Archive for January, 2010

BALCONY URGES NEW YORK STATE TO SAVE ST. VINCENT’S HOSPITAL

For release Thursday January 28, 2010

“The possible closure of St. Vincent’s Hospital in Greenwich Village will tear a huge hole in New York’s Health Care Safety Net,” charged BALCONY Director Lou Gordon as the Business and Labor Coalition of New York urged the New York State Department of Health to provide immediate assistance to maintain the hospital.

“It makes no sense to close the emergency room of St. Vincent’s Hospital which is the only hospital serving the West Side of Manhattan below 59^th Street. This community is bursting at the seams as thousands of New Yorkers are relocating to the apartments and condos there. New York is building a new subway line on the West Side, we are creating a condomania on 42^nd Street and Chelsea is experiencing an unprecedented boom. St. Vincent’s Hospital is the most valuable health resource in the community. On September 11, 2001, St. Vincent’s played a key role in providing medical services to those at and near Ground Zero. New York State cannot turn its back on the health care needs of the businesses and union workers who rely upon the Hospital as a primary center of medical and emergency services.”

“If Washington can save Wall Street, Albany can save St. Vincent’s Hospital,” stated Gordon.

“I know how vital the St. Vincent’s Hospital services are to the community I once represented as its State Senator” stated Catherine Abate president and CEO of Community Healthcare Networks.

“I urge the state to do everything possible to save St. Vincent’s.”

“Thousands of New York City school students and teachers rely upon this hospital for care. We urge the State Legislature and Department of Health to keep the hospital open and viable,” stated Alan Lubin co- chair of BALCONY. “Closing St. Vincent’s Hospital is Bad Medicine.”

“We urge members of BALCONY to join City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, Assemblyman Dick Gottfried, Assemblywoman Deborah Glick , Senator Tom Duane, Congressman Jerald Nadler and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer in contacting New York State Department of Health Commissioner Richard Daines telling the state to make every effort to Save St. Vincent’s Hospital,” concluded Bruce Ventimiglia, Co-Chair of BALCONY.

BALCONY members are urged to go to Speaker Quinn’s website and join the campaign to Save St. Vincent’s hospital — http://council.nyc.gov/html/action_center/stvincents.shtml

For more information contact BALCONY Director Lou Gordon (212) 219-7777 loug@balconynewyork.com

Click here to read the BALCONY Bulletin (1/28/10)

Offer to Take Over Ailing Hospital Stirs Outcry

By Anemona Hartocollis

One of New York City’s largest hospital systems has made an offer to take over the financially struggling St. Vincent’s Hospital in Greenwich Village, provoking opposition from elected officials who fear the loss of critical medical services, especially emergency care, for tens of thousands of patients who could be sent elsewhere.

The proposal by the hospital system, Continuum Health Partners, to take over St. Vincent’s and turn it into an outpatient center would mean the loss of the city’s last Catholic general hospital, at least in the form in which it has been known for more than 160 years.

St. Vincent’s treats a disproportionate number of poor, homeless and uninsured patients, who could be forced to go elsewhere for emergency and inpatient care, perhaps to the city-run Bellevue Hospital Center across town. St. Vincent’s acquired significance for many New Yorkers in the days after Sept. 11, 2001, when it became a gathering place for people searching for loved ones.

It has been looking for a financial lifesaver to help it stem millions of dollars a month in losses and to stave off the possibility of a second bankruptcy after emerging from its first in 2007. The Continuum proposal would turn the hospital into a walk-in health-care center that would maintain some emergency services but would no longer take 911 ambulance calls, the most serious cases. It also envisions maintaining St. Vincent’s well-known H.I.V. and psychiatric services.

If the deal goes through, Continuum could get tens of thousands of new patients. Depending on how the deal is structured, Continuum could take over St. Vincent’s valuable real estate, which could potentially be sold. There would be no exchange of money; Continuum would take on the hospital’s debt, said to be around $700 million, and try to restructure it with financial support from the state and creditors.

The proposal would not include other St. Vincent’s facilities around the metropolitan area, or its nursing homes and its psychiatric and substance abuse hospital in Westchester County.

A decision to sell is up to the board of St. Vincent’s, but the hospital is under pressure from creditors and the state to find a solution to its problems. Henry J. Amoroso, the president and chief executive of St. Vincent’s, sent a one-page memorandum to hospital physicians and staff members Tuesday confirming that the hospital had received a letter of interest from Continuum. Mr. Amoroso said he was writing in response to a report in The New York Post on Tuesday outlining some aspects of the proposal.

Mr. Amoroso said the hospital was in “serious discussion” with GE Capital and TD Bank, which hold some of its debt, “about how best to restructure the burdensome debt that we were left with when we emerged from bankruptcy.”

He said the hospital’s board was still trying to find “the best solution to allow St. Vincent’s to remain an acute-care hospital.”

Community reaction was strong. A united front of West Side politicians, including Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker; Scott M. Stringer, the Manhattan borough president; and Representative Jerrold L. Nadler, sent a letter to Dr. Richard F. Daines, the state health commissioner, saying that the proposed conversion was “unacceptable.”

They pointed out that it would leave much of the West Side without a hospital. Likely destinations for patients of St. Vincent’s, which has several buildings clustered around Avenue of the Americas, Seventh Avenue and 11th and 12th Streets, are St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center, with components on West 59th and West 114th Streets, and Beth Israel Medical Center, on First Avenue and 16th Street, both owned by Continuum. Others are Bellevue, a few blocks north of Beth Israel, and New York Downtown Hospital, near the Brooklyn Bridge.

Ms. Quinn suggested that a state-sponsored bailout or restructuring might be in order. “No one’s cavalier about the seriousness of St. Vincent’s financial house,” she said in an interview. “But what we need is to come together and find a solution that keeps it open, not one that basically abdicates the state’s responsibility to have full-service health care infrastructure for the West Side of Manhattan.”

In a statement, Continuum said that it had been invited by St. Vincent’s to make a proposal to preserve the hospital in some form as “an alternative to financial liquidation.”

It added that if St. Vincent’s rejected the proposal and tried to continue on its own, “they have our full support.”

The State Health Department also issued a statement Tuesday painting a dire picture of St. Vincent’s financial condition and saying that Dr. Daines had been trying to help broker a deal that would “ensure that residents of the West Side of Manhattan continue to have access to quality health care services.”

But the department said that St. Vincent’s “is not competitive within its market.” The hospital has been losing $5 million to $10 million a month, according to the state.

Hospitals across the city have suffered from what they say are low reimbursement rates from the government and private insurers; large numbers of poor patients; and, more recently, the recession, coupled with state health-care cuts.

In what some health-care officials characterized as a last-ditch effort, St. Vincent’s has been hoping to stay in business by building a new hospital, which would free up a large part of its property to be sold for about $310 million to the Rudin Organization, which would develop housing.

The plans would require significant rezoning. Continuum’s proposal casts doubt on the future of those development plans, said Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation.

Ana Marengo, a spokeswoman for the city’s Health and Hospital Corporation, said that Bellevue officials believed they would be able to handle their share of emergency and trauma patients from St. Vincent’s. She said Bellevue would have a harder time absorbing psychiatric patients, but Continuum’s proposal would keep psychiatric services running at the St. Vincent’s location.

Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan of New York said in a statement that it would be “sad and disappointing” if St. Vincent’s closed. Although the archdiocese does not have a role in the hospital, it said it was monitoring the situation and recognized how hard it was to run a hospital.

The hospital is sponsored by the Sisters of Charity, the Catholic order that founded the hospital in 1849, and the Diocese of Brooklyn, a consequence of a merger with Catholic hospitals in Brooklyn and Queens more than a decade ago. If the hospital were sold, the bishop of Brooklyn and the Sisters of Charity would have to decide whether to ratify the decision, said Msgr. Kieran Harrington, a spokesman for Bishop Nicholas A. DiMarzio. Monsignor Harrington said it “would be premature to comment now” on what the bishop planned to do.

St. Vincent’s RNs to protest acquisition by Beth Israel & Continuum Health Nurses will protest outside the hospital on Thursday, Jan. 28 at 11 a.m.

NEW YORK, Jan. 26, 2010 – The 800 registered nurses who work at St. Vincent’s Catholic Medical Center in Greenwich Village fervently oppose the proposed takeover of the 727-bed facility by Beth Israel Medical Center and its parent Corporation, Continuum Health Partners. Within 60 to 90 days of the takeover, all acute care, surgical units, and emergency services would be shut down.

Hundreds of nurses from the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) will protest this action outside the facility on Thursday, Jan. 28, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. The hospital is located at West 12 St. between 6th and 7th Avenues.

“Where would we be if the St. Vincent’s emergency room had not been not there for 9/11 and the airplane landing on the Hudson River?” said Eileen Dunn, a registered nurse at St. Vincent’s and president of the NYSNA bargaining unit there. “St. Vincent’s has served the community for 160 years, and can continue to serve the community through a reasonable restructuring plan. Shutting the doors is not the answer.”

The hospital is $700 million in debt and has been struggling financially for years. Under the proposal, St. Vincent’s regional trauma center would be severely scaled back. St. Vincent’s is also designated for AIDS treatment and psychiatric care.

“This proposed takeover by Beth Israel will devastate the community by closing the only acute-care facility on the Lower West Side of Manhattan,” said John Hiltunen, a registered nurse at St. Vincent’s and member of the NYSNA Board of Directors.

“St. Vincent’s is integral to the very fabric of the neighborhood and the city,” said Lorraine Seidel, MA, RN, director of NYSNA’s Economic and General Welfare program. “It is one of the cornerstones of Greenwich Village. It would be tragic to succumb to a plan which disregards the healthcare needs of this community. NYSNA nurses will do all we can to keep St. Vincent’s open.”

The New York State Nurses Association is the voice for nursing in the Empire State. With more than 37,000 members, it is the state’s largest union and professional association for registered nurses. It supports nurses and nursing practice through education, research, legislative advocacy, and collective bargaining.

Nurses Association contact: Randi Hoffman 212-785-0157, ext. 118, cell 646-707-7359.

Don’t Close St. Vincent’s Emergency Room and Trauma Center

NEWS FROM
Assembly Health Committee Chair Richard N. Gottfried
822 Legislative Office Building, Albany, NY 12248 – Tel: 518-455-4941
250 Broadway, #2232, New York, NY 10007 – Tel: 212-312-1492 GottfrR@assembly.state.ny.us

Statement by NYS Assembly Health Committee Chair Richard N. Gottfried

“After 9/11, St. Vincent’s was the primary admitting hospital for the injured survivors,” said Assembly Health Committee chair Richard N. Gottfried. “Closing the St. Vincent’s Emergency Room and Level 1 Trauma Center would be devastating to the local community, and in the event of a catastrophe, would endanger the City. In the aftermath of September 11, the emergency room was expanded to be able to respond to everyday emergencies as well as large-scale disasters and mass-casualty events. We must do everything possible to protect St. Vincent’s, and especially its ER and TraumaCenter.”

CODE RED LOOMS FOR ST. VINNY’S

By Carl Campanile

A rival, powerhouse medical group has proposed taking over and shuttering the 160-year-old St. Vincent’s Medical Center in Greenwich Village, which would spell the end of the city’s only remaining Catholic hospital, The Post has learned.

Continuum Health Partners — which operates Beth Israel, St. Luke’s and Roosevelt hospitals in Manhattan — has submitted a plan to assume control of the financially struggling, 727-bed St. Vincent’s, sources said.

The new corporate operator would “close all acute care” units — such as inpatient beds and surgical services — within 60 to 90 days, according to a source involved in the discussions.

The proposal has real muscle behind it.

Two holders of a combined $300 million St. Vincent’s debt — GE Capital and TD Bank — support the Continuum takeover with the tacit approval of the state, sources said.

State Health Commissioner Richard Daines previously served as CEO of Continuum’s St. Luke’s Hospital. Under the plan, St. Vincent’s would be converted from a hospital to a community health center with Continuum in charge, sources said.

Patients eventually would be rerouted to other city hospitals for surgical and in-patient care.

The plan also would severely scale back St. Vincent’s regional trauma and emergency center.

Under the proposal, Continuum would continue to operate ambulatory care or outpatient treatment services at St. Vincent’s, and possibly expand such services.

The proposal was spelled out in a letter sent by Continuum CEO Stan Brezenoff last week to St. Vincent’s board of directors.

The death of St. Vincent’s would leave the lower West Side without a full-service hospital. The closest facilities would be New York Downtown Hospital, Beth Israel, NYU and Bellevue on the East Side, and Roosevelt Hospital at 10 Avenue and 58th Street.

St. Vincent’s also serves special populations. It is one of the state’s designated AIDS centers, and has a psychiatric unit with 79 licensed beds.

“St. Vincent’s is an outpost of health care on the West Side. There’s nothing else near it. I got to make calls to save them,” said state Sen. Tom Duane, who represents the area.

“You can’t control what kind of emergency treatment people need. Remember what happened on 9/11?” Duane said.

Kevin Finnegan, political director of 1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, said, “It would be outrageous for the state to even entertain offers to close the only hospital that services hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers who work or live on the West Side of Manhattan below 59th Street.”

It’s unclear what would happen to some of the vacant or unused space, although it could be sold to help reduce St. Vincent’s $700 million in debt, sources said.

The proposal throws into doubt St. Vincent’s existing plan to build a new medical facility and sell its campus to the Rudin Co. for $300 million to erect a condo complex.

The hospital had only just gotten the go-ahead from the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission last summer to proceed with its $1.6 billion modernization project after years of protests.

There is still an ongoing lawsuit over the project.

Under financial pressure, St. Vincent’s had shuttered its Midtown hospital in 2007 and unloaded two hospitals in Queens.

Continuum and St. Vincent’s declined comment.

Most U.S. Union Members Are Working for the Government, New Data Shows

by Steven Greeenhouse

For the first time in American history, a majority of union members are government workers rather than private-sector employees, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced on Friday.

In its annual report on union membership, the bureau undercut the longstanding notion that union members are overwhelmingly blue-collar factory workers. It found that membership fell so fast in the private sector in 2009 that the 7.9 million unionized public-sector workers easily outnumbered those in the private sector, where labor’s ranks shrank to 7.4 million, from 8.2 million in 2008.

“There has been steady growth among union members in the public sector, but I’m a little bit shocked to see that the lines have actually crossed,” said Randel K. Johnson, senior vice president for labor at the United States Chamber of Commerce.

According to the labor bureau, 7.2 percent of private-sector workers were union members last year, down from 7.6 percent the previous year. That, labor historians said, was the lowest percentage of private-sector workers in unions since 1900.

Among government workers, union membership grew to 37.4 percent last year, from 36.8 percent in 2008.

Gerald W. McEntee, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, voiced dismay that government employees now represented a majority of union members.

“It’s a very bad sign,” he said. “We’ve been banged around some, but when you see what’s been happening to the industrial base of this country, to the steelworkers, to the autoworkers, they’re been hammered much more.”

After rising the two previous years, overall union membership fell by 771,000 in 2009, to 15.3 million, largely because employment declined over all. But the rate of private-sector unionization fell because two sectors where unions are especially strong — manufacturing and construction — suffered especially large job losses. Construction lost more than 900,000 jobs last year, falling to 5.9 million, while 1.3 million factory jobs were lost, declining to 11.6 million.

The overall unionization rate edged lower, to 12.3 percent last year from 12.4 percent in 2008.

Damon A. Silvers, the A.F.L.-C.I.O.’s policy director, said the decline in private-sector unionization “tells us that good jobs are disappearing faster than bad jobs.”

According to the labor bureau, median weekly earnings for full-time unionized workers were $908 last year, compared with $710 for workers not represented by unions. The bureau attributed this difference not just to unionization but also to variations by occupation, industry and company size.

Notwithstanding the recession, government employment grew last year, inching up 16,000, to 22,516,000, according to the bureau.

Fred Siegel, a visiting professor of history at St. Francis College in Brooklyn and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative research organization, said, “There were enormous political ramifications” to the fact that public-sector workers are now the majority in organized labor.

“At the same time the country is being squeezed, public-sector unions are a rising political force in the Democratic Party,” he said. “They depend on extra money for the public sector, and that puts the Democrats in a difficult position. In four big states — New York, New Jersey, Illinois and California — the public-sector unions have largely been untouched by the economic downturn. In those states, you have an impeding clash between the public-sector unions and the public at large.”

Several labor officials and scholars said private-sector workers could regain their majority in a year or two because of potential large-scale layoffs of government workers in the face of the budget squeeze faced by so many cities and states.

Assessing the drop in private-sector unionization, Paula B. Voos, a labor relations professor at Rutgers, said, “It’s a sad commentary on the ability of private-sector workers to unionize.”

“Unions have less strength when they represent a lower percentage of workers,” she said. “Nonetheless, unions have strength in those sectors of the economy where they are organized. Workers who are in the entertainment industry, workers who are on the docks of the Port of New York and New Jersey still have the strength of their labor organizations.”

Noting that union members generally have higher earnings, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis said in a statement: “As workers across the country have seen their real and nominal wages decline as a result of the recession, these numbers show a need for Congress to pass legislation to level the playing field to enable more American workers to access the benefits of union membership. This report makes clear why the administration supports the Employee Free Choice Act,” a bill that would make it easier to unionize.”

But J. Justin Wilson, managing director of the Center for Union Facts, a corporate-backed group opposing that legislation, had a different response to the report.

“Labor union membership is an outdated concept for most working Americans,” he said. “It is a relic of Depression-era labor-management relations.”

Statements on the proposed NYS budget

State Budget: Governor’s proposal would hurt kids, taxpayers
NYSUT Media Relations – January 19, 2010

ALBANY, N.Y. January 19, 2010 – New York State United Teachers today said massive cuts proposed for education would force schools to cut teachers and programs, jeopardizing student progress while stalling the state’s ability to create jobs and revitalize the economy.

“How can you race to the top with an education budget that’s laden with red ink?” asked NYSUT President Richard C. Iannuzzi. “NYSUT understands the pain that the state’s deep fiscal crisis has inflicted on so many; our members and our professions have been hit hard too. Yet, slashing more than $1.1 billion from public schools and again hacking away at SUNY, CUNY and community colleges totally contradicts the major investment the Obama Administration is seeking for education through Race to the Top.”

Iannuzzi said Gov. David Paterson’s education budget leaves school districts in the unenviable position of either proposing double-digit property tax increases, or eliminating the programs and teachers that New York’s children need. More devastating cuts to SUNY, CUNY and the state’s community colleges, already reeling from years of budgetary ax-swinging, “would slam shut the door to higher education for many of New York’s students, especially the unemployed seeking retraining and preparation for new careers. This derails the state’s efforts to build a knowledge-based, high-tech economy in upstate New York,” he said.

Iannuzzi said NYSUT, along with its higher-ed affiliates, have grave concerns about the impact the proposed Public Higher Education Empowerment and Innovation Act impact would have on access to, and quality at, our public university systems.

“The next generation of New York’s workers must come from New York public schools and universities,” Iannuzzi said. “Employers are going to demand it, and state policymakers must ensure that New York’s education system can meet that demand.

“Promising a knowledge economy without an investment in knowledge is a hollow promise,” Iannuzzi said.

NYSUT Executive Vice President Andrew Pallotta noted that, historically, the governor’s proposal is the first word in the annual budget battle. “We are confident that legislators from both parties will understand the impact this proposal would have on the ability of schools – both charter and regular public schools- to meet the needs of students, and the property tax increases homeowners would likely face,” Pallotta said. “As always, we will be working with the Legislature and the governor to improve this spending plan to ensure the final budget – the last word – meets the needs of our public schools and colleges.”

NYSUT, the state’s largest union, represents more than 600,000 teachers, school-related professionals, academic and professional faculty in higher education, professionals in education and health care and retirees. NYSUT is affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers, National Education Association and the AFL-CIO.

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Statement of CSEA President Danny Donohue
on Gov. David Paterson’s proposed state budget.

“Gov. David Paterson’s unwillingness to address the misuse of $62 million in taxpayer money on temporary state workers should be evidence that there are still better budget choices to be made. Hiring and shortchanging temporary workers in dozens of state agencies for years on end is a misguided priority and a violation of the law. Before the governor asks union-represented state employees for concessions he needs to change his own administration’s practices that undermine working people.

CSEA will address these issues and so many others in the course of the weeks ahead with the objective of protecting jobs and services and their impact on the quality of life for New Yorkers.”

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New York State Nurses Association statement: Executive Budget relating to health care

LATHAM, NY – Jan. 19, 2010 – The New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) warns that the Governor’s proposed $1 billion in healthcare provider cuts is a number so large that its impact on facilities will be devastating.

Budget information obtained early Tuesday morning outlines nearly $1 billion in reductions to health care and an additional $240.2 million in assessments and surcharges.

Proposed cuts to hospital services, nursing homes, and home care and personal services will leave providers understaffed and put the public at risk. “These cuts, coupled with a lack of state regulation to ensure safe staffing, provide a formula that will negatively impact patient care and compromise patient outcomes for years to come,” said Tina Gerardi, MS, RN, CAE, Nurses Association CEO.

The Nurses Association urges the legislature to put the well-being of New Yorkers first and reject the Governor’s proposed healthcare cuts that impact patient care.

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Nurses Association opposes budget cut to SUNY nursing education LATHAM, Jan. 20, 2010 – The New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA)
opposes Governor Paterson’s recommended $143,100 cut to funding for expanded SUNY nursing programs.

While the SUNY program is just one part of nursing education, it is integral to the larger effort of meeting the long-term needs of the nursing shortage. “While we applaud the Governor’s extension of funding for the Senator Patricia McGee Nursing Faculty Scholarship Program and continued funding of private nursing education, we cannot ignore the need for funding at our SUNY institutions,” said Tina Gerardi, MS, RN, CAE, Nurses Association CEO. “Without sufficient nursing programs, the nursing shortage will worsen and patient care will be severely compromised,” she said.

NYSNA urges the legislature to address the current nursing shortage and reject the Governor’s damaging cuts to SUNY’s nursing education programs.

Contact: Erin Silk, 518.782.9400, ext 224 The New York State Nurses Association is the voice for nursing in the Empire State. With more than 37,000 members, it is the state’s largest union and professional association for registered nurses. It supports nurses and nursing practice through education, research, legislative advocacy, and collective bargaining.

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Albany – The governor’s proposed 2010-11 budget calls for a quarter of a billion dollars in negotiated give-backs from state employees, when the savings could easily be achieved by reducing the state’s reliance on costly private consultants, instead.

The New York State Public Employees Federation (PEF) applauds the governor for recognizing savings can be achieved by reducing the use of consultants. The governor recently proposed to reduce the use of information technology consultants for an estimated savings of as much as $15 million per year. The governor also identifies a savings in his proposed budget by reducing the state’s use of more costly private contract insurance examiners.

However, the governor’s consultant reduction plan is only the tip of the iceberg and does not go far enough. Our more aggressive proposal to cut the use of consultants across-the-board in state government can easily achieve the quarter of a billion dollars the governor is targeting from the state work force to close the budget gap.

I cannot and will not go to my members and ask them to reopen the contract we negotiated with the state in good faith when many of my members are sitting alongside more costly private contractors doing the same work. However, we are always willing to discuss issues that do not involve reopening our contract.

We await more details on the closures and consolidations the governor is proposing for the Office of Children and Family Services. We will seek to preserve the vital services our members provide to the state’s troubled youths and ensure that troubled and sometimes dangerous youths are not recklessly cast into our communities without adequate support.

PEF has identified significant potential savings for the state, such as the reduction in the use of consultants and reducing workplace injuries and their associated costs and have communicated these proposals to the governor.

PEF is the state’s second-largest state-employee union, representing 59,000 professional, scientific and technical employees.

“HOT CRIPPLE” BY HOGAN GORMAN SET FOR FEBRUARY

I am doing my one woman show “Hot Cripple” again in February… It seems like the perfect time, considering the recent debate over health care in this country… For tickets and information go to http://hotcripple.com .

Tickets are only available online.

Here’s what the critics and others say about the show…

Winner of the “Outstanding Actor Award” @ The New York Fringe Festival Time Out… “(Four stars) Hogan Gorman gives a top-notch performance in this engaging autobiographical one-woman show.”

Salman Rushdie… “Hogan Gorman‘s many characters are created with deadly accuracy, her writing is taut and lean, and her satire of the American medical system hits its mark.”

Show Business Weekly… “Hot Cripple successfully combines witty pop culture with the not so trendy tunes of America’s lower class.”

Backstage… “Gorman brings wonderful levity to a very dark yet real story.”

Curtain Up… “Hot Cripple makes its points with pathos and humor.”

Jester Journal… “Tons of self-deprecating and dark humor – a tale that is so well remembered and told that it seems natural on stage.”

I hope to see you there… and please spread the word.

xo

Hogan

http://hotcripple.com

NYS AFL -CIO President Denis Hughes; Keep Charter School Cap

OPPOSITION – Governor’s Charter School Program Bill #214

The New York State AFL-CIO representing over 2 million union workers, their families, and our retirees and their families is strongly opposed to the Governor’s proposal to eliminate the cap on the number of charter schools in the state and, equally to allow blanket authority for the Dormitory Authority to hand out construction finance to charter school companies.

The drive to create as many charter schools as possible at any cost has become an ideological obsession and ignores the realities of our state’s education needs. In fact, the driving factor behind this proposal is misinformation and half truths about the state’s cap on charter schools affecting federal assistance to the state.

This bill creates a dangerous escalation of the charter school program in New York State, a program that has not yet fully been tested and has created many funding problems for existing public school systems. While the charter school law has been in existence for ten years the law was flawed from the start and there have been serious questions raised as to the rights of employees of charter schools, the oversight and accountability of the use of public money by charter schools, the political nature of the approval process and the entire funding mechanism that is in place.

Prior to any adjustments to the cap on charter schools, clear and convincing evidence about the success of charter schools, the impact on individual communities and the impact on school budgets needs to be publicly aired. Considering that there are current state education cuts to school districts and that it is expected the Governor will propose even more cuts, it is unwise to give unchecked authority to create more charter schools to drain even more resources from public schools.

Further, charter schools should be subject to the same scrutiny as public schools as to how they operate, how funds are spent, the student selection process and other measures that ensure accountability oversight and public input. Finally, it needs to be clarified that charter schools are in fact publicly funded, public entities that are subject to the same requirements that other public entities are, including prevailing rate requirements, competitive bidding requirements, apprenticeship opportunity and other important safeguards in the Labor Law, State Finance Law and Education Law.

Therefore, it is urged that the bill in question be laid aside.

Paterson Seeks Huge Cuts and $1 Billion in Taxes and Fees

By DANNY HAKIM and NICHOLAS CONFESSORE

ALBANY — Gov. David A. Paterson proposed on Tuesday what would be the largest cut to school aid in more than two decades and nearly $1 billion in new or increased taxes and fees as he unveiled his budget, a plan that is likely to be the first chapter in a prolonged battle with the Legislature.

Searching for new sources of tax revenue amid a fiscal crisis, the governor proposed legalizing mixed martial arts, allowing the sale of wine in grocery stores, taxing bottled soft drinks, taxing cigarette sales on Indian reservations and deploying speed-enforcement cameras in highway work zones.

He even proposed charging fees to many families that enroll in an early intervention program for children with autism, attention deficit disorder and other special needs, and delaying one of his signature achievements — a plan to increase monthly welfare allowances.

Facing a $7.4 billion deficit this year, the governor is presenting a relatively lean budget by the standards of a state government accustomed to unrestrained spending. His office also delivered more sobering news, projecting that the state’s income will not return to the levels seen before the financial crisis until 2013.

The overall budget, including federal matching funds, would grow to $134 billion, up $787 million, or 0.6 percent, from the current fiscal year, which ends on March 31. State spending would increase $745 million, or 0.9 percent, to nearly $80 billion.

“This is not a budget of choice; this is a budget of necessity,” Mr. Paterson said in a speech to the Legislature on Tuesday morning. “Ladies and gentlemen, the days of continuing taxation and the days of continuous spending have got to end,” he added. “The era of irresponsibility has got to stop. The age of accountability has arrived.”

Several dozen lawmakers skipped the speech, which took place in a large egg-shaped auditorium here, and those who did attend greeted the governor’s remarks with polite, if tepid, applause. Mr. Paterson has had a tense relationship with fellow Democrats, who control the Legislature, sometimes by design as he has sought to capitalize on voter discontent with the array of scandals emanating from Albany.

Lawmakers expressed a mix of caution and skepticism on Tuesday. “Some of the stuff is retreads from last year that never quite made it, and I imagine they’ll probably meet the same fate,” said Senator Diane J. Savino, a Democrat representing Brooklyn and Staten Island, who singled out the soda tax and the proposal to allow groceries to sell wine.

Senator Malcolm A. Smith, a Queens Democrat, said the governor should not have allowed for an even modest rise in spending. “I don’t think we really should be increasing it at all,” said Mr. Smith, the Senate president.

Senator Dean G. Skelos, leader of the Senate Republicans, said, “The greatest danger” was “the one posed by Assembly and Senate Democrats who no doubt will push to further increase spending and taxes just like they did last year.”

The leaders of the Legislature — Senator John L. Sampson of Brooklyn and the Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver of Manhattan — said they needed more time to review the proposals.

As he faces an uphill election battle, Mr. Paterson’s budget is also a break from the typical practice of robust budgets in election years. With no money to throw at preferred interest groups, Mr. Paterson is betting that voters will reward him as a responsible steward instead of punishing him as a Scrooge.

His plan would cut school aid by 5 percent in a state with the highest per-capita spending on education. It would also slow the growth of spending on Medicaid, reduce by $1 billion spending on state agencies and eliminate $300 million in undesignated annual aid to New York City.

But Mr. Paterson avoided harsher medicine. He has made no significant cuts to the state’s work force and even assured union leaders that he would not seek layoffs this year, a risky move as the state faces huge deficits in the coming years.

His plan also assumes that there will be a significant recovery this year in the state’s tax collections and relies on a number of recycled proposals. A new tax on sugared sodas, $1.28 per gallon, would yield $465 million, similar to a proposal that Mr. Paterson made last year but dropped amid resistance from the Legislature and companies like PepsiCo Inc., which is based in Purchase, N.Y.

Mr. Paterson is also proposing an increase in cigarette taxes, raising the tax per pack by $1, to $3.75, a change that would bring total taxes in New York City to $5.25 per pack.

One of the most controversial measures is Mr. Paterson’s proposal to slash school aid. Under the plan, wealthier districts would be hit hardest, a strategy that has long been fought by the State Senate, especially by senators from Long Island. Billy Easton, executive director of the Alliance for Quality Education, called it “a colossal reversal of New York State’s commitment to providing every child with a real opportunity to learn.”

Mr. Paterson is also seeking to shrink the state’s troubled youth prison system, which is facing federal scrutiny and a class-action lawsuit. He wants to close perhaps the most infamous institution, Tryon Boys Residential Center in Fulton County, where a 15-year-old boy died in November 2006 after workers pinned him to the floor. Mr. Paterson also proposes consolidating or shrinking three other youth centers.

Another proposal would introduce fees to a state program that provides early intervention services for about 74,000 special-needs children. Families would be charged on a sliding scale, with fees starting at $180 a year for those with a household annual income of at least $55,126 and topping out at $2,160 a year for those earning at least $198,451.

Mr. Paterson is also proposing new assessments totaling $240 million on the state’s powerful health care industry on top of the nearly $1 billion in cuts in payments to health care providers.

He would close two tax loopholes, including one that allows people earning severance packages to avoid paying state income tax if they move out of the state. And he is proposing to restructure the state’s property tax relief program, known as Star, to make it less beneficial for the wealthy.

Budget watchdogs had a mixed reaction, although most said that the governor’s proposal lacked the gimmickry that had characterized many previous budgets.

“It looks pretty clean,” said Elizabeth Lynam, a deputy research director at the Citizens Budget Commission, a nonprofit organization. “On the whole, I think it makes a reasonable down payment on the problems the state is facing.”

Edmund J. McMahon, director of the Empire Center for New York State Policy, a conservative-leaning research group, said the governor was still proposing to spend too much.

“What they’re saying is, ‘Look, we’re below inflation now — isn’t that great?’ ” Mr. McMahon said. “The problem is you were several multiples of inflation ahead of personal income during one of the steepest recessions in recent history and you’ve got a lot of catching up to do, so this isn’t good enough.”

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