BALCONY Issues in the News

Assembly Report Reveals Spike in Violence Against Staff in NYS’s Juvenile Justice Facilities

As reported in today’s Times Union, Assembly Member Rory Lancman (D-Queens), Chair of the Subcommittee on Workplace Safety, released a report revealing a 42% increase in assaults on staff at the state Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS), which runs the state’s forty-seven juvenile justice facilities, based on Workers’ Compensation claims filed between 2008 and 2010.

The report further found that OCFS delayed implementing a workplace violence prevention program mandated by New York State law; that “facility specific” risk assessment and staff safety training also required by law has yet to be completed; that support programs for assaulted employees are lacking at OCFS facilities; and that one-third of juveniles initially placed at less secure, community-based non-profit facilities end up being relocated to more secure facilities.

Based on these findings, the report makes the following recommendations:

1. OCFS must immediately complete “facility specific” workplace violence risk assessments, and provide safety training at each facility based on the results of such assessments;

2. Existing management-employee workplace safety committees at each OCFS facility should better integrate workplace violence prevention into their agendas;

3. OCFS should develop support programs for employees who become victims of workplace violence;

4. The courts and OCFS need to make better assessments of juvenile delinquents in determining which level of secured facility they should be placed in.

“If OCFS is truly committed to create a functioning, safe and rehabilitating environment for residents, then administrators should take the recommendations of this report seriously and make a sustained commitment to improving the safety of its employees,” said Assemblyman Lancman.

——————————-
Jane Carey, Chief of Staff
Office of Assemblyman Rory Lancman
159-16 Union Turnpike, Suite 210
Hillcrest, New York 11366
718-820-0241 (District); 518-455-5172 (Albany); 718-820-0414 (Fax)

Jobs for Albany’s Do-Nothings (editorial)

Here are two important dates to keep in mind. April 1. That’s when New York State was supposed to have a new budget. And June 1. That’s when the state is scheduled to make a payment to local schools that is about $1 billion more than the cash on hand.

Forty-five days after the April deadline and Gov. David Paterson and the leaders of the Legislature can’t agree on how to close a $9.2 billion deficit in the $136 billion budget. What are they doing? Blaming each other and hoping the economy will bounce back or that somehow they can put off painful decisions until after the election. The way we hear it, they’re not even negotiating in person.

We rarely agree with anybody in Albany, but they’re right about one thing: They’re all at fault. They need to get to work, now. More specifically:

THE GOVERNOR Mr. Paterson’s original budget in January spared almost nobody. But he hasn’t gotten anyone else to sign on.

Mr. Paterson doesn’t have much clout as he fights accusations that he tried to protect a top aide from charges of domestic violence. But he is still the governor, and he needs to act like it. He needs to call in all of the state’s top players, including the unions, and demand that they keep talking until they have a workable deal. He can then hand over the negotiations to Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch, who knows budgeting and may have the only real plan for righting the state’s finances.

THE ASSEMBLY SPEAKER Sheldon Silver and his fellow Democrats have adopted most of the Ravitch plan, including short-term borrowing and modernization of the state’s budget process. But their budget proposal is still too generous, especially to the state’s unions.

Mr. Silver needs to get into that room and promote the interests of all New Yorkers. He is the right person to tell the unions that they have to do their share — agreeing to make modest contributions to their health care (like most other workers) or delayed pay raises and almost certainly furloughs.

To spread the pain fairly, Mr. Silver should be promoting luxury taxes, sales of wine in grocery stores and a fat tax on sodas. Ideally, New York’s income taxes should be made fairer. But this is not a state government that has the time or will to do the hard overhaul. Even a small short-term income tax surcharge on the rich would help.

THE SENATE DEMOCRATIC LEADER John Sampson can’t control his caucus. There are 32 Senate Democrats and 30 Republicans, and (as we have already seen) any self-absorbed Democrat can defect and cause trouble.

The Senate’s budget proposal is, to put it generously, wacky. It calls for closing this year’s deficit by taking out long-term loans that will increase the state’s interest liabilities for decades to come. Senators in Long Island and the suburbs are demanding property tax relief that would only widen the huge budget gap. Mr. Sampson should concentrate on keeping his members quiet while the Assembly and the governor agree on a budget. Then Mr. Paterson, Mr. Silver and Mr. Sampson can try to shame Senate Democrats into approving the deal.

SENATE REPUBLICANS They complain constantly that no one is consulting them. That’s true. They need to come into the room with real ideas for raising revenue and cutting spending. So far, all they want to do is cut property taxes and raise money for schools.

UNION LEADERS They may think they got a big win this week when a court rejected Mr. Paterson’s proposal to furlough state workers one day every week to save about $30 million. But, if this drags on much longer, Governor Paterson will have no choice but to start laying off people. It is time for the unions to stop waving around lawsuits and start negotiating seriously.

NEW YORK’S VOTERS Keep two more dates in mind. Primary day, Sept. 14. And Election Day, Nov. 2.

Gov. Paterson delays doling out $1.5B in school aid so cash-strapped state can pay its bills

BY Adam Lisberg and Glenn Blain

Gov. Paterson plans to delay another $1.5 billion in school aid to keep the cash-strapped state from going broke next month.

Budget Division boss Robert Megna said the school money must be held back because the state faces a $1 billion cash shortfall next month – and needs the school money to pay the bills.

Still, team Paterson finds itself in a pickle: State law requires the school aid to be handed out by June 1.

Paterson will seek approval from the Legislature next week to circumvent the deadline.

But it’s not all grim news for school systems. Another pot of school cash – $2.1 billion – that has been held back since March will finally be doled out in June.

“It’s a step forward because they need this money, but they really need the full complement of state aid,” state School Boards Associations David Albert said of the $1.5 billion installment Paterson is withholding.

Paterson is holding back on the school cash as lawmakers work to close a $9.2 billion budget gap and finalize a spending plan – one that’s 45 days late.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver Friday ripped Paterson for a lack of leadership and excluding the Legislature “from any meaningful dialogue” on the state’s overdue budget.

And he made a joke at Paterson’s expense.

Silver opened his speech to the Downtown-Lower Manhattan Association by mimicking his previous criticism of Ground Zero rebuilding effort.

“There’s a gaping hole that still has not been addressed. That we are where we are after this much time is an embarrassment. We cannot allow the current impasse to go on,” he riffed.

“That’s about all I’m going to say about the state budget process for the time being,” he said to laughter.

Team Paterson didn’t think it was funny.

“If the Assembly is ready to act, then they should pass a budget on Monday,” said Paterson spokesman Morgan Hook.

Keeping the American Dream in 2010 Alive

The Opportunity Agenda

Submitted by Eleni Delimpaltadaki

With or without government intervention? Public Opinion and Facts

Following a pro-longed debate over health care reform, a new legislative battle over financial regulation is under the way. What remains consistent in the public discourse and in Washington is the bone of contention: the role of government.

But what is it that we really argue about it? It could be many things such as the wellbeing of the people, the financial health of the country or America’s leading role in world politics. In the bigger picture, a lot of what we are arguing and fighting for are embodied in the idea of the American Dream, that “dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement” (James Truslow Adams).

The new and first State of the American Dream National Survey (Xavier University Institute for Politics and the American Dream) explores Americans’ perception and experience of the Dream today. “What is it exactly, who believes that, what aspirations and values are imagined for this generation and the next?” According to the survey, most define the American Dream as opportunity freedom and family followed by financial security, wealth, a good job and home ownership (see chart below) with variations on opinions by race or immigrant story (1st and 2nd generation immigrants compared to all adults in the U.S.).

Non-whites and recent immigrants define the dream mostly in terms of “tangible markers of financial well-being or a means of attaining the same: opportunity, home ownership, a good job, or wealth itself.” White adults “most often associate the Dream with freedom and financial security.”

These somewhat different meanings that different groups assigned to the Dream might be the reason that non-whites and immigrants are more positive than whites about the American Dream. Its current state and legacy are scoring low among Americans, but non-whites and immigrants are more positive than whites—the most pessimistic views come specifically by white women, particularly those between 40-64 yrs old, and residents of the Midwest. As FM3 observes in their analysis of the survey results, it is notable that “the part of our society that is still, by and large, worst off in terms of social or economic measurements, is also the same group that is most positive about the American Dream.”

The current condition of the Dream scores a mediocre 4.5 in a 10-point scale. “Nearly half of Americans rated the Dream lower than a “5” with nearly a quarter assigning the lowest possible rating. In contrast only 5% awarded the highest possible mark.” The legacy of the dream is also scoring low: 65% believe that “it has become harder to reach the American Dream than it was for their parents’ generation” and only one-third feel it is easier. A large majority are also pessimistic for the future (68%) saying that “it will be harder still for their children to reach the Dream with a stunning 45% believing it will be much harder.”

The state of the country vs. the state of the individual

Although the Xavier survey found this “this bleak view of the ‘macro’ state of the Dream”, it also indicated that people have a more optimistic reading of it on an individual level.

The more optimistic look at one’s circumstances than the state of the country, or perceptions of situations outside of oneself in general, are commonly observed in the research. On the topic of hard work and opportunity, the Pew Economic Mobility Survey (2009) shows that Americans, even in the midst of the recession, continue to believe that they exercise at least some control over their own economic situation (74%). However, when they are asked about the economic situation of people other than themselves, they think that other Americans do not have such control (55%).
Hard work or circumstances will save the American Dream?

The same survey also shows that”most Americans believe hard work as opposed to luck or circumstances will lead to its achievement; and two-thirds are still at least fairly confident that they will reach the Dream even as they rate its condition mediocre or poor”. Americans’ fiction on personal responsibility is not a new theme. For the past 40 years, public opinion researchers have been asking the following question: “In your opinion, which is generally more often to blame if a person is poor: lack of effort on their own part or circumstances beyond their control?” Americans have been evenly split on this question since 1998, but public opinion on this topic experienced significant fluctuations before that.

Trust in government at all-time low. Should government intervene? Can anyone help us?

According to a March Pew Survey, just 22% say they can trust the government in Washington almost always or most of the time, among the lowest measures in half a century. “About the same percentage (19%) says they are ‘basically content’ with the federal government, which is largely unchanged from 2006 and 2007, but lower than a decade ago”.

“Opinions about elected officials are particularly poor. In a follow-up survey in early April, just 25% expressed a favorable opinion of Congress, which was virtually unchanged from March (26%), prior to passage of the health care reform bill. This is the lowest favorable rating for Congress in a quarter century of Pew Research Center surveys. Over the last year, favorable opinions of Congress have declined by half — from 50% to 25%.

Not surprising, Americans do not highly trust the government or their elected officials. But do they expect them and hope that they find solutions to their problems? Let’s talk about financial problems since the topic is at the top of the public’s agenda.

Most Americans think that government must have an active role in confronting today’s economic problem, although some question its efficacy. In a January 2010 survey (Allstate/National Journal Heartland, Jan 2010), 1 out of 3 say that they “would like to see government PLAY an ACTIVE ROLE in the economy to ensure it benefits people like them, but they are NOT SURE that they can trust government to do this effectively”; and another third of America (29%) think that “the government must play an active role in regulating the marketplace and ensuring that the economy benefits people” like them. Opposed to that idea are about a third of respondents (35%), who say that “the government is the problem not the solution to our economic problems.”

However, a majority (62%) say that “it’s time for government to take a larger and stronger role in making the economy work for the average American.”

Additionally:

* Direct, publicly funded job creation programs are supported by 71% of voters (Benenson Group, 2009)
* A majority (51%) believe government should take a more active role in order to provide increased oversight and regulation of private business (Lake Research 2009)
* 66% of voters support raising income taxes on the wealthy—individuals making $500,000 or more and households making $1 million or more (7 Bloomberg National Poll, Seltzer & Co., Dec. 3-7).

Finally, Americans see “government help as last resort” (Demos/Topos). Americans tend to think that “the objective of government intervention in the economy must be to assist those who are failing in the existing system, like the poor or those who are unable to work.”

City appeals judge’s stay of $657M deal for ill 9/11 workers

By Ari Paul

Lawyers for the city are appealing U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein’s stay of a settlement between the city and more than 10,000 response workers suffering 9/11-related illness on grounds that the Judge overstepped his authority.

It also asked Judge Hellerstein to stall all proceedings in the litigation in order for the appeal to go forward.

Last month, Judge Hellerstein rejected the $657-million mass tort settlement because after lawyers’ fees of 33 percent were deducted the average pay-out per claimant—roughly $40,000 —would be too small a sum given the severity of the illness involved. Judge Hellerstein was unmoved during a hearing April 12 when lawyers asked him to lift the stay.

City: Judge Blocking Fair Deal

“In this case, the parties have tried to address concerns that were raised but the Judge’s statements and actions, together with his refusal to even consider other viewpoints, have made it necessary to appeal his rulings so that the plaintiffs and defendants can proceed with a settlement they consider fair and reasonable,” Corporation Counsel Michael A. Cardozo said in a statement. “Without this, we will not be able to obtain a settlement that provides compensation, certainty and closure to the parties after years of litigation.”

Legal experts have noted that while Judges have the power to reject settlements in class-action suits, Judge Hellerstein was entering untested territory in stepping into a mass-tort settlement (while the more-than 10,000 cases are grouped together, they do not constitute a “class” in the legal sense).

James E. Tyrrell, Jr., one of the main lawyers for the city and its contractors, said in statement, “While we respect the Judge’s views, his orders are impeding the progress we have made and are destroying the ability to provide compensation now to deserving plaintiffs through a settlement process. We also believe this settlement provides a pathway to obtain additional compensation from other parties who have not joined the settlement.”

In an interview with the New York Times, lead plaintiff attorney Marc Jay Bern did not indicate whether he would also file an appeal, saying, “As far as we’re concerned, the settlement still exists, and ultimately this is for our individual clients to accept or reject on their own behalf.”

9/11 heroes likely to suffer ‘World Trade Center Cough’ for life: study

BY Helen Kennedy
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Wednesday, April 7th 2010

The so-called “World Trade Center Cough” appears to be permanent.

A sweeping new study of firefighters and EMTs workers who inhaled toxic Ground Zero dust found that their lungs have unexpectedly failed to recover since the 2001 disaster.

“We demonstrated dramatic decline in lung function, mostly in the first six months after 9/11, and these declines persisted with little or no meaningful recovery over the next six-and-a-half years,” said Dr. David Prezant, a professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx.

The study will appear Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine. Lung problems from smoke inhalation in firefighters is usually temporary, and the study authors expected the damage they observed right after 9/11 to slowly disappear.

“Honestly, I thought we would see some recovery,” said lead author Dr. Thomas Aldrich, a pulmonologist at Montefiore Medical Center.

“I thought we’d see a slow return to the normal baseline in the absence of continuing exposure. But that generally did not happen. It’s discouraging.”

The study evaluated 92% of the 13,954 firefighters and EMS workers who were at the site between September 11 and September 24, 2001, testing their lung capacity every 12 to 18 months.

It found that 13% of firefighters and 22% of EMS workers still had impaired lung function seven years down the road.

The worst effected were those who arrived at the Trade Center on the morning of 9/11.

The cloud over Ground Zero – the vaporized remains of two 110-story towers – is estimated to have contained between one and two million tons of toxic dust, including asbestos, glass, cement and lead.

It was too thick to see through. “Perhaps there was something different about the dust itself, but more than likely it was the sheer volume,” Aldrich said.

“Breathing that stuff is clearly likely to be pretty damaging.”

Those who are still suffering hailed the report. “For eight years, we’ve been crying that we were sick and dying.

We are vindicated by the New England Journal of Medicine,” said John Feal, a construction worker who worked on “the pile” and later became a fierce advocate for 9/11 health care issues.

He noted that while the study looked at only firefighters and EMTs, there were 40,000 people breathing bad air at the site when police officers, construction workers and other volunteers are counted.

“This is more proof that we need long term health care solutions for 9/11 responders,” Feal said. “Here we are, eight-and-a-half years later. We’re in bad shape. Many of us have died,” said ex-firefighter Kenny Specht, who quit Ladder 289 in Queens with severe gastrointestinal problems followed by thyroid cancer.

“I hope they see this study and see that we’re not crying wolf and there is indeed a need for longer medical monitoring,” Specht said. Forty-one of the WTC firefighters had died before the lung study ended in 2008.

The James Zadroga bill, which would provide more than $10 billion for health care for those who affected by the dust cloud, is winding its way through the House, with the next committee vote set for April 12.

“This study is another sad confirmation of what we have known for a long time: Ground Zero toxins made responders sick and many are not getting any better. The good news is we are finally moving a permanent program to fund health care for responders and residents exposed and injured by these toxins,” said Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-Queens), a sponsor of the bill.

Last month, a federal judge stunned legal observers when he rejected a proposed settlement to nearly 10,000 lawsuits that would have given 911 responders $575 million. Judge Alvin Hellerstein said it wasn’t enough, when legal fees and complex payout formulas were considered.

A new hearing is set for Monday.

St. Vincent’s Votes to Shut Hospital in Manhattan

By SHARON OTTERMAN
Published: April 6, 2010

The board of St. Vincent Catholic Medical Centers voted on Tuesday night to close its flagship hospital in Greenwich Village, ending its long struggle to stay afloat despite millions of dollars of debt.

The exact timing for the closing of St. Vincent’s Hospital Manhattan, which has about 400 inpatient beds, was not immediately clear, but the process of shutting down has already begun, and the State Department of Health will become involved to ensure an orderly closing. Elective surgeries are to end by April 14.

“The decision to close St. Vincent’s Hospital Manhattan inpatient services was made only after the board, management and our advisers exhausted every possible alternative,” Alfred E. Smith IV, chairman of St. Vincent Catholic Medical Centers, said in a statement. They were unable to come up with a plan, he said, “to save the inpatient services at the hospital that has proudly served Manhattan’s West Side and downtown for 160 years.”

Gov. David A. Paterson said Tuesday that he would work with the board and the Department of Health to preserve some of the hospital’s most important community functions, perhaps by scaling it down to an urgent care center that could take patients with conditions ranging from ankle sprains to heart attacks. That plan would also try to maintain some outpatient services, like those that provide H.I.V. treatment and primary care, but it remains at a conceptual stage and would require finding a partner, people close to the process said.

In the meantime, outpatient services will continue without interruption, the board said.

The hospital and a task force convened by the governor had tried without success to find another hospital to absorb or unite with St. Vincent’s.

“While we are disappointed that we were unable to find a partner for the acute care inpatient services,” the governor said in a statement, “we should use this as an opportunity to ensure that the health care needs of this community are met by creating an urgent care center combined with other vital health care services the community needs. To that end, I have directed the Department of Health to solicit proposals for this new model of care.”

With its vote, the board effectively closed the last Roman Catholic general hospital in New York, a beacon in Greenwich Village that has treated victims of calamities from the sinking of the Titanic to Sept. 11. In recent years, its management troubles were worsened by the difficult economics of the health care industry, changes in the fabric of a historic neighborhood and the low profit in religious work.

The search for a partner hospital, which would be needed to maintain an urgent care center, is already under way. Mount Sinai Medical Center, which recently withdrew a bid to partner with St. Vincent’s to keep its acute care hospital open, has indicated some interest, according to an official involved in the restructuring efforts who insisted on anonymity because he was not authorized to comment. Mount Sinai officials could not be reached for comment late Tuesday.

Christine Quinn, the speaker of the City Council, who represents the neighborhood, called on the governor not to approve any closing until an urgent care plan was in place.

To satisfy its creditors, the hospital may sell or lease much of its valuable Greenwich Village real estate, as it drastically reduces its staff of doctors, nurses and others, to repay its estimated $700 million of debt, people involved in the hospital’s restructuring efforts said.

St. Vincent’s now gets most of its admissions through its emergency department, which could be a natural match for an urgent care facility. But with vastly reduced services, it would no longer be a Level 1 trauma center, so patients with high-level emergencies would be routed to full-service hospitals.

An urgent care center could remain open all night, but patients could not stay more than 24 hours, and would be discharged or transferred to another hospital if they required inpatient care.

Anemona Hartocollis contributed reporting.

DiNAPOLI: STOP PLAYING GAMES WITH STATE DEFICIT

NEWS from the office of the New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli

For Immediate Release: April 5, 2010

Contact:
Jennifer Freeman
(518) 474-4015

Report Highlights Decade of Complex Transactions to Mask State’s Real Fiscal Condition, Identifies Hundreds of Swept Funds

New York State has masked budget deficits and spending growth for more than a decade by shuffling money between accounts, off-loading operational spending to dedicated funds and borrowing, according to a report released today by State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli.

“New York needs to stop playing games with the deficit,” DiNapoli said. “The state dips into dedicated funds here and shifts money over there, all to cover cash shortfalls and avoid making the difficult decisions needed to align spending with revenues. The end result is the state’s real fiscal condition is impossible to pin down. Every time the game is played, taxpayers lose.

“If the state’s true structural deficit is hidden, hard decisions can be avoided and everyone can pretend things are fine. But things are not fine and they can’t be fixed by borrowing our way out. New York families are facing up to fiscal reality every day. It’s time the state did the same.”

The General Fund is the main operating fund of the state and has historically been used to measure the state’s projected budget deficit. However, the General Fund is increasingly providing a distorted view of the state’s financial health because money is shifted in and out of this account. Consequently, the size of the state’s underlying structural deficit is difficult to track and obscured.

In 2009-10, the state used approximately $6.4 billion in fund sweeps, shifts and temporary loans, and rolled nearly $3 billion in delayed payments into the new fiscal year. These complex shuffles between accounts distort the state’s bottom line.

DiNapoli’s report identified methods that are used to manipulate the state budget to obtain budget balance in a single fiscal year but mask the state’s structural deficit and long-term problems:

Robbing Peter to Pay Paul: Fund Sweeps

* Since 1985, the number of state special revenue accounts, which are funds dedicated to a specific cause or program, increased from 205 to 720 accounts. The state has increasingly been taking, or sweeping, these dedicated funds to provide one-time influxes of cash for the General Fund. This has contributed to the structural imbalance by allowing recurring spending to exceed recurring revenue. In addition, individuals who are paying special use charges or donating money for research into diseases or for other good causes are not benefiting from these funds.
* Over the past 10 years, $2.9 billion has been swept from these funds for budget relief ― including $1.8 billion, in the last three years. Over the past 10 years more than $850 million has been swept from the Environmental Protection Fund.
* The Division of the Budget (DOB) also has been given the authority to “blanket” sweep more than $1 billion from dedicated funds since 2007-08. Blanket sweeps do not identify what funds will be swept or the impact of the sweeps on the affected funds. Appendix A of the report details the hundreds of accounts that were swept to backfill the General Fund through blanket sweeps.

Off-Loading General Fund Spending to Hide Spending Growth

* Day-to-day state operating costs have been shifted from the General Fund to other funds, hiding spending growth and the true cost of running state government.
* The Executive budget proposes in 2010-11 to spend $40 million from the Environment Protection Fund on operational, employee and other costs for the state Department of Environmental Conservation and the state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation.
* One of the state’s biggest dedicated funds, the Dedicated Highway and Bridge Trust Fund has been siphoned so many times it’s nearly bankrupt and has to be subsidized by the General Fund. The operating expenses of the state Department of Motor Vehicles and the state Department of Transportation’s costs for snow and ice removal, bus inspections and engineering and administrative services are funded through the trust fund. Only $11.6 billion (34.9 percent) of the total amount of the fund has been spent to improve New York’s roads and bridges.
*

Abusing Temporary Loans
o The state often borrows from the state’s Short Term Investment Pool (STIP) to meet short-term cash shortfalls. These loans, intended to cover episodic shortfalls, are now used to cover built-in and permanent structural deficits. For the last 10 years, the state has closed the fiscal year with an average of $1.4 billion in outstanding temporary loans, clearly illustrating the state’s failure to address chronic deficits deeply embedded within the budget.
o The General Fund is increasingly relying on temporary loans from other funds. In December 2009, for the first time in recent history, the state closed the month with a General Fund cash deficit of $577 million prior to adjustments. In 2010-11, DOB is projecting the General Fund will have to borrow from other funds for four months in a row, starting in May.

Borrowing
+ The state also commonly uses debt to close deficits and pay for operating costs. Past borrowing for non-capital purposes now costs taxpayers $1 billion annually in debt service.
+ Over the past two years, more than $400 million was issued or is expected to be issued in new debt to replace what was intended to be pay-as-you-go capital spending. Debt service is now one of the fastest growing categories of spending in the budget.

DiNapoli recently proposed a number of fiscal reforms to address long-standing deficiencies in the state’s budget process. DiNapoli would prohibit blanket sweeps, require the Governor to identify actions to close out-year gaps, require the Executive and Legislature to identify all revenues that are available for spending, restrict the use of one-shot revenues to pay for ongoing expenses, prohibit borrowing for operating purposes and increase transparency in budget documents.

Click here for a copy of the report or visit http://www.osc.state.ny.us/reports/budget/2010/deficitshuffle.pdf.

NY suspends construction projects in fiscal crisis

The Associated Press

Albany, NY
March 30, 2010, 4:55PM ET
By MICHAEL GORMLEY

Gov. David Paterson is suspending hundreds of current and new construction projects because of New York’s budget woes, including a highway to Fort Drum and a major interchange on Long Island.

Paterson administration officials told The Associated Press on Tuesday that all projects not paid for by federal economic stimulus funds will be delayed until the Legislature and the governor agree on a 2010-11 budget or emergency funding.

The extraordinary order also tells contractors on existing projects that the state won’t fund any work after the start of the new fiscal year on Thursday until there is a budget or emergency funds. The soonest that could happen is April 7, when the Legislature returns. Or it could come April 14, when an emergency spending appropriation expires.

The order exempts projects that are planned to address “emergency health and safety needs” as certified by the Division of Budget. Contractors were to be notified Tuesday.

The action will be significant for communities statewide where the projects are under way or planned.

Suspending the work will probably result in layoffs and setbacks for local economies. It will also likely put pressure on senators and Assembly members who left Albany this week to take their Passover-Easter vacation without agreeing on a new budget.

“This is a difficult choice and it shows how difficult this is, because these projects do put people to work,” said Timothy Gilchrist, one of Paterson’s senior advisers.

Among the high-profile jobs that will be delayed is a highway connector project to the Fort Drum Army base in northern New York, for which a contract had been awarded Thursday.

Contractors will have to decide whether to go ahead without a flow of state cash as they contemplate the Interstate 87 Exit 6 redesign on the Adirondack Northway in Albany County and the Route 110 interchange project on the Long Island Expressway.

There was no immediate estimate of the number of jobs or the value of projects that will be affected, Gilchrist said.

Budget extenders pass Senate

March 29, 2010 at 11:42 am
By Jimmy Vielkind

The Senate passed four bills extending the functions of state government, with Republicans voting as a block against one of them and a handful dissenting on others. Sen. Mike Ranzenhofer, a Buffalo-area Republican, was the only senator to vote against all four pieces of legislation.

Sen. Tom Libous, R-Binghamton, said he was concerned the passage of the bills (and a resulting recess) do not bode well for the negotiations on an overall budget.

“You shouldn’t be doing extenders until 11:59 on Wednesday night, I believe that’s the 31st,” Libous said. “People should have the right to go, those who need to celebrate their religious holidays I don’t deprive them of that, but the palce shouldn’t be shut down because of it. What’s disappointing here is that you have the Decmorats in control of both houses. You know, it’s Monday and nothing’s getting done. Tomorrow’s Tuesday, and then Wednesday — nothing’s going to happen here until we come back on the 7th, and it’s a long time. The public deserves better.”

Democratic Senate Conference Leader John Sampson said senators are working through the week, and that he will meet with Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch on Wednesday. He rebuffed charges that work has been slow.

“With all due respect to our governor, we weren’t fooling anybody: we were working,” Sampson said. “Our members understand with the situation that we’re in we have to make the right decisions, because the decisions that we make are really going to impact a lot of New Yorkers. So we weren’t fooling around. We don’t take our duties lightly at all.”