Wage freeze, Triborough repeal
The NYCOM prescription calls for sweeping reforms in state law regarding government employees. Among the items on the wish list include a temporary freeze on public sector wages; repeal of the Triborough Amendment, which mandates that municipal workers contracts (including step raises) remain in effect even after the contract expires; and major restructuring of pension cost-sharing and benefits. “You Can’t Cap What You Can’t Control” also calls for a state-mandated employee contribution of no less than 25 percent of the cost of family health insurance, as well as changes disability rules for public safety workers.
The report of the governor’s task force, meanwhile, shows that Albany officials remain wary of sweeping changes in the rules governing relations with thousands of government employees backed by politically powerful unions. The list of mandate relief items passed into law in 2011 include a host of small-bore initiatives, like changing procurement laws to allow local governments and school districts to “piggyback” purchases on federal government contracts, eliminating redundant paperwork and making it easier for municipalities to carry out street improvement projects with in-house labor. According to a report released by the task force in December 2011, mandate relief measures and regulatory reforms identified by the task force and passed by the legislature would save local governments an estimated $165 million in 2012. But Van Epps, who noted that the committee had met just once or twice since completing the report, said that most local governments had yet to see significant savings.
“[$165 million] is certainly the figure they came up with,” said Van Epps. “But I’ve never seen a breakdown of that figure.”
Starve the beast
101st District Assemblyman Kevin Cahill (D-Kingston) acknowledged that fellow lawmakers had done little more than “pick around the edges”— usually around election time — when it comes to mandate relief. Cahill described the prevailing attitude towards the tax cap from Albany’s perspective as a “starve the beast” strategy to force local governments and school districts to spend down fund balances as a stop-gap while they come up with innovative ideas to restructure and cut costs.
“I don’t subscribe to that idea,” said Cahill. “Because the fact is there’s not a lot of frivolous spending going on municipalities and school districts these days.”
But Cahill pointed to a fundamental quandary of mandate relief — the money has to come from somewhere. Mandates for services like special education, Medicaid or Safety Net are generally shared by state, federal and local governments. Thus, to ease the burden on municipalities requires other levels of government to pick up a greater share of the funding, or make deep cuts in services that hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers depend on. Cahill said that in the end, the solution may lay less with mandate relief and more with major changes in the way local governments and school districts deliver services. Consolidation of services, school districts and government agencies would be the key to local government’s adjustment to the new fiscal reality, Cahill said. The job of state lawmakers, Cahill said would be to remove obstacles and provide incentives for consolidation.
“We can to create opportunities and incentives for orderly, statutory consolidation,” said Cahill. “It doesn’t have to be painful.”
Many communities, including Kingston, which recently merged its tourism office with the county’s, are moving towards consolidation of services as a way out of the tax cap conundrum. But others may simply decide that unfunded mandates make a 2 percent limit on tax hikes unsustainable. The tax cap law includes a provision that allows local governments to override the limit with a supermajority vote of the governing body or 60 percent of the popular vote in a school district election. Last year, 15 percent of New York’s local governments opted to override the tax cap. But many communities that stayed under the cap did so by drawing down fund balances or juggling budget priorities. Without greater mandate relief, Van Epps said, more and more governments may decide to make the case to voters that they cannot bring down property taxes until the burden is eased.
“In another year or two you may see more communities overriding the tax cap,” said Van Epps. “Just because they don’t have any more tricks up their sleeve.”
