John W Rodat

Tax Cap Office Pool

December 2, 2011 Budget

Office pool open on which local government budgets will have the highest property tax increases in 2012: By category City (excluding New York City) Town County Overall $25 for the winner in each category. $50 for the overall winner. (Hey, it’s coming out of my pocket and I’m among the 99 percent.) Ties will share […]

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Intergovernmental Money Movement, Especially Downhill

November 29, 2011 Budget

Little considered or included in public discussions of property tax caps, or limitations on governmental expenditures are intergovernmental financial relationships. This is not merely a matter of mandates but recognition that very large sums of money flow back and forth between all levels of government. What is expenditure for one level of government is often […]

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Down is Up; Up is Down

November 29, 2011 Budget

A year ago, the Albany County Legislature’s Chairman of the Audit & Finance Committee, charged the Commissioner of Management & Budget (me) of artificially suppressing revenue estimates in order to create an argument supporting drastic cuts – that is the revenue numbers were too low. And so with that as backdrop, he and his co-conspirators […]

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Mitt Romney is a Cluster Bomb

November 28, 2011 Finance

Like cluster bombs, Mitt Romney is indifferent to indiscriminate “collateral damage.” I’ve been doing some research on private equity firms and the more I see, the more I suspect that they’re just another version of the rapacious financial practices of the last couple decades. They may be better disguised than “collateralized debt obligations” and other […]

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Patient Patronage

November 23, 2011 Budget

Not generally recognized in the county nursing home business is a second form of political patronage, namely “patient patronage.” Sure County Legislators and other politicians call when they want a job for a friend, family, or constituent. No surprise there. This practice was pretty much suppressed in Albany County government for the first dozen years […]

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Sales Tax Increase Flops for Saratoga; They Go for Property Tax Increase and Cuts

November 19, 2011 Budget

As expected, key members of the State Senate, told Saratoga County officials not to plan on a local sales tax increase (which requires permission from the State Legislature and Governor), to balance the County budget. It was unlikely from the beginning. The State approved extensions of existing taxes during the current year, but approved no […]

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Don’t You Really Want to Reconsider? Big Mistake Averted at Least for the Time Being

November 17, 2011 County Government

Today, the Committee charged with reviewing applications for health facility construction projects for New York’s Public Health and Health Planning Committee took up Albany County’s certificate of need application to build a new nursing home. After considerable discussion and an emotional appeal by a patient’s family member and one County Legislator, the Committee voted to […]

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What Albany County Long Term Care Could Use More of Instead of New Nursing Home Capacity

November 17, 2011 Expenditures

The Administrator of a non-profit nursing home in Albany County reminded me yesterday that what the area really needs is more assisted living, residential capacity. Right now there is only one facility in the County that accepts Medicaid for Assisted Living, a less patient restrictive, more homelike, and much less expensive type of program than […]

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And Speaking of Cash

November 17, 2011 Cash

I haven’t seen the original report so can’t even attempt to validate the headline, but here’s a story on the risk that given its current trajectory, the City of Detroit will run out of cash by April, 2012.

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Another County Nursing Home is Being Sold

November 17, 2011 County Government

Thanks to an alert reader for pointing out that there’s another New York county nursing home on the agenda of New York’s Public Health & Health Planning Council. Unlike Albany’s, this one, in Fulton County, is being sold. We talked earlier here about the large number of counties seeking to offload their nursing homes (and […]

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