Last Wednesday I attended Council President Lesnick’s first “public meeting” to discuss property tax reassessment. The meeting was called on less than one week’s notice, it was not publicized but for a brief mention in the Journal News and it was held at 10 a.m. on a weekday morning (the week that the school’s were closed and children were home to boot). Not surprisingly, by my count fewer than twenty Yonkers’ households were represented. Other than me, reassessment proponents Council President Lesnick and Councilmember Gronowski were the only city officials present.
Lat night, I attended the regular meeting of the Nepara Park- Grey Oaks Homeowners Association. With just an announcement of the meeting in its newsletter, the Association turned out about 150 or more people for a lively discussion of reassessment. Present were three Councilmembers and the Mayor.
The message from the audience was clear. Now is just not the right time. With the economy struggling, people hurting and many worrying about job security, now is not the time to reassess and, inevitably, place a significantly higher tax burden on the majority of single family homeowners, many of them seniors.
What was also apparent was the lack of solid information. There are simply too many open questions about how reassessment would be accomplished, how it would impact the residents and whether it would even cure or exacerbate some problems, like the County tax levy. Now is not the time to rush such an important issue. It’s been over half a century since Yonkers’ last reassessment. That delay isn’t, by itself, an excuse to drag our feet. But it certainly means that we can wait a little longer, answer our own questions, answer the public’s questions and figure out what the real impact, good and bad, for this idea will be.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Reisman quotes City Journal essay
Taxpayers bear wounds of battles to stretch government revenues
By Phil Reisman
Journal News columnist • February 15, 2009
Last week, the White Plains City School District inked a $210,000-a-year contract with its new superintendent, which is fairly standard pay for first-year school chiefs these days.
At least it is in this neck of the woods.
Advertisement
But what caught my eye were some of the $47,000 worth of benefits attached to the deal. One of them was a $6,500 payment to Social Security - a perk which may or may not be unusual. In any case, it struck me as unfair that taxpayers would be required to assume a portion of a public official's tax burden.
There was also a $6,000 car allowance, $10,000 in moving expenses and assorted health benefits.
On top of 46 vacation, sick and personal days, the new "supe," Christopher Clouet, will get 15 holidays. That may seem like a lot of holidays, but all of them are legitimate.
There's nothing crazy in there like what the Malverne town police union on Long Island got away with until somebody blew the whistle on them. When no one was looking, the cops snuck in more than 20 extra "special days" - among them Elizabeth Cady Stanton Day, National Day of Katrina Remembrance, Children's Day, Haym Salomon Day, Shirley Chisholm Day and my personal favorite, Gerald Ford Day.
Perhaps in good times, no one would raise a fuss over the generosity afforded Clouet, who is getting a $78,000 raise over his previous post in the New London, Conn., school district.
But these are far from good times. Everybody's tapped, or fear they will be soon, and yet the demand for taxpayers' money is increasing at an alarming rate.
The same week Clouet's contract was announced, it was reported elsewhere that a proposed payroll tax to help solve the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's budget problems would cost White Plains schools $330,000. That would wipe out Clouet's pay and benefits package and probably the salaries of a couple of teacher aides as well.
There's mounting resistance to the payroll tax, which would be imposed on businesses, nonprofit groups, governmental agencies and school districts, and would raise $1.5 billion a year. For one thing, it's difficult to see how it won't result in more layoffs and contribute further to the state's downward spiral. More unemployed would mean fewer people paying fares and cause the MTA to fall into a self-perpetuating fix.
Nevertheless, if the MTA gets its way, you might think it would be appropriate for Clouet to at least pay his Social Security bill like everybody else. And what's with the car allowance?
This "shared sacrifice" idea sounds nice, but it's not going to come with altruistic glee. Just ask my barber Tony in Larchmont, who is understandably steamed over Gov. David Paterson's idea of a haircut tax.
The problem with surcharges like this is that they don't merely raise revenue, they change consumer behavior. If Paterson's goofy soda tax is intended to discourage fat kids from drinking liquefied sugar, then it's only logical to conclude that a tonsorial tax would cause people to grow their hair longer. We've already endured a dreary period of long-haired skinnies - it was called "The '60s."
And frankly, the Age of Aquarius wasn't at all what it was cracked up to be.
New York is in such lousy shape financially that the so-called "millionaire's tax" has devolved into a proposal to increase the tax rate on anybody earning $250,000 a year or more. This will be a hard sell, but if it succeeds, three things could happen as a result.
First, a good number of state residents will pack their golf clubs and golden retrievers and flee across the border to Canada or worse, New Jersey. Overnight, Bedford Hills will look like it was hit by a neutron bomb. Second, the diehards who stay behind will do something that heretofore was thought impossible: They will break the nearly 100 percent incumbency rate in Albany and throw half the bums out.
And third, Rudy Giuliani will become the next governor. (Yecch.)
Paterson's dream of shared sacrifice could work, however. But the trick is he can't raise taxes on the richest citizens without getting concessions from the state's unions. He's already asked them to give back a three-percent raise scheduled to take effect April 1 and defer five days' pay. They've all but told him to shove it.
Actually, those are modest proposals given the rate of layoffs, pay cuts and unpaid furloughs going on in the private sector. Elected officials at all levels of government should press public employees to pay more for health care and pension benefits, too. The scam of overtime to pad police and fire pensions is a scandal and should be reined in.
Of course, none of this can be easy in a state whose array of possible successors to Hillary Clinton's Senate seat included, of all people, Randi Weingarten, the president of the all-powerful teacher's union.
But the party is over, for everyone. That's been decided.
The question yet to be answered is how the ailing state can be cured without killing it.
In an article he wrote last week for the online City Journal, Yonkers City Councilman John Murtagh observed that the burdensome cost of doing business in New York was probably the reason a large employer, the Precision Valve Corp., recently decided to leave the city for the cheaper climes of South Carolina.
Murtagh, a Republican, listed the usual suspects. New York pays double the national average in Medicaid; overall per capita spending is the fourth highest in the U.S.; personal income taxes and real estate taxes are the highest in the country and so on.
"As a result," Murtagh wrote, "New York has seen a steady emigration of citizens and employers for years. In the current downturn, that emigration could turn into a stampede."
There's also a painful human side to this political battle that hasn't received the attention it deserves.
On Wednesday, Assemblyman George Latimer, D-Rye, hosted a community meeting in Larchmont to hear testimony from people affected by the state's planned budget cuts. Fifty-nine people spoke for four hours.
There were librarians, kids from youth groups, school board members and health care workers. A blind woman spoke as a did a woman with multiple sclerosis. Another woman got up and talked about being laid off from her Wall Street job.
A State University of New York student talked about how the poorest students could not afford the increase in state college tuition.
Somebody talked about the MTA payroll tax.
A Rye man stated the paradox of the need to raise local property taxes while cutting school spending because of the drop in state aid and the reduction in the mortgage-transfer tax revenue.
"As much as we're going to have make cuts because the numbers demand it, when you look in the eyes of these human beings, you feel a little differently about the bloodlessness of the numbers," Latimer said.
One final note: This column will be on hiatus through next week. While I'm off, I plan to celebrate Gerald Ford Day by misdirecting golf balls and falling down the stairs.
Reach Phil Reisman at preisman@lohud.com or call 914-694-5008. See more at reisman.lohudbogs.com.
By Phil Reisman
Journal News columnist • February 15, 2009
Last week, the White Plains City School District inked a $210,000-a-year contract with its new superintendent, which is fairly standard pay for first-year school chiefs these days.
At least it is in this neck of the woods.
Advertisement
But what caught my eye were some of the $47,000 worth of benefits attached to the deal. One of them was a $6,500 payment to Social Security - a perk which may or may not be unusual. In any case, it struck me as unfair that taxpayers would be required to assume a portion of a public official's tax burden.
There was also a $6,000 car allowance, $10,000 in moving expenses and assorted health benefits.
On top of 46 vacation, sick and personal days, the new "supe," Christopher Clouet, will get 15 holidays. That may seem like a lot of holidays, but all of them are legitimate.
There's nothing crazy in there like what the Malverne town police union on Long Island got away with until somebody blew the whistle on them. When no one was looking, the cops snuck in more than 20 extra "special days" - among them Elizabeth Cady Stanton Day, National Day of Katrina Remembrance, Children's Day, Haym Salomon Day, Shirley Chisholm Day and my personal favorite, Gerald Ford Day.
Perhaps in good times, no one would raise a fuss over the generosity afforded Clouet, who is getting a $78,000 raise over his previous post in the New London, Conn., school district.
But these are far from good times. Everybody's tapped, or fear they will be soon, and yet the demand for taxpayers' money is increasing at an alarming rate.
The same week Clouet's contract was announced, it was reported elsewhere that a proposed payroll tax to help solve the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's budget problems would cost White Plains schools $330,000. That would wipe out Clouet's pay and benefits package and probably the salaries of a couple of teacher aides as well.
There's mounting resistance to the payroll tax, which would be imposed on businesses, nonprofit groups, governmental agencies and school districts, and would raise $1.5 billion a year. For one thing, it's difficult to see how it won't result in more layoffs and contribute further to the state's downward spiral. More unemployed would mean fewer people paying fares and cause the MTA to fall into a self-perpetuating fix.
Nevertheless, if the MTA gets its way, you might think it would be appropriate for Clouet to at least pay his Social Security bill like everybody else. And what's with the car allowance?
This "shared sacrifice" idea sounds nice, but it's not going to come with altruistic glee. Just ask my barber Tony in Larchmont, who is understandably steamed over Gov. David Paterson's idea of a haircut tax.
The problem with surcharges like this is that they don't merely raise revenue, they change consumer behavior. If Paterson's goofy soda tax is intended to discourage fat kids from drinking liquefied sugar, then it's only logical to conclude that a tonsorial tax would cause people to grow their hair longer. We've already endured a dreary period of long-haired skinnies - it was called "The '60s."
And frankly, the Age of Aquarius wasn't at all what it was cracked up to be.
New York is in such lousy shape financially that the so-called "millionaire's tax" has devolved into a proposal to increase the tax rate on anybody earning $250,000 a year or more. This will be a hard sell, but if it succeeds, three things could happen as a result.
First, a good number of state residents will pack their golf clubs and golden retrievers and flee across the border to Canada or worse, New Jersey. Overnight, Bedford Hills will look like it was hit by a neutron bomb. Second, the diehards who stay behind will do something that heretofore was thought impossible: They will break the nearly 100 percent incumbency rate in Albany and throw half the bums out.
And third, Rudy Giuliani will become the next governor. (Yecch.)
Paterson's dream of shared sacrifice could work, however. But the trick is he can't raise taxes on the richest citizens without getting concessions from the state's unions. He's already asked them to give back a three-percent raise scheduled to take effect April 1 and defer five days' pay. They've all but told him to shove it.
Actually, those are modest proposals given the rate of layoffs, pay cuts and unpaid furloughs going on in the private sector. Elected officials at all levels of government should press public employees to pay more for health care and pension benefits, too. The scam of overtime to pad police and fire pensions is a scandal and should be reined in.
Of course, none of this can be easy in a state whose array of possible successors to Hillary Clinton's Senate seat included, of all people, Randi Weingarten, the president of the all-powerful teacher's union.
But the party is over, for everyone. That's been decided.
The question yet to be answered is how the ailing state can be cured without killing it.
In an article he wrote last week for the online City Journal, Yonkers City Councilman John Murtagh observed that the burdensome cost of doing business in New York was probably the reason a large employer, the Precision Valve Corp., recently decided to leave the city for the cheaper climes of South Carolina.
Murtagh, a Republican, listed the usual suspects. New York pays double the national average in Medicaid; overall per capita spending is the fourth highest in the U.S.; personal income taxes and real estate taxes are the highest in the country and so on.
"As a result," Murtagh wrote, "New York has seen a steady emigration of citizens and employers for years. In the current downturn, that emigration could turn into a stampede."
There's also a painful human side to this political battle that hasn't received the attention it deserves.
On Wednesday, Assemblyman George Latimer, D-Rye, hosted a community meeting in Larchmont to hear testimony from people affected by the state's planned budget cuts. Fifty-nine people spoke for four hours.
There were librarians, kids from youth groups, school board members and health care workers. A blind woman spoke as a did a woman with multiple sclerosis. Another woman got up and talked about being laid off from her Wall Street job.
A State University of New York student talked about how the poorest students could not afford the increase in state college tuition.
Somebody talked about the MTA payroll tax.
A Rye man stated the paradox of the need to raise local property taxes while cutting school spending because of the drop in state aid and the reduction in the mortgage-transfer tax revenue.
"As much as we're going to have make cuts because the numbers demand it, when you look in the eyes of these human beings, you feel a little differently about the bloodlessness of the numbers," Latimer said.
One final note: This column will be on hiatus through next week. While I'm off, I plan to celebrate Gerald Ford Day by misdirecting golf balls and falling down the stairs.
Reach Phil Reisman at preisman@lohud.com or call 914-694-5008. See more at reisman.lohudbogs.com.
As published in City Journal by the Manhattan Institute:
John M. Murtagh
Pack the City, We’re Moving!
Each year, one Yonkers leaves New York for friendlier climes.
11 February 2009
I’m thinking we should move to South Carolina. No, not me and the family. The whole city of Yonkers.
In June 2008, longtime Yonkers manufacturer Stewart EFI left the city, taking with it a few hundred manufacturing jobs. Then, a few weeks ago, the Precision Valve Corporation, one of Yonkers’s largest employers and a company founded in the city, announced that it was moving to the Palmetto State. Precision Valve vice president Bob Reto explained the relocation delicately: “The decision was driven by the need to operate under the greater efficiencies afforded in South Carolina.” Mayor Phil Amicone, by contrast, didn’t mince words: Yonkers “could not surmount the costly economics of doing business in New York State.”
Overall per-capita government spending in New York State is now the fourth-highest in the nation—nearly 50 percent above the national average. That’s a problem in good times; in the current economic climate, it’s a disaster. Examples of waste abound. New York spends more per pupil on education than any other state, yet it ranks near the bottom third in most measurements of student performance. Likewise, New York spends double the national average on Medicaid, yet lags badly in the quality of its health care.
The cash to fund this waste, of course, comes out of New York taxpayers’ pockets. When I ran for the New York State Senate last year, I’d remind audiences that here in Westchester, we live in the highest-taxed county in the highest-taxed state in the nation. New York’s personal-income and real-estate taxes are the highest in the country, while its business taxes are the second-highest. As a result, New York has seen a steady emigration of citizens and employers for years. In the current downturn, that emigration could turn into a stampede.
Yet as unchecked spending and a crushing tax burden destroy the Empire State, what solutions do we hear from our elected leaders in Albany? Governor David Paterson, while proposing token spending cuts, has called for over $3 billion in new “revenue actions.” Under his proposals, New Yorkers can expect to pay more for everything from haircuts to iTunes downloads to soda pop. Ever the populist, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver proposes that we “tax the rich”—or at least those he defines as such. What the Speaker really means is: Let’s tax the people who start and own businesses, create jobs, and pay salaries. Of course, the “rich” have a simple solution to tax increases: move to South Carolina, where there are “greater efficiencies” in doing business.
Precision Valve was founded by Bob Abplanalp, the Bronx-born son of an immigrant machine-shop owner. After building his business, Abplanalp joined other businessmen in founding the Hudson Valley Bank, also in Yonkers. Today, the Hudson Valley Bank is one of those increasingly rare independent banks focused on serving their local communities. For decades, Abplanalp and his family quietly but generously supported countless local charities, from the Yonkers Boy Scouts to a shelter for pregnant women. In the mid-1970s, Abplanalp all but single-handedly saved his old high school, Fordham Prep, as it struggled to keep its doors open. Today, Fordham Prep thrives, teaching a new generation of children, many the sons of immigrants themselves. Such are the “rich” who, Silver insists, must pay their “fair” share by turning their money over to the barons of Albany.
Instead of figuring out how to dig deeper into our pockets, New York leaders need to slash taxes, halt decades of wasteful spending, and make the state an attractive place to do business again. The current crisis demands a hard look at every line in New York’s bloated budget and dramatic cuts in unnecessary, mismanaged, and outdated programs. Likewise, Albany must eliminate the countless mandates, laws, and regulations that increase burdensome taxation and create additional inefficiency in local government.
As businesses like Precision Valve leave Yonkers, it’s worth remembering that over the last several years, New York has seen a net loss of close to 200,000 residents annually. Yonkers is, coincidentally, a city of approximately 200,000. What I suggested jokingly is, in fact, already happening: every year, Yonkers—or its equivalent in population, anyway—abandons New York.
John M. Murtagh, an attorney, is presently serving his second term as a member of the city council in Yonkers, New York State’s fourth-largest city.
Pack the City, We’re Moving!
Each year, one Yonkers leaves New York for friendlier climes.
11 February 2009
I’m thinking we should move to South Carolina. No, not me and the family. The whole city of Yonkers.
In June 2008, longtime Yonkers manufacturer Stewart EFI left the city, taking with it a few hundred manufacturing jobs. Then, a few weeks ago, the Precision Valve Corporation, one of Yonkers’s largest employers and a company founded in the city, announced that it was moving to the Palmetto State. Precision Valve vice president Bob Reto explained the relocation delicately: “The decision was driven by the need to operate under the greater efficiencies afforded in South Carolina.” Mayor Phil Amicone, by contrast, didn’t mince words: Yonkers “could not surmount the costly economics of doing business in New York State.”
Overall per-capita government spending in New York State is now the fourth-highest in the nation—nearly 50 percent above the national average. That’s a problem in good times; in the current economic climate, it’s a disaster. Examples of waste abound. New York spends more per pupil on education than any other state, yet it ranks near the bottom third in most measurements of student performance. Likewise, New York spends double the national average on Medicaid, yet lags badly in the quality of its health care.
The cash to fund this waste, of course, comes out of New York taxpayers’ pockets. When I ran for the New York State Senate last year, I’d remind audiences that here in Westchester, we live in the highest-taxed county in the highest-taxed state in the nation. New York’s personal-income and real-estate taxes are the highest in the country, while its business taxes are the second-highest. As a result, New York has seen a steady emigration of citizens and employers for years. In the current downturn, that emigration could turn into a stampede.
Yet as unchecked spending and a crushing tax burden destroy the Empire State, what solutions do we hear from our elected leaders in Albany? Governor David Paterson, while proposing token spending cuts, has called for over $3 billion in new “revenue actions.” Under his proposals, New Yorkers can expect to pay more for everything from haircuts to iTunes downloads to soda pop. Ever the populist, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver proposes that we “tax the rich”—or at least those he defines as such. What the Speaker really means is: Let’s tax the people who start and own businesses, create jobs, and pay salaries. Of course, the “rich” have a simple solution to tax increases: move to South Carolina, where there are “greater efficiencies” in doing business.
Precision Valve was founded by Bob Abplanalp, the Bronx-born son of an immigrant machine-shop owner. After building his business, Abplanalp joined other businessmen in founding the Hudson Valley Bank, also in Yonkers. Today, the Hudson Valley Bank is one of those increasingly rare independent banks focused on serving their local communities. For decades, Abplanalp and his family quietly but generously supported countless local charities, from the Yonkers Boy Scouts to a shelter for pregnant women. In the mid-1970s, Abplanalp all but single-handedly saved his old high school, Fordham Prep, as it struggled to keep its doors open. Today, Fordham Prep thrives, teaching a new generation of children, many the sons of immigrants themselves. Such are the “rich” who, Silver insists, must pay their “fair” share by turning their money over to the barons of Albany.
Instead of figuring out how to dig deeper into our pockets, New York leaders need to slash taxes, halt decades of wasteful spending, and make the state an attractive place to do business again. The current crisis demands a hard look at every line in New York’s bloated budget and dramatic cuts in unnecessary, mismanaged, and outdated programs. Likewise, Albany must eliminate the countless mandates, laws, and regulations that increase burdensome taxation and create additional inefficiency in local government.
As businesses like Precision Valve leave Yonkers, it’s worth remembering that over the last several years, New York has seen a net loss of close to 200,000 residents annually. Yonkers is, coincidentally, a city of approximately 200,000. What I suggested jokingly is, in fact, already happening: every year, Yonkers—or its equivalent in population, anyway—abandons New York.
John M. Murtagh, an attorney, is presently serving his second term as a member of the city council in Yonkers, New York State’s fourth-largest city.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
ALBANY STILL DOESN"T GET IT
ALBANY - State lawmakers are expected today to close the state's current $1.6 billion budget gap by using unspent money for a defunct emergency telecommunications system, raising health-insurance taxes and redirecting $500 million from the state Power Authority.
So reports the Journal News this evening. So what do we learn? During the worst economic downturn in a generation, as hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers leave the state annually due to a tax system that makes it the highest taxed state in the nation, our State Legislature cannot bring itself to balance a budget by reining in spending. Its only solution is tax increases and financial gimmickry. Its time for leadership in Albany that understands that the problem isn't a lack of revenue, but an excess of spending. If they don't understand that then its time for new leadership. I get it. You get it. Why don't they get it?
So reports the Journal News this evening. So what do we learn? During the worst economic downturn in a generation, as hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers leave the state annually due to a tax system that makes it the highest taxed state in the nation, our State Legislature cannot bring itself to balance a budget by reining in spending. Its only solution is tax increases and financial gimmickry. Its time for leadership in Albany that understands that the problem isn't a lack of revenue, but an excess of spending. If they don't understand that then its time for new leadership. I get it. You get it. Why don't they get it?
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