Budget

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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Left Hand/Right Hand Continued #2. Perspective From Another Nursing Home

November 16, 2011 Budget

Heard from the Administrator of another nursing home (by reputation, a good facility) who pointed out that she runs a nursing home of about the same size as Albany County and … The projected deficit for a new Albany County Nursing Home is about the same size as their entire annual budget. It must be […]

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Left Hand, Meet Right Hand

November 15, 2011 Budget

It appears that this coming Thursday, New York State will bless the construction of a new Albany County Nursing Home. I wrote a bit about it a couple weeks ago when County Legislators began to talk privately about their hopes that the State would take them off the hook and disapprove the application. On the […]

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“Balanced” Budgets are Fine When You Have Plenty of Cash, but Balance May Not be Enough to Prevent a Crash

November 14, 2011 Budget

When I was a young Air Force pilot, one of the greybeards that I flew with counseled me that the most important job of an Aircraft Commander was “managing the margin of error.” Flying close to home, with less than a full load, or in good weather was much different from flying over the Pacific, […]

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Too Conservative for Their Own Good?

November 14, 2011 Budget

Good grief! Historically, Saratoga County, NY has been among the financially tightest in New York. When we wrote about Nassau County being consistently on the high side of spending per capita among New York’s county governments, we could also see that Saratoga was on the low side. In particular, you can see a graphic view […]

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Somewhere Between Scylla and Charybdis

October 12, 2011 Budget

Recently I had lunch and caught up with an old friend and colleague, one who’s been central to the wars over health coverage. We’re equally distressed about, not only the state of the economy, but the state of political discourse and decision making. We’ve been concerned for quite some time, but this past summer’s debt […]

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Albany County & Orange County, NY Budgets and their County Nursing Homes

October 5, 2011 Budget

Those who know me, know that for several years as the Albany County, NY Commissioner of Management & Budget, I developed and pushed very hard for a strategy to expand home and community based long-term care services and to close the Albany County Nursing Home. I thought and still think that this direction made much […]

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Unfunded Mandates?

August 2, 2011 Budget

A major complaint of counties in New York, even before the State imposed a cap (porous, but a cap) on increases in property taxes, the constant refrain was that the State mandated a host of requirements that generate costs, but which the State doesn’t pay at least part of it. However, about 40 counties operate […]

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I’m not the only one

July 28, 2011 Budget

Lawrence O’Donnell just said the solution would be for Boehner to get the Democrats and about 50 “not-crazy” Republicans to pass the debt ceiling increase. Same strategy as I mentioned here. But then he pointed out that Boehner has never done anything to draw Democratic votes. Oh well.

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Postponed House Vote on Debt Ceiling

July 28, 2011 Budget

At this point, the House Republicans has postponed the vote on Boehner’s bill extending the debt ceiling and cutting the budget. Right now, the Republicans don’t have the votes to even pass their own bill. Reminds me of an incident years ago in the NYS Assembly. The parties and positions were the inverse of what […]

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