Statement of CSEA President Danny Donohue on state budget agreement

“Legislators join Governor in Reckless and Irresponsible Budget Plan”

Statement of CSEA President Danny Donohue on state budget agreement.

“There’s a lot to dislike in the budget agreement reached between Governor David Paterson and the leaders of the two houses of the legislature, but no one should have any illusion that it moves New York forward through ‘shared sacrifice.’ The agreement sticks it to state employees and undermines the future of the state’s health care system beyond reason.

“The budget agreement assumes $481 million in ‘savings’ from the unnecessary layoff of state employees making the legislature complicit in a reckless and irresponsible plan that is both impractical and nasty while eroding state services at a time when they are needed most.

“Until now it has largely been the governor’s responsibility to answer for his reckless plans. Should these plans move forward in the two houses, state Senators and Assembly members will have to answer for the consequences of their votes – New Yorkers deserve to know the who, what, when, where and why of these layoffs before this budget plan moves forward.”

Laborers Recruit Apprentices

From the New York State Department of Labor

ROCHESTER, NY — The Rochester Laborers’ Joint Apprenticeship Committee Local 435, will conduct recruitment from April 2, 2009 through May 7, 2009 for twenty skilled construction craft laborer apprentices, State Labor Commissioner M. Patricia Smith announced today. Read the press release: Recruit

Budget: Cash in, cash out

LOCAL EFFECTS

Major elements: Saratoga Springs loses $1.8 million because the budget agreement changes how aid is given out to municipalities that host video lottery terminals. Municipalities with racinos will now receive aid based on their poverty rates — costing the city 5 percent of its revenue; Saratoga County loses $1.1 million.

The city and county are the only municipalities of 17 in the state to lose all their VLT assistance under the new terms of the program. Albany could lose as much as $1.4 million this year in unrestricted state aid through what’s known as the Aid and Incentives for Municipalities program. Increases in the so-called AIM funding were frozen, and cities outside of New York City will receive what they got in 2008. But cities like Albany, where the fiscal year starts in January, had already budgeted for the increase.

Troy is looking at a roughly $212,000 shortfall; Schenectady will lose out on about $500,000. State leaders hope to offer several mechanisms for municipalities to deal with the frozen aid levels, including a new pension tier and greater purchasing flexibility.

Reaction: “We’re now going to have to revisit our entire budget and rethink every position, every expenditure,” said Saratoga Springs Finance Commissioner Kenneth Ivins.
“This is going to compound problems for the cities,” said Albany Mayor Jerry Jennings, who said the loss of AIM funding could double the city’s projected deficit by the end of 2010.

SCHOOLS

Major elements: Due mainly to federal stimulus dollars, much of the state education funding that was cut in Gov. David Paterson’s proposed budget was restored. Public schools will receive $21.9 billion in state aid in the 2009-2010 school year — an increase of $405 million, or 1.9 percent. Foundation Aid will remain at its 2008-2009 level, or $14.8 billion, for the next two school years. But additional funding for the poorest districts, required by court order, won’t be fully phased in until the 2013-2014 school year. Funding levels for individual school districts were not immediately released on Monday.

Reaction: Billy Easton, executive director of the Alliance for Quality Education, applauded the plan to tax New York’s wealthiest residents as a way to provide education dollars, but blasted the budget for not going far enough to fund school districts. “We have the President and the Congress to thank for all the funds that provide relief,” Easton said. “The state did not use state money.”
Schenectady Superintendent Eric Ely was not pleased with the budget and said it will require him to raise taxes. “I think the budget proposal I’m seeing will negatively impact the poor in New York a lot more than it does the wealthy,” Ely said.

HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES
Major elements: Again using federal stimulus money, the Legislature’s budget restores $1.2 billion of the $2.3 billion in health care cuts proposed in the governor’s budget. Overall, the health budget would increase $3.3 billion to $48.6 billion, a 6.7 percent increase.
The Legislature’s spending plan adopts many of Paterson’s proposals, including a major shift in Medicaid reimbursement: fees paid for primary care will increase while reimbursement for inpatient care will decrease. It is part of a health reform effort designed to prevent health problems from escalating to the level of hospitalization.

The budget reduces payments to hospitals by $300 million, less than half the governor’s proposed $700 million cut. Still, the hospital industry argues hospitals will be forced to lay off staff and cut services even though the state will provide aid to hospitals hurt most by the new payment system.

The spending plan reduces Medicaid payments to nursing homes and home care agencies by $293 million. Home care agencies will pay a tax on their revenues, totaling $14.2 million.

Health insurance companies will be assessed an additional $728 million and, for the first time, out-of-state insurance companies will have to pay the covered-lives assessment.

The health budget reduces funding for anti-tobacco programs by $10 million and increases tobacco fees by $18.5 million through fees paid by tobacco retailers and a tax on the small cigars called cigarillos.

The budget also gives a little back to struggling families: an additional $4.5 million for food pantries; a boost to the basic welfare grant by $30 a month to $268 for a family of three; and with the help of federal stimulus money, the food stamp stipend will increase $63 a month for a total of $288 based on the national average for a household.

Medicaid enrollment increased 5.8 percent in 2008, and this budget makes it easier for families to re-enroll by eliminating face-to-face interviews, finger-imaging and asset testing.

Reaction: “Health care providers supported the investments in primary care — the lone element of true reform in this budget agreement — and we understood the economic situation would require some cuts,” said Daniel Sisto, president of the Healthcare Association of New York State. “However, this budget goes far beyond what was necessary or appropriate, threatening the safety and well-being of millions of New Yorkers who rely on the health care delivery system.”
HIGHER EDUCATION

Major elements: The state budget provides $2.5 billion the State University of New York system, a $118 million increase from last year. The City University of New York will receive $1.9 billion, a $144.4 million increase.
The Tuition Assistance Program, which awards eligible students annual grants of $5,000, will not suffer the governor’s proposed $50 million cut.

The budget restores $3.6 million for the Collegiate Science and Technology Entry Program, and maintains funding for the Educational Opportunity Program, the Higher Education Opportunity Program and the Search for Education, Elevation and Knowledge Program — all of which encourage enrollment in college through counseling, tutoring and financial assistance.

Reaction: Advocates spent much of Monday poring over the budget to find out the significance for higher education. Denyce Duncan Lacy, spokeswoman for the United University Professions, said late in the day that a team of experts for her organization was still determining the impact on its 35,000 members employed by SUNY.
Still, she was optimistic about the results. “Given the tight fiscal situation the state finds itself in, overall there’s more good news than bad for SUNY,” she said.

ENVIRONMENT

Major elements: Returnable 5-cent deposits on bottles, in place since 1982 on carbonated beverages, will be added to bottled water to promote recycling; 80 percent of deposits on unredeemed bottles, which have previously been kept by bottling companies, will now go into the state general fund. That’s worth more than $100 million a year in extra revenue.
The budget also keeps the state real estate transfer tax in place to fund the Environmental Protection fund, rather than shifting financial underpinnings to unclaimed bottle deposits. There will be $222 million in the fund, up from $205 million sought by the governor but less than this year’s $250 million.

Among programs restored were the Hudson Valley Greenway, at a cost of $1 million. Farmland protection programs, where the state buys development rights, will jump from $17.5 million to $23 million.

Reaction: Business groups opposed to bottle bill expansion claim it could cost more than double the expected $100 million and force some bottlers to close. Local governments in the Adirondacks and Catskills welcomed the demise of a proposal for the state to cap its property tax payments on forever-wild Forest Preserve lands, which could have cost local governments about $9 million annually.
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Major elements: The budget includes reform of the Empire Zone tax program. Responding to complaints that Empire Zone businesses never live up to initial promises, the reform requires firms to produce more than $1 in investment and wages for every $1 in state investment. Empire Zone businesses that don’t meet the requirement face decertification from the program. Also, the budget ends the Empire Zone program next year — a year earlier than called for in current law.
Left out of the budget is Paterson’s proposal to sell wine in grocery stores, which was touted as a way to raise $105 million in franchise fees from stores and pharmacies that already sell beer.

Reaction: Business organizations on Monday blasted the budget and called it detrimental to economic development. Groups like the Business Council of New York State, the New York State Association of Realtors, the New York Farm Bureau and others mostly objected to the budget’s increases in taxes and fees, and what they dubbed its failure to accomplish property-tax reform.
“As far as we’re concerned, this is the worst budget ever,” said Kenneth Adams, president of the fiscally conservative Business Council.

TRANSPORTATION

Major elements: The budget agreement restores $112 million that was originally cut from the Consolidated Highway Improvement Program, which pays for repairs on local roads. That returns the total amount available under the program to $363 million, the same as last year, said Steve Stallmer, vice president of government and public affairs for the New York State Associated General Contractors. Overall highway spending was trimmed by less than $40 million, a cutback Stallmer called “minimal” given the state’s fiscal difficulties.

Reaction: Operating support for Amtrak’s Adirondack passenger rail service between the Capital Region and Montreal was restored, a move that was welcomed by Bruce Becker, president of the Empire State Passengers Association, a rail advocacy group. The executive budget had cut funding in half, to $2.5 million, a move Becker and others feared would end the service.
And the Capital District Transportation Authority, which faced a $3.1 million cut in its state operating support, saw $2.4 million of that support restored, said CDTA spokeswoman Margo Janack.

That will allow the CDTA board to consider increasing capacity on its most crowded trunk routes, advancing its bus rapid transit project along Route 5 between Albany and Schenectady, and making service improvements in Schenectady County.

It also may allow the board to avoid a second fare increase it was considering for next year, she said. CDTA fares will increase on Wednesday, with the base fare rising 50 cents to $1.50.

PRISONS

Major elements: Camp McGregor, a minimum-security state prison in Saratoga County, is on a list of three prisons to be closed. The camp in Wilton currently has 59 inmates and is part of the Mt. McGregor Correctional Facility complex. The main prison is medium security and will remain open.
The budget calls for closure July 1, and for this fiscal year it means $12 million in savings with the shutting down of three camps. The camp has approximately 50 employees, and about 40 to 45 are correction officers. Camp McGregor has 300 beds, but currently has only 59 inmates.

Also scheduled to close are Camp Gabriel in Franklin County, with a staff of 104, and Camp Pharsalia in Chenango County, with a staff of 79.

Reaction: Donn Rowe, president of the New York State Correctional Officer & Police Benevolent Association, said, “The Legislature made a choice that I believe will negatively impact not only the local economy, but also the inmates who took advantage of the very important programs available through Mt. McGregor.”

— Compiled by Eric Anderson, Jordan Carleo-Evangelist, Chris Churchill, Cathleen F. Crowley, Carol DeMare, Brian Nearing, Lauren Stanforth and Dennis Yusko

For Injured Workers, a Costly Legal Swamp

By N. R. Kleinfeld and Steven Greenhouse

The hurt workers wait on benches at the Queens office of the New York State Workers’ Compensation Board.

People like Hopeton Watkis, 64, a laborer, who lost two teeth when he fell and hit a wheelbarrow.

Or Rajcoomar Jagan, 50, a construction worker, who injured a leg falling off a scaffold.

Or Vicki Marquez, 32, a retail sales associate, who hurt her elbow hauling clothes.

They come to the board seeking authorization for medical treatment and replacement wages — in short, a quick and fair resolution from a system set up to replace fractious court fights between employers and employees.

What they find instead is a subbasement of the legal world, a $5.5 billion-a-year state-run bureaucracy that, an examination by The New York Times found, struggles to treat workers with due speed, protect employers from fraud or mute tensions in the workplace.

These struggles are particularly evident each day in Queens, the state’s busiest hearing office, where The Times spent 18 months attending hearings, reviewing cases and interviewing participants, virtually none of whom defended the system as efficient.

At some hearings, as judges looked on, lawyers chatted on cellphones, cracked bawdy jokes or read newspapers during testimony. Expert witnesses seemed biased to the point of caricature. Claims dragged on, but hearings seldom exceeded a few blurred minutes, rarely proved conclusive and were conducted in baffling shorthand.

Mr. Watkis waited two years to get his front teeth fixed. Ms. Marquez had to postpone elbow surgery for a year until the board allowed it. Mr. Jagan exhausted three years trying to get compensated, only to be denied all benefits, a decision that stunned even some insurance company lawyers.

“Comparing Supreme Court, say, to this is like comparing a hospital to a MASH unit,” said Anthony Pizza, a lawyer for insurance companies. “A lot of it is meatball justice.”

Workers’ compensation systems across the country are troubled, and reform efforts are under way here. But New York, a pioneer of the concept and home to the nation’s second-largest system, has some signature claims to dysfunction and is widely recognized as the most adversarial.

Though its commissioners largely function as a legal tribunal, most are not lawyers but relatives or allies of politicians, appointed usually without regard to experience in the field.

Though many cases turn on medical evaluations, the board has not had its own medical director for nearly a decade. Decisions are often driven by the opinions of doctors certified by the state as so-called independent medical examiners. Yet claimant lawyers and treating doctors say these examiners often understate workers’ ailments to win business from the insurers who pay them.

Fines for infractions are usually small, and some insurers ignore paying them for years without consequence. A few months ago, New York City agreed to produce $1.1 million in penalties, some years overdue.

Workers are known to fabricate claims, while employers can be equally uninhibited about pressuring injured workers against filing for compensation, or punishing them if they do.

And everywhere the system tolerates delays that can make the injured wait months or years for money and care. Statewide, in about one in six cases, insurers dispute that injuries are real or were suffered on the job. Until recently, these cases had averaged nearly nine months to resolve. And many of them remain unresolved years later.

Even unchallenged cases plod on. A.I.G., the insurance company, said a review of its 2007 New York cases found that those involving missed work took on average 802 days to reach a final stage, 30 percent longer than in the rest of the country.

A recent task force study found that when insurers reject a medical procedure, say, an operation, it takes more than three or four months for the board to settle the dispute. The delay can mean that injuries heal slowly or improperly, and in 75 percent of those cases, the worker’s need for the procedure is upheld.

Zachary S. Weiss, the chairman of the compensation board since late 2007, said that given the scope of what needs to be done, change must be incremental.

“There are millions of things I would like to correct and I’d like to correct them all immediately, and I can’t,” Mr. Weiss said.

State officials do say that as imperfect as it is now, the system used to be much worse. Before he resigned, Gov. Eliot Spitzer managed to pass a law that sliced costs and gave workers more money. Until then, New York’s system had achieved the neat trick of being both among the most expensive for business and the stingiest to workers.

The board has recently found an interim medical director. But the intended overhaul has yet to deliver on many of its other goals and does not address some of the most stubborn flaws.

“There are still many issues that need to be dealt with,” said Joel Shufro, executive director of the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health and a labor advocate. “How it will play out will not be known for a number of years.”

One target for improvement is basic record keeping. No one has ever documented, for example, the extent of worker fraud, though accounts of bogus claims have dominated news accounts of workers’ compensation for years.

Actually, while the system has a lengthy history of being cheated by employees who exaggerate injuries, experts say they believe more substantial fraud and misbehavior are woven through the process in less obvious ways that hurt workers.

“This is a terrible thing to say,” said Dr. Robin Herbert, co-director of the occupational and environmental division at Mount Sinai Medical Center, “but if I had a health problem at work, I’m not sure I’d file a workers’ comp claim. It’s the Wild West of health insurance.”

Mary Jeffords, the head of Injured Workers of New York, an advocacy group, says she knows of numerous disabled workers so ground down by the process that they begin to unravel.

“I’ve talked to workers that held a gun to their head as we talked,” she said.

Waiting for Help

George Vasilescu’s reaction was immediate. He tossed his head back, thumped his feet.

“No more,” Mr. Vasilescu, who is deaf and mute, signed. “I beg you. No more.”

Mr. Vasilescu, 64, a hotel steward who hurt his back, neck and wrist, had just been told by his lawyer that the judge wanted him back for another medical exam, another hearing, another delay, after four years churning through the system.

It is a good day at the Queens hearing office when there is only one such outburst.

Few people think about workers’ compensation until they wrench their back or lose a thumb and become one of the roughly 140,000 new cases filed statewide each year. Those with minor injuries often sail through the process.

But so many workers have been so frustrated or mistreated that they don’t even submit claims when they are injured. Instead, they improperly use regular medical coverage. Or they apply only for Social Security disability or welfare. Costs rightly borne by employers are then billed to the general public.

All that is flawed with the system can be witnessed daily inside the stubby building at 168-46 91st Avenue in Jamaica, one of three dozen redoubts statewide where cases get heard. It doesn’t take long there to grasp how proceedings have devolved into something out of Kafka, who was himself once a compensation claims examiner.

Cases are delayed for any of myriad reasons, or no reason. When the Workers’ Compensation Research Institute recently studied speed of payment among 15 states, it found New York the slowest to pay workers their first check.

“These people are not chattel,” said Neil Abramson, a claimant lawyer. “They’re human beings.”

In Queens, it often takes four to six months from the time of injury to get before a judge, a period during which a worker may not receive care or wages. Typically cases are decided piecemeal — months can pass before both sides even agree on how much a worker earned — and so that first encounter may begin a procession of hearings that become stretched-out wars. Any appeal had once meant another six to nine months for a ruling, though since the board made recent changes many have been coming much quicker.

Three-quarters of the appeals are by insurers.

An insurer appealed, for example, when Ms. Marquez sought surgery for her injured elbow in 2007. The appeal, which the board found particularly weak, meant the surgery did not get approved until a year later.

To accelerate cases, the board has increasingly allowed some involving lesser injuries to be decided by a claims examiner, instead of a judge. The examiners are not required to have legal or medical training, or even a high school diploma, and lawyers and judges say their decisions often contain errors. Judges must review the rulings, but some admit it often gets done hastily.

Largely because of delays and litigiousness, only about a third of the state’s 66,000 active licensed doctors take compensation cases. One of those who does, Dr. Miron Fayngersh of Brooklyn, said he had 41 outstanding bills for a single case, one a year old.

“The percentage of denials is worse in workers’ comp than in any other area in my experience,” said Dr. Robert Goldberg, former head of the Medical Society of the State of New York.

One case that seems to exemplify the broad faults is that of Richard Frank, a forklift driver for New York City Transit. After he had a work accident in 1991, the agency prolonged his case for years, ignoring judges’ orders, according to court rulings.

After a September 1995 hearing was adjourned because his employer had furnished illegible evidence, Mr. Frank told his lawyer “the Transit Authority is going to kill me.” That night he died of a heart attack. He was 50.
For a decade, the agency then contested whether his widow was due death benefits, until an appeals court ruled in 2005 that his death had been caused in part by the agency’s “unlawful coercion” and “disgraceful conduct” in resisting his claim.
Claimants who typically wait months to talk to a judge are surprised by the lightning speed of hearings. Eight minutes is typical. A trial can run a half-hour to an hour. Some matters finish in a minute or two. Often workers don’t even get to speak. Sometimes they wait outside while their lawyers perform.

Vera Rutherford, a substance abuse counselor whose carpal tunnel case had plodded along for two years, asked, “Is it normal for a person to go in there and say nothing and have people decide their life for them?”

One day, Fernando Tenorio, a school safety officer hindered by a knee injury, emerged from his hearing, dazed by its velocity: four minutes flat.

For months, Mr. Tenorio had received no money. Now, his lawyer, Mark Allen, explained to him, the case was adjourned for another few weeks for an investigation, though he would be paid something while waiting.

As Mr. Allen put it, “Six weeks is like tomorrow around here.”

But Mr. Tenorio blurted out, “There’re some other things I want to tell you.” He had lost his apartment and was cooped up in his brother’s basement; his bank account was empty.

Mr. Allen halted him: “Forget about personal. They don’t think of you as a person. They think of you as a file with a dollar sign on it. They don’t care if you can’t put food on the table or put braces on your daughter. You’re thinking of this logically. I stopped thinking that way a long time ago. This is comp.”

Ambitious Assurances

New York’s workers’ compensation system was born in 1914, an idea of great promise that grew in part from great tragedy, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire that killed 146 garment workers in 1911.

The state, one of the first to adopt such a program, founded the system on a simple bargain. Hurt workers, who previously had to prove their employer’s negligence in court to get compensated, now would get medical care and wage benefits automatically. In turn, they would be barred from filing suit.

At its most basic, that no-fault insurance system is the same today. Essentially, companies buy compensation insurance and their premiums underwrite the cost of running the system and all claims. Virtually all employers must carry coverage.

Hearing rooms across the state are filled, not with office workers, but with people who make biscuits or work construction or strip beds: physical laborers who often live just above society’s safety nets.

These workers confront a law that is maddeningly complex. In its barest form, it requires workers to report an injury to their employer within 30 days, then file a claim with the compensation board. If the insurer doesn’t object, it is generally required to begin medical and wage benefits within a few weeks.

But if information is missing, as is common, the clock doesn’t start until it is submitted, so payments often start much later. Disputed cases are frequent, require judicial intervention and can take months or years to resolve.

There are no cost-of-living adjustments, so payments can lag behind wages. A plumber who has New York’s longest-running claim, from a back injury in 1937, gets all of $6 a week.

Given its tortuous nature, it’s no wonder the system has figured in some of New York’s noir moments. For 16 years in the 1940s and 1950s, George Metesky, the so-called Mad Bomber, concealed bombs around New York in a rage precipitated by the rejection of his claim.

Changes introduced in 2007 mean that for the first time since 1992 the maximum weekly benefit will rise, in stages, from a flat $400 to what will next year and thereafter be indexed to two-thirds of the state’s average wage, a cap of about $760. But the reform also ended payouts that could last a lifetime for workers with permanent partial injuries, like an impaired back. Now these awards generally expire within 10 years.

Those adjustments were designed to correct a longstanding paradox of the New York system: how it could be one of the most expensive for employers yet have one of the lowest payouts to workers. Experts say that although the wage benefit was low, insurance rates were steep because the state, unlike many others, had no time limit on payments for permanent partial disabilities.

New York not only had a high level of these injuries, it also had one of the more litigious processes, which further drove up costs.

Today, even with the payout increases, New York lags behind many states. Injured workers in Iowa can get about double New York’s limit.
John F. Burton Jr., professor emeritus at the Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations and an expert on workers’ compensation, feels that systems nationwide have become less fair to workers, in part because the political balance has tilted toward management.

“In general, it’s not economics that is driving this,” he said. “It’s that employers have gotten the upper hand.”

In New York, average premiums have fallen over the last dozen years (though they vary enormously among employers), as have claims. But the perception reigns, driven in part by insurers, law enforcement and the news media, that the system is expensive because it is bloated with embroidered claims.

Fraud does occur, not only when workers feign injuries, but also when they stay out five weeks when four would suffice. In 2007, the authorities arrested a bus driver, receiving compensation for a hurt shoulder, who Brooklyn prosecutors said had been touring Europe as a drummer in a rock band.

But experts believe far more money is siphoned by employers that illegally underpay premiums by underreporting the size of their work force or by doctors who fabricate bills.

Some defects are addressed by the latest changes. For example, “rocket docket” rules are being applied to speed up initially disputed cases, and while not everyone has embraced them, some progress has been made.

“We want our comp system to do so much,” Mr. Weiss said. “And it should do so much. And it does so little.”

As head of the compensation board, Mr. Weiss, who earns $120,800, directs the system, which employs 1,500 people. The other commissioners earn $90,800 and primarily rule on appeals that bubble up from local offices.

Commissioners often work from home, reviewing opinions generated for them by board lawyers. Just five of the current 11 commissioners are lawyers.

Last year, after a dozen years as a commissioner, Michael T. Berns wrote a book titled “Behind the Closed Doors,” which he describes as a kind of apology for a system where, he said, workers suffer in part because some commissioners know too little about the relevant law, work just a few hours a week and do not read many of the decisions they sign.

“The whole push is a numbers production,” he said. “Quality is irrelevant.”

The board members are appointed by the governor in a process long regarded as dominated by politics.

Commissioner Candace K. Finnegan is a former personnel director for a state psychiatric facility, and also a close friend of Libby Pataki, the wife of former Gov. George E. Pataki. Ellen O. Paprocki had been assistant director of the New York State Fair, and is also the daughter of John O’Mara, who was an adviser to Mr. Pataki.

Frances M. Libous, a former nurse, is married to Thomas W. Libous, a ranking Republican state senator. Mark D. Higgins, recently appointed by Gov. David A. Paterson, is a longtime union official and brother of Representative Brian Higgins, an upstate Democrat.

“It is political employment for the politically connected,” said Richard A. Bell, a commissioner. He once served as the board’s executive director, and his wife worked as an executive assistant to Mr. Pataki.

While politics is a factor in appointments, several members said those selected are nonetheless qualified.

For years, judges and lawyers say, politics also played a role in who got hired as district administrators to run the system’s 11 district offices. The posts, created a decade ago by state lawmakers, paid $104,080 a year. But critics said the administrators’ duties were light and little different from those of the district managers they were brought in to supervise.

This month, the board simply did away with district administrators, leaving two regional administrators in their stead, millions of dollars having been spent to no clear end.

Injured and Indigent

Carlos Pabon, a parks department manager and an Army veteran, hurt his back and neck when someone opened a door into him in a Bronx storeroom in 1997 and knocked him down a flight of stairs. Tossed into the cumbersome workers’ compensation system, he has never left.

Initially, the system took care of his injuries and Mr. Pabon, now 50, stayed on the job, earning up to $60,000 a year. But his pain worsened over time, he said, and he began to miss days. In the summer of 2006, his doctors advised him to stop working.

New York City arranged for him to get an independent medical exam. That doctor felt that Mr. Pabon’s doctors were wrong. He had no disability. He could do his job without restriction.

In January 2007, the wage benefits he had been receiving stopped because of the independent doctor’s report.

Michael Serres, Mr. Pabon’s lawyer, sought to challenge the doctor by having him testify. But nearly a year would go by before he did.
In the meantime, Mr. Pabon, who said he wrestled with grinding pain, could not live on a tiny military pension and the slim disability income of his fiancée, Grace James. The bank seized his car. He reached the limit on his credit cards and pawned his jewelry. He went on welfare.

In November 2007, the city’s doctor finally testified. He stood by his report. Another hearing in Queens was scheduled.

The matter was still unresolved last year when a city marshal arrived at Mr. Pabon’s apartment with an eviction notice. It was Valentine’s Day. Mr. Pabon was eight months behind on the rent.

In a bone-chilling wind, they left: Mr. Pabon, Ms. James, their child and another from Ms. James’s previous relationship. A third child was at school. They juggled what they could carry, including their bird. After depositing the children with a relative, Mr. Pabon and Ms. James rode the A train all night. The next evening, they slept in the boiler room of an apartment house.

Soon, they landed in an echoing homeless shelter where they washed their clothes in the tub. Occasionally, Mr. Pabon stole food. “I took cookies, hard salami, half a pint of milk, cakes, doughnuts, small stuff,” he said. “I stole a deodorant stick from Rite-Aid.”

“I worked in the parks taking care of kids, making sure they didn’t get hurt, being a role model,” he said. “Here I am stealing things.”

They moved from one shelter to another. Mr. Pabon began to have nightmares and imagined himself blowing up people. He and Ms. James bickered.

“Look at where we are,” she told him one day. “What kind of man are you?”

The next hearing for Mr. Pabon, his 13th in a case in its 11th year, was set for April 1, 2008.

Mr. Pabon arrived by bus from the shelter. He was penniless.

“I feel so down. I mean, down on the ground,” he told his fiancée.

“This could put someone in a mental hospital,” she replied. “I can see myself sitting in a room in a straitjacket, rocking.”

As the hearing approached, as often happens, the lawyers fashioned a deal. Mr. Pabon was offered $265 a week. By the system’s metrics, he was deemed about 33 percent disabled.

The calibrations of disability can be arbitrary. Few doctors are trained to gauge how injuries restrict a person’s particular work capability. Some workers with frightful injuries are judged 75 percent disabled. But a professor, or an accountant, can often continue a career. Laborers judged 25 or 50 percent disabled often are stuck. Who hires a laborer who can manage half a job?

Mr. Pabon had expected $400 a week, the limit for a case of this vintage. Yet he accepted.

“I need money now,” he said.

After the lawyer’s fee, Mr. Pabon would get a back-payment check of $11,921. Once he satisfied his most pressing creditors and bought clothes for his family, he expected to have maybe $7,000 left.

He still would be unable to work and without a home.

John Vos, the lawyer for the insurer, saw the deal as an effort “to meet in the middle.” He said he had no idea how injured Mr. Pabon was — “I’m not a doctor” — and that the cyclical hearings were simply the norm.

Compensation cases are like serials without endings. Over the next eight months, Mr. Pabon was sent to two more insurance exams, had two more hearings, got his rate raised to $350 because of continuing depression and had a kidney removed.

He continues to live in a shelter.

Joking and Settling

The compensation lawyers in Queens are a clubby bunch. Often they go to greasy spoons for burgers and pizza, claimant and insurer alike, piling into the van of Ed Hilfer, a claimant lawyer.

Few students in law school imagine a career as a workers’ comp lawyer or judge. For most, it is an accidental destination. Many say they chose it because of the hours. Hearings go from 9 to 4, and judges and lawyers often fly out the door minutes after their last case.

Fees for claimant lawyers are set by judges and come out of awards to workers. Insurer lawyers get paid whatever they negotiate. Rewards for claimant lawyers in Queens typically arrive in dribs and drabs of $50 and $100 fees, augmented by sweeter windfalls from settlements.

For both sides, it is a volume business: the more hearings, the more fees, thus the incentive to keep cases alive.

For workers, a lawyer can be an essential brace. In Queens, though, a claimant is commonly represented by a firm that specializes in workers’ compensation law, not an individual. So if there are six hearings, a different lawyer might handle each one. Sometimes a freelancer steps in when the assigned lawyer is overloaded.

As a result, some hearing lawyers have never spoken to the client, and have barely studied the file. The same hasty preparation is often true for the insurance lawyer and the judge. Even preparation for trial testimony might get done in a few stuttering moments in the waiting area.

During one hearing, a claimant’s lawyer asked his client a question in Spanish. That went poorly, since the man was Armenian.

“There was a judge I was talking to and he said there are only two ways in my court that your fees would be cut: if you’re not friendly or if you’re not willing to compromise,” said Mr. Pizza, the insurance company lawyer. “I said, ‘What if you’re not prepared?’ He said that doesn’t matter.”

Between hearings, the lawyers’ room has the feel of a college social club. Lawyers play pinochle. Watch hockey fights on YouTube. Joke about judges, like the “Cruise Director,” whom they mock for roaming the halls. Or they check the “meat chart,” which lists awards for lost body parts, based on a grisly schedule that codifies missing limbs with weeks of wages.

The rate for an arm is 312 weeks of wages. A leg gets 288, a big toe 38, the index finger 46. Rates fluctuate by state, for no apparent reason. Lose an index finger in Idaho, it’s 70 weeks.

Despite the esprit de corps, the opposing lawyers have clashing worldviews about the system.

A few years ago, Mark Allen represented a delivery driver who had injured his back lifting packages. The next day, the man told his manager the pain was so bad it hurt when he pulled on his socks. The insurer said: not a work injury; he must have hurt himself putting on his socks.

“If you fell out of a tree when you were 5 and you have a knee injury when you’re 55, they’ll say it was the tree,” Mr. Allen said.

On the insurer side, Nicholas Rupwani typifies the many lawyers who view the system as a worker fraud trough. One day he recounted the case of a pet store clerk bitten by a rat who said her injuries had been serious and the experience traumatizing. Yet, Mr. Rupwani noted, her MySpace page showed her throwing darts in a bar and indicated she might start a pornographic Web site.

Mr. Rupwani said he felt bad for workers who suffer crushing injuries — but not too bad. “If you’re a secretary with a torn meniscus who is losing her house, go back to work,” he said. “It might hurt, but people work through the pain.”

When workers moan during hearings about family strife and ruin, he said, “that’s when I tune out.” His theory is that the more people broadcast their situation, the more likely they are fakes.

“Sometimes the claimant is sitting next to you and doing this quiet sobbing,” Mr. Rupwani said. “That’s when I usually recommend that the insurer put them under surveillance.”

He said he recommended surveillance about once a day.

Both sides talk about how inconsistent decisions are. “The law allows some leeway,” said Mr. Pizza, “but there shouldn’t be eight different ways of doing things. ‘I won’t allow depositions,’ ‘I will allow depositions,’ ‘I’ll only allow 15 minutes a witness.’ You shouldn’t put justice on a time clock.”

A popular option in the last decade is a cash settlement under which workers close their cases in exchange for a lump payment to cover living expenses and medical bills.

For some workers, a settlement might allow them to start a business or get a degree. For others, they are economic quicksand, one-time payouts that some people find hard to resist. A state task force found that those who accept them are typically lower-paid workers, with average wages of about $19,000.

Insurers relish settlements because they end their exposure. Claimant attorneys relish them, too. They typically extract a 10 to 15 percent cut.

But do workers know what they’re choosing?

The lawyers routinely say clients are “adults.” But the compensation system is so puzzling that even a Queens judge abandoned her own case years ago out of frustration. And there are lawyers in Queens, regulars at the hearing office say, who undersell settlements, pushing low-ball deals on workers just to pocket a quick payday.

No comprehensive studies have examined the impact of settlements, though limited academic studies tend to find them problematic.

“If it were my case, I wouldn’t take one,” said Thomas Gleason, a former executive director of the board who is now a deputy executive director of the State Insurance Fund, New York’s biggest workers’ compensation insurer. “Some guys get $50,000 or $60,000 and go out and buy a new car — or go to the casino.”

Jorge Manzano, 31, a lumber company driver who hurt his back lifting a cement bag, was offered a settlement in 2007. His lawyer negotiated a $12,500 payment, but Mr. Manzano felt that was insufficient and hired a new lawyer.

At a hearing, his new lawyer asked, “What do you want?”

He said, “Like double.”

The insurance lawyer agreed to $20,000. After a legal fee of $3,000, Mr. Manzano would get $17,000.

His lawyer, who knew almost nothing about the case, made a quick fee, the insurer concluded its exposure and the compensation board closed one more file.

And Mr. Manzano?

He said he plucked the $25,000 number out of the air. His friends warned him not to settle. What if he needed surgery? After all, he could barely hold his daughter. “I’m like an old man,” he said.

But his motivation, as it so often is in the compensation universe, was simply to escape the stultifying system.

“I don’t want to come here and feel like I’m begging,” he said. “Frankly, I’ll take just about anything, just so I don’t have to see this place ever again.”

Statement of PEF President Kenneth Brynien on state budget

Albany – “We are pleased the governor and Legislature have included some of PEF’s revenue raising suggestions such as, the millionaires’ tax, the Bottle Bill and empire zone reform in reaching agreement on a budget,” said state Public Employees Federation President Ken Brynien.

“However, we are disappointed the financial plan still includes $481 million in cuts to the state workforce.

“The governor has claimed to have only two choices to achieve the savings: union concessions or layoffs. There is a third choice: cut the enormous wasteful spending on private contractors.

“Unfortunately, the governor continues to move forward with the most damaging choice, layoffs.

“PEF will continue to press the governor to make the right decision: Cut the waste, not the workers.

ENACTED BUDGET AGREEMENT ACHIEVES GOVERNOR PATERSON’S KEY PRIORITIES OF FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

Governor David A. Paterson today announced that the Enacted Budget agreement achieves the key priorities he laid out for his administration beginning from his first day in office: strengthening the State’s long-term finances, enacting critical reforms to make government more accountable to taxpayers, and implementing significant, recurring spending reductions.

The Enacted Budget agreement closes a $17.7 billion budget gap – the largest in State history – and reduces the State’s out-year gaps by over 80 percent from approximately $60 billion to $11 billion. It also includes a record $6.5 billion in recurring spending reductions – nearly twice as much as in any other budget.

The Enacted Budget agreement institutes long-overdue reforms that Governor Paterson identified as key priorities, including overhauling the State’s Rockefeller Drug Laws, Medicaid reimbursement system, Empire Zone Program and the Bottle Bill. Additionally, it makes key investments in a new $350 million annual student loan program, the State’s film tax credit, and the first increase in the basic welfare grant in nearly two decades. Additionally, it finally closes three underutilized State prisons and six underutilized youth facilities after years of unsuccessful attempts.

“From the first day I took office, I said we needed to face up to our budget problems honestly and forthrightly,” said Governor Paterson. “I laid out a path for action that balanced the difficult choices necessary to reduce spending with needed reforms that will make our government more accountable to taxpayers, and the Legislature has been a strong partner in that effort.”

In April 2008, the State’s projected budget deficit totaled $5 billion. Over the course of the last year, that deficit increased at a staggering rate. Today’s agreement closes a $17.7 billion budget gap. In the last two months alone, the deficit has increased by $4.7 billion from $13 billion to $17.7 billion.

Throughout the year, Governor Paterson has taken action to address the deteriorating economy. As his first act in office, he proposed across-the-board spending reductions for all State agencies. In July, as the economy began to deteriorate, he again instituted across-the-board spending reductions and imposed a hiring freeze and strict cash controls to manage the flow of State spending. In August, he called the Legislature to the Capitol for an extraordinary emergency economic session and achieved $1 billion of mid-year reductions. He also fought hard in Washington for federal stimulus funding to help the State address its budget difficulties, including advocating for more education dollars.

Today’s budget agreement builds on these efforts and includes many of Governor Paterson’s key priorities and proposed reforms.

Spending Reductions/Fiscal Responsibility.The budget agreement achieves $6.5 billion in spending cuts – nearly twice as much as any governor in State history (previous record is $3.3 billion in 2003-04). It closes the largest budget gap in State history of $17.7 billion and reduces the State’s multi-year deficit by over 80 percent from $60 billion to approximately $11 billion.

Health Care Reform.The budget achieves a $2.3 billion health care savings plan – the largest in State history – which is nearly double the previous record in 2005-06. Additionally, the budget institutes major, permanent reforms to the way health care is delivered in New York to rationalize our Medicaid reimbursement system and provide increased investment in primary and preventive care.

Rockefeller Drug Law Reform.The budget agreement achieves Rockefeller Drug Law reform, which will help end the cycle of addiction by focusing on treatment rather than incarceration.

Student Loan Program.The budget created the New York Higher Education Loan (NYHELPs) program championed by Governor Paterson, which will annually provide $350 million in lower-interest student loans to over 45,000 New York residents.

Increase Basic Welfare Grant.For the first time in nearly two decades, the State will increase the basic Welfare Grant.

Expand Bottle Bill.In every year since 2000, legislation expanding the Bottle Bill was introduced, and every year it failed to become law. This budget agreement finally expands that law to include bottled water, which will help prevent litter and improve the environment. The updated Bottle Bill will also require that unclaimed deposits be turned over to the State, which will provide $115 million in new revenue each year. The State will receive 80 percent of the unclaimed deposits.

Close Underutilized State Facilities.In six of the last seven budgets, governors proposed closing prisons to no avail. This budget shutters three minimum security camps so that taxpayers no longer have to subsidize half-empty facilities. It also closes six underutilized youth facilities – two of which house no children whatsoever.

Reform Empire Zone Program.The Enacted Budget reins in long-documented abuses in the Empire Zone program. It decertifies “shirt-changers” and firms producing less than $1 in actual investment and wages for every $1 in State tax incentives, while balancing the concerns of the business community to ensure that the State continues to create jobs. To accelerate future reforms, the Empire Zone program will sunset on June 30, 2010 – one year earlier than in current law.

Film Tax Credit.The Enacted Budget includes $350 million in new authorization for the State’s film tax credit, which will help keep entertainment industry jobs in New York State.

It’s a deal: $131.8B

Leaders agree on budget plan combining cuts, aid, new taxes

By Irene Jay Liu and Casey Seiler

ALBANY — After weeks of closed-door negotiations and secrecy surprising even to Albany insiders, state leaders have agreed upon a $131.8 billion budget, stemming an estimated $17.7 billion shortfall through a combination of federal stimulus funds, cuts, and new taxes and fees.

The agreement attempts to close the state’s estimated $17.7 billion budget deficit through roughly $6.2 billion in federal stimulus spending, $5.2 billion in cuts to an array of programs, and $6.3 billion in new revenue — including an increase in the personal income tax on affluent New Yorkers.

The personal income tax hike would create two new tax brackets — 7.85 percent for single or married-filing-separately taxpayers making more than $200,000, head-of-household filers making more than $250,000 and married couples with incomes greater than $300,000.

For all taxpayers making more than $500,000 — regardless of filing status — the rate would rise to 8.97 percent.

Currently, New York’s highest tax rate is 6.85 percent, a rate that kicks in for single or married-filing-separately filers making more than $20,000, head-of-household filers making more than $30,000, and couples and joint filers making more than $40,000.

Based on early estimates, state spending is expected to increase around 1 percent and total approximately $54 billion. The total state budget, which includes all federal funds, will increase about 8.7 percent to $131.8 billion.

Overall, the Legislature restored $3 billion of the $9.5 billion in cuts originally proposed by the governor in December, paid for with federal stimulus money, taxes, fees and other revenue enhancements.

A large portion of the $5.2 billion in cuts will be felt by the state’s health care system, which will see about $2.3 billion in cuts statewide. A significant percentage of the governor’s proposed cuts to Medicaid were restored in the final budget using federal stimulus money. Education will be largely insulated from cuts, with $1.2 billion in federal stimulus money that was specifically designated for school aid.

The budget includes an expected savings of $481 million in state work force costs over the next two years. The governor proposed to achieve these savings by asking public employee unions to defer pay and eliminate a scheduled salary increase, but the unions refused. As a result, the governor has now proposed to achieve those savings through layoffs.

Other major budget actions include the end of the middle-class STAR rebate program, reform of the Rockefeller drug laws and a new 5-cent beverage deposit will be added to bottled water. Beverage companies would be required to turn over 80 percent of unclaimed deposit funds to the state.

There also is an increase in taxes on wireless devices, as well as cigars, beer and wine. But a proposal to sell wine in grocery stores was abandoned, as was a proposal to increase the sales tax. The proposed $10 fee to file paper state tax returns was also dropped.

State leaders dropped a proposed freeze on state tax payments to towns and school districts in regions where state-owned land makes up a large chunk of the tax base — an issue of grave concern to leaders in the Adirondacks and the Catskills.
The Assembly and Senate each appropriated $85 million in member items, or pork. The governor did not allocate any member items for himself. Since assuming the governship, Paterson has given up millions of dollars of discretionary funding to reduce the state’s worsening deficit.

Senate Republican Dean Skelos called the budget “a complete disaster” and blasted the 10 percent increasing in spending.

“At a time when we are mired in the worst economic downturn in generations, this disgraceful budget would increase state spending to unsustainable levels,” he said in a statement issued Sunday night.

Assembly Minority Leader Jim Tedisco released a statement calling the budget a “typical, backroom Albany political deal” that “means state government will dig its greedy hand even further into the taxpayer’s pocket.”

State legislators returning to the Capitol today will find more than 2,500 pages of legislation waiting on their desks, the result of a hectic final round of budget negotiations between the Democratic leaders.

The nine budget bills are now “aging” the required three days in order for voting to begin on Tuesday, the deadline for passage of an on-time budget. Two of those bills were placed on legislators’ desks Sunday morning and must wait until Wednesday, the first day of the new fiscal year, for passage.

On Sunday, the signs of round-the-clock bill drafting — including enough empty pizza and donut boxes to feed a small college dormitory — could be found throughout the Capitol.

Irene Jay Liu can be reached at (518) 454-5081 or iliu@timesunion.com.

Closing the gap

State leaders went into this year’s budget negotiation facing a deficit that currently stands at an estimated $17.7 billion, a $1.5 billion increase from the $16.2 billion estimate from one week ago. Here’s a general account of how they addressed the shortfall:

Cuts to services or aid: $5.2 billion

Cuts to health care will total $2.3 billion; outside of New York City, Aid and Incentives for Municipalities payments will be frozen at 2008-09 levels for the next two fiscal years; the middle-class STAR rebate program will be eliminated; three prisons and nine juvenile detention facilities will be closed. In early February, state leaders cut $1.3 billion in spending in this and next year’s budget.

Revenue raisers: $5.2 billion
Creates two new tax brackets to raise $4 billion: 7.85 percent for single or married-filing-separately taxpayers making more than $200,000, “head of household” filers making more than $250,000, and married couples with incomes greater than $300,000; and 8.97 percent for taxpayers making more than $500,000 regardless of how they file. The increase will sunset after three years. Another $1.2 billion will be raised from other new or enhanced taxes and fees.
Non-recurring revenues: $1.1 billion

Federal stimulus funds: $6.2 billion

Stimulus dollars enabled the state to protect education funding, but will also be used to offset reductions in health care, human services and local aid to New York City; it also enabled leaders to drop many of Gov. David Paterson’s most unpopular proposed “nuisance” taxes and fees. A press release from Democratic state leaders note that stimulus money “is required to be spent during the coming fiscal year and may not be used to fund rainy day reserves or retire debt.”

BALCONY Endorses a New York State Higher Tax on the Wealthy

BALCONY HAILS NEW YORK STATE LEADERS’ EFFORT TO CLOSE HUGE BUDGET GAP:
CONCERN OVER LAYOFFS OF 8700 STATE WORKERS

Click here to read the Budget Report

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GOTHAM RESEARCH POLL SHOWS 73% SUPPORT HIGHER TAX OF NYS EARNERS OVER $500,000

March 26, 2009 — The Business and Labor Coalition of New York, BALCONY, www.balconynewyork.com, today called for a New York State income tax increase on the wealthy as a means to help close the $16.4 billion New York State budget gap for 2009-10. Raising the state income tax at the high end is the best choice to balance the ballooning state budget. This was the conclusion reached by BALCONY, a coalition of over one thousand businesses, labor unions, and advocacy groups, after two membership meetings in Albany and New York City in the last two days.

Fiscal Policy Institute Chief Economist James Parrott gave a presentation to the BALCONY members in New York on Wednesday, March 25th, following presentations in Albany on Tuesday by Ronald Deutsch, Executive Director of New Yorkers for Fiscal Fairness and Frank Mauro, Executive Director of the Fiscal Policy Institute. BALCONY issued a nine-point proposal on the progressive tax. Click here to view the BALCONY proposal: nine-point proposal

View the complete presentation: Presentation

At the same time, BALCONY released a new Gotham Research Group poll which shows that a vast majority of New York State voters, 73%, support increasing the state income tax for those who earn more than $500,000 per year in order to help solve the current New York State fiscal crisis. Even when the target population for the tax increase is expanded to those who earn more than $250,000 per year, the measure is still approved by 65% of voters.

“Voters are not persuaded by the argument that higher earners already pay their fair share in taxes,” said pollster Jeffrey Levine, who surveyed a representative sample of 400 New York voters from March 20 through 22, 2009. “73 per cent of New Yorkers across the state, from all partisan backgrounds, believe that those who make more should pay more this year in order to address New York’s fiscal crisis.”

View the complete presentation: Gotham
Read: Gotham Survey Release

BALCONY believes that raising taxes modestly on New York taxpayers with $500,000 or more of taxable income in conjunction with cost cutting and improved efficiency can solve our budget deficit.

“BALCONY has carefully considered suggestions from its diverse business and labor membership, as well as many citizens from New York State and leading economists to develop its position on solving our state’s severe budget deficit. We believe that modestly increasing taxes on our state’s high-end income earners (which should not have a significant impact on their families) in conjunction with sensible cost cutting and improvements in efficiencies can solve our state’s budget deficit, and keep New York healthy and competitive,” asserted Bruce Ventimiglia, BALCONY’s business Co-Chairman, and Chairman of Saratoga Capital Management.

Alan Lubin, BALCONY labor Co-Chairman and Executive Vice President of NYSUT added, “BALCONY has long understood that raising new revenue would have to be part of the solution to our worsening economic situation, just as we recognize that prudent state spending is necessary. A New York State Progressive Income Tax increase that will raise at approximately $5 billion is a step in the right direction. It is hoped that these two actions, coupled with the quick investment of federal stimulus monies will help spur the economic recovery and growth needed to provide essential services and a brighter future for all New Yorkers.”

New York State faces a $16.4 billion budget deficit this fiscal year, and is under a constitutional obligation to balance its budget. Approximately $7 billion of the state’s 2009 -10 budget deficit will be offset by funds from the federal government stimulus program, leaving a shortfall of $9.4 billion. This deficit was not caused by wasteful spending, but instead was created by the harsh economic downturn that confronts both our state and our country. Tragically, Wall Street finds itself in the eye of this economic hurricane, greatly diminishing the nearly 20% of New York State’s revenue that the financial industry has in recent years produced.

“This is not just the old saw that state spending is out of control,” emphasized Parrott. “Spending has risen because important new commitments to make school aid more equitable and to expand Medicaid coverage have been authorized.”

Parrott stated that there are only two meaningful alternatives to balance our state’s budget: economic growth or sensible increased taxation. Unfortunately, economic growth is not a viable alternative for the foreseeable future, leaving increased taxation as the only solution, as unpalatable as this may be to some. Parrott also cited statements by Nobel Economics Laureate Joseph Stiglitz and White House Budget Director Peter Orszag to the effect that this was the least damaging of the choices facing states in balancing their budgets.

BALCONY will continue to examine the New York State taxing and budget issues as it receives more input from its diverse membership.

Powering New York’s Economic Recovery

by Bruce E. Ventimiglia, Co-Chair, BALCONY

With our nation mired in one of the worst economic collapses since the Great Depression, I am heartened to see President Obama leading the charge to put Americans back to work. The President’s focus on revitalizing our long neglected infrastructure is a common-sense approach that will create jobs, spur investment and help turn around our slumping economy.

Read the entire article: Energy

NYS Lays Off 8,900 Workers – BALCONY Members React

Governor David Paterson on Tuesday March 23, announced that New York State will layoff 8900 workers by July 1st in order to reduce the budget deficit of $ 16.4 billion by approximately $481 million. Several key BALCONY members, including the Public Employees Federation, OMCE, and CSEA, would be directly impacted. PEF president Ken Brynien, and CSEA president Danny Donohue, and OMCE president Barbara Zaron have issued statements condemning the Paterson plan to balance the state’s budget by laying off workers.

“We’ve been trying to give him the benefit of the doubt but if Gov. Paterson really believes putting nearly 9,000 New Yorkers out of work is a good idea, he really is out of touch with life on Main Street.” – Danny Donohue, President CSEA.

“We are dismayed that Governor Paterson is threatening layoffs without seriously considering the cost savings proposals that OMCE and our union partners have submitted to him.” — Barbara Zaron, President – Organization of Management and Confidential Employees – OMCE

“There is absolutely no need to do layoffs. It will not save the money that the governor thinks it will.” — Ken Brynien, President PEF.

Read the complete PEF statement: Layoffs

Read:  New York Post story

Read:  Albany Times Union story