican, has vowed to block education cuts in the Nov. 18 special session — “New York State must not balance its budget by offloading its costs to schools,” he said recently, and he has been hailed by teachers’ unions for ruling out such cuts.

But Democrats won 32 of 62 seats in the Senate in Tuesday’s election, winning a majority for the first time in more than four decades. Three Democrats, however, have yet to commit to supporting the Senate minority leader, Malcolm Smith, a Queens Democrat, as majority leader when the new Legislature is seated in January.

That leaves the Senate’s leadership uncertain at an inopportune moment. Mr. Smith said little to reporters this weekend. Both he and Mr. Skelos were here to woo two key Latino lawmakers who had not yet decided whom to support as leader.

Dan Weiller, a spokesman for Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, the Legislature’s top Democrat, said, “The speaker has said repeatedly that everything is on the table and that we’re prepared to work with the governor and the Senate to make tough choices.”

Cuts in school aid and Medicaid are sure to be contentious. Unions representing teachers and hospital workers are among the most powerful special interests in Albany and have waged high-profile publicity campaigns in the past to ward off such cuts.

“Obviously, we will argue strongly against it,” said Richard C. Iannuzzi, president of New York State United Teachers.

“It’s not like putting off a construction project or an investment; you’re talking here about a year in a child’s life,” he said. “It’s hard to make that up.”

Mr. Iannuzzi’s union also encompasses the United University Professions, a local that represents tens of thousands of faculty members at state universities. While he acknowledged that layoffs were “a threat the governor has the ability to make,” he was cool to the idea of reopening labor contracts.

“If the only purpose in reopening it is to take something out, I don’t see a lot of our locals entering into that conversation,” he said. “If there is some incentive that appeals to them, then we’ll enter into that conversation.”

Mr. Paterson also said a number of steps were being considered, including long-term leases of state assets; he has already set up a commission to study such proposals.

“I don’t want to do things that affect the ability of future legislators and governors to govern,” Mr. Paterson said, “but I do want to find ways to leverage some of the assets we have.”

In more flush times, raising money through gimmicks or “one-shot” infusions of capital raised by selling assets or privatizing state resources was frowned on by budget watchdogs. But, the governor said, “we’re in a one-shot period” because of “the sheer volume of the deficit.”

Mr. Paterson said he was girding for the backlash.

“I don’t need a protest for it to bother me; I used to fight for some of these causes,” he said, adding that the situation would only worsen by waiting.

“I’ll feel pain in my stomach,” he said, “but my conscience will be clear.”

POLS POISED TO BUST GOV’S BUDGET CHOPS

By Frederic U. Dicker

Gov. Paterson is heading for his first major defeat, as lawmakers appear likely to reject his $2 billion in proposed state spending cuts aimed at containing a ballooning budget deficit, The Post learned yesterday.

Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos (R-Nassau), smarting over last week’s loss of majority control to the Democrats, may even refuse to take up Paterson’s budget-cutting request at the “emergency” session called by the governor for a week from tomorrow, sources said.

Late last week, Skelos suggested in a little-noticed budget analysis that Paterson was exaggerating the seriousness of state budget problems, signaling to many he will refuse to act. And by waiting until January to take action, Skelos could leave Democrats with all the blame for what are expected to be widely unpopular budget cuts. That is assuming his uphill efforts to persuade two Democrats to defect to the GOP side in order to keep Republicans in control are unsuccessful.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan), Paterson’s most important legislative ally, was described by sources as unwilling to pass the governor’s proposed cuts unless the Senate, which will be under GOP control until the end of the year, agrees to do so as well. “Shelly doesn’t want his members angering all the special interests by cutting spending unless there’s an agreement with the Senate and the governor to do so,” an Assembly insider said. “Look, it takes people around here a month to agree on how to spend $1 billion, so how are we going to have a quick session and agree to cut $2 billion?” declared one of the Legislature’s most powerful Democrats.

Skelos, Silver and even Senate Minority Leader Malcolm Smith (D-Queens), likely the next majority leader, all stiffed Paterson last Friday when they refused the governor’s request to submit their own proposals for budget reductions in advance of the upcoming session. Paterson has yet to reveal what cuts he thinks should be made, but is expected to do so later this week. Paterson, calling New York’s budget crisis the worst since the Great Depression, has repeatedly said the state must cut spending this year to control what could grow to an unprecedented $14 billion-plus budget deficit next year. The two largest areas of state spending – school aid and Medicaid/health care – are among the most popular programs with state lawmakers, who receive millions of dollars in campaign contributions from the teachers and hospital-workers unions, as well as from the health-care industry itself. Paterson is expected to hold closed-door meetings with Skelos and Silver on the budget crisis later this week. The governor has ruled out state tax hikes this year, but has left open the possibility that he would seek them as part of a package to balance the budget for the fiscal year beginning April 1.

‘Waitress Moms’ now need real help, not just more promises

By Teresa Heinz Kerry and Jeffrey Lewis

Political consultants and the media began creating labels for women voters eight years ago. First, it was the Soccer Mom, a symbol of the stress and rewards of prosperous women raising active children. Next was the Security Mom, a symbol of our nation’s fears after 9/11.

This election year, we met the Waitress Moms — mostly worried about keeping a roof over their heads and putting food on the table. Many are in dead-end jobs and raising children alone. Their lives are defined by overwhelming economic insecurity. The American dream — the fundamental belief that hard work can build a better life — isn’t on the menu of Waitress Moms.

The tie that binds the Soccer Mom to the Security Mom to the Waitress Mom is that presidential candidates have needed their votes. But, in prior elections, candidates offered few real policy solutions to address the stresses in the lives of these women. The same can be said of this year’s presidential candidates.

At the Heinz Family Philanthropies, we have identified three very real challenges Waitress Moms face. More important, we propose real solutions.

The challenges
First, Waitress Moms can’t depend on their jobs. All low-wage workers face limited opportunities for advancement. For women, residual sexism limits them further.

Second, Waitress Moms can’t depend on their families. More often, their families depend on them. Estimates suggest that caregiving middle-aged women experience 40% fewer paid work hours than those who don’t provide care. Also, women caregivers lose about 10% of their median annual incomes in related out-of-pocket expenses. This equates to less money saved, lower Social Security benefits, smaller (if any) pensions, and thinner resumes.

Third, Waitress Moms can’t depend on existing social safety nets. Medicaid is not a health care fallback for them. So they go without. But when they can no longer go without, they head to the emergency room. And Social Security fails Waitress Moms by not counting their years of caregiving toward the credits they need to earn a benefit.

Meaningful solutions
This is the tough reality for Waitress Moms. But it doesn’t have to be. Our next president has an opportunity to tackle their struggles and help them step toward the American dream.

• Improved access to child care: We can make accessible and affordable child care more available. We could provide tax incentives for employers to underwrite the costs of on-site childcare, or refundable tax credits for Waitress Moms to help defray expenses. Improved access means more women who can commit more hours to earning a paycheck.

• Equal opportunities for saving: It’s hard enough in this economy to save money. For women, out-of-date rules make it harder.

Take a look at the current rules for food stamps or Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). To be eligible, a woman who loses a job must spend down her assets to $3,000. If she owns a $125,000 home, she rightfully gets to keep it. But if she manages to put away $15,000 toward buying a home and then loses her job, she has to spend it down to $3,000 or risk losing assistance. Changing this law would help bring security to millions of Waitress Moms.

Further, few waitress jobs come with a retirement savings plan. Government should provide incentives for low- and moderate-income savers in the form of a matching contribution to a tax-deferred account.

• Protect and strengthen Social Security: The gender wage gap turns into a retirement asset gap due to women’s caregiving years out of the workforce. Waitress Moms must be assured Social Security will remain a reliable source of income. Today, benefits are calculated by averaging monthly income over the 35 highest-earning years. Women who take time away for caregiving get zeros factored into their calculations. This lowers their benefits.

We should calculate benefits for women caregivers based on their highest 30 years of income to give them five years’ credit. It increases the benefit and sends a message that our society values raising the next generation and taking care of the last one.

The candidates who emerged as the winners in Tuesday’s election need to get beyond the campaign label and commit to improving the lives of Waitress Moms.

When the media forget Joe the Plumber, these women will still be working hard to help their families stay afloat. Waitress Moms are real women with real problems. They work hard to make do, and always put family first.

TERESA HEINZ KERRY is chairman of the Heinz Family Philanthropies. Detroit native JEFFREY LEWIS is the organization’s president. Contact them at jlewis@heinzoffice.org.