Unsurprisingly, Cahill issued a scorching reply.
“Instead of using his budget message to inform the public of how he intends to responsibly administer county government, county executive Michael Hein exploits the moment to once again salve his bruised ego,” said the assemblyperson in a statement.
Hein says that he has been clear in letting everyone, including Cahill, know that there was no consideration of forestalling the Safety-Net takeover beyond the three-year period that was promised.
Cahill called that a “recasting [of] events and facts,” The county legislature’s Ways and Means Committee felt, he said, that “there was a serious threat made to the county’s commitment to an orderly and timely Safety-Net takeover.”
The net effect of the inability to collect the one percent sales tax (over a time period that includes the holiday season), according to Hein, means a loss of $4 million to Ulster County and another $500,000 to the City of Kingston, which may be in considerably deeper financial straits than the county. Coupled with the need for the county to spend some $2 million more in its pickup of another third of the Safety-Net expense, Hein forecast a “$6-million hole” in his revenue projections. Had he been able to collect the $4-million county share of the one percent sales tax, Hein said that he would have been able to reduce the tax levy.
Closing the hole
How was he able to close this hole and still come up with a budget that reduces spending and contains no tax increase?
Hein credited the reduced personnel costs, savings from the sale of the county nursing home at Golden Hill, and the fact that he’ll be using $16.7 million of the county’s fund balance in 2014, where in 2013 only $13.2 million was budgeted. This will have the effect of reducing the county’s rainy-day fund from the suggested ceiling of five percent of expenditures to 3.7 percent.
In a group interview after his presentation, Hein touted a ‘reinvention’ of the way the county delivers mental-health services, working with contract agencies gradually to “develop public-private partnerships that can work” with the support of the relevant union, CSEA. The budget will also benefit from a reduction in the amount of state retirement contributions, as outlined by the state comptroller.
“Over the last five years, government has gotten significantly smaller,” he said in the interview. “But in the process more services are available to the people of Ulster County than ever before. And taxes didn’t go up.”
But accompanying Hein’s and budget aide J.J. Hanson’s unceasing barrage of blame at Cahill was a threat — should the state legislature (and in a new year’s state legislative session, both houses will have to agree) fail to reinstate the one percent sales tax addendum that will be missing for the first quarter, Hein promised what he calls “sequestration” — that is, another $22 million in cuts to make up for the lost revenue for the other three quarters of the year. Among the cuts, Hein says, would be slashes to contract agencies, mental health contracts, personnel adjustments, sheriff’s department, public works, social-services contracts, UCAT buses and municipal dues.
After one last dig, Cahill, for his part, said he would now support the reinstatement of the one percent sales tax. “I forgive Mr. Hein for his immaturity in acting out for not exactly getting his way,” he said. “I am, however, puzzled by his current stance that he always intended to honor his Safety-Net commitment. If that is the case, one is left to wonder why he would not agree to be bound by law in May and June of this year but is willing to be so bound now.”
