County

Constituent Consistency

September 5, 2012 County Government

One of the things that’s interesting about this story in the Observer, out in Dunkirk, NY is how the comments (vitriol included) are so like what you’ll read and hear all over New York where a county is considering doing anything other than building a new nursing home. Here are a couple of examples: FredoniaFred:The […]

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NYS Number of the Day: County Overhead Costs

August 27, 2012 Administration

What was reported by New York’s counties, excluding New York City for general government administration and operations and miscellaneous general government administrative costs in 2010? Another way to think of this is general overhead; it excludes administrative costs in program functions, e.g., public safety administration. We’ll do that calculation later. Though they are included for […]

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NY Numbers of the Day

August 23, 2012 County Government

Question: Among counties in New York (excluding New York City and excluding Columbia County, which at the time I pulled the data, had not submitted theirs), from 1998 to 2010, which county had the highest rate of growth in employee benefit expenditures and what was it? Rensselaer County at 375.6 percent. Which had the lowest? […]

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NPR Notices the Fading County Nursing Homes in NYS

August 17, 2012 County

National Public Radio does a story on New York’s counties getting out of the nursing home business. Click here for text and sound.

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We’re Back. But the County Nursing Home Issue Never Left

August 3, 2012 County

Well, I tried to take a vacation … While I was away, a friend tracked me down. He’s analyzing what a specific county (not to be named here) might and should do with their nursing home. A couple of things came up. The first and most interesting was the number of patients who had been […]

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The “Unfunded Mandate” Gig. What Would Real Government Reform in NY Look Like?

June 7, 2012 Administration

As they do from time-to-time, all over New York, county officials are screaming about “unfunded mandates.” Candidates for the State Legislature are touting reforming “unfunded mandates” as an essential part of their platform. Even aside from the funded unmandates (read that carefully) of county nursing homes that so many still wish to maintain and some […]

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More on, and a Possible Correction on IGT

June 7, 2012 Budget

Last week, we noted that the Federal government wants some of its IGT money back. I’m not, not, not going to try to explain how this program works or why and how counties put up $.50 on one day and the next day their nursing homes get back $1.00. But during the recession, counties only […]

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Feds Want Their County Nursing Home (IGT) Money Back

May 25, 2012 County Government

The word is out that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has made a final decision and will be retroactively recovering “Intergovernmental Transfer” (IGT) funds from counties operating nursing homes in New York. This retroactive recovery goes all the way back to State fiscal year 2006-07. This will be partially counterbalanced by a small […]

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Recovering, but Not Recovered, Local in New York

April 13, 2012 Uncategorized

Sales tax receipts for each county in New York and New York City in the first quarter of 2012, ranked by percentage change from the first quarter in 2011. Eight counties showed a decline. Sales Tax Collections, Q1, 2012 First Quarter, 2012 First Quarter, 2011 Difference $ Q1, 2012 to Q1, 2011 Percent Difference Q1, […]

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The Tail of the Recession

April 6, 2012 Cities

Even though the most recent “Great Recession” is officially over and even though it appears we are slowly emerging from its aftermath, governmental finances have not escaped its gravitational pull. The recession was bad enough. Many communities, which were economically strapped to begin with, started with a small buffer and are just now running out […]

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