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Editorials
Residents attending Town Board or School District meetings are plain tired of hearing the word “mandated” used. After paying out town/school mandated employee salary, benefit, retirement, perks, stipend and buy-back expenditures, there is little left in the budgets to make cuts.
Town of Lancaster Supervisor Robert Giza declared at a recent board meeting that he had made a lot of cuts to the budget in order to bring the property tax increase down to 2.97 percent. While saying it was a difficult process, Supervisor Giza made sure to exclaim that no jobs or services were cut – unlike other towns where jobs and services are being cut and where taxes are decreasing. While examining the budget I did see a lot of nickel and dime cuts in certain categories, I was unable to find any cuts of significance. What I did find was a significant increase in using fund reserves, $1.7 million, to offset a more significant tax increase percent. In the 2009 budget $1.36 million of fund reserves were used. Prior to that, reserve use was under $1 million.
While understanding the difficulty of putting a budget together where employee salaries increased, benefit costs skyrocketed and revenues decreased (interest on savings, mortgage tax/sales tax receipts), a 2.97% tax increase is not being favorably looked at by a community made up of:
• Senior residents who are being told their Social Security benefits will not be increased over the next two years
• By private sector employees who lost jobs and their health care benefits
• By private sector employees who have not received wage increases in years
• By private sector employees who have to pay more for health care and get less coverage
• By private sector employees that have no retirement programs but have to make up the public sector retirement shortfall because of poor stock market performance
• By taxpayers who have to pay for health care premiums for Town Employees who pay nothing into the system and get dental and vision coverage as well.
• By taxpayers who have to pay into a retirement system where police employees pay nothing into the retirement system and all other town employees pay only 3% per year for 10 years.
The 2010 Tentative Budget
Instead of line itemizing the budget, it would make more sense to ask Supervisor Giza and/or his Financial Administrator Dave Brown to point out where all the cuts were made in the 2010 budget that led to any significant cost savings.
I find it disturbing that the Supervisor did not approve a resolution to hold a public hearing on the budget for the upcoming meeting. Rather that will probably happen at the November 19th meeting and the budget hearing will not take place until November 2nd, the evening before election-day; coincidence or just planning to keep the two incumbent council members safe from answering questions on the budget.
Budget particulars will not be published here until after the Public Hearing. However, taxpayers may want to question the town on the following at the public hearing:
• Why are there decreases in gas and oil expenditures in the police and highway department budgets but not the town portion of the budget?
• Why do we continue the “longevity” (step) program when town employees get salary increases every year?
• Why is there a police “equalization” pay program in place (increased this year) to pay a stipend in lieu of overtime when police drive each other to and from work on company time; where it eliminates the need for a vehicle and saves the employee money?
• Why are town employees not obligated to pay toward their heath care premiums? Contract negotiations were completed in 2009 for all unions, all departments. Prescription co-pays, doctor visits, emergency costs increased. Was that enough compared to what we in the private sector have been obligated to pay?
While taxpayers to have to pick up the costs for town employee increases for aforementioned programs, it is particularly disturbing to hear some town employees gripe on getting screwed over in their contract negotiations and having someone dare ask them for a concession. The public sector seems oblivious to what is happening to the private sector. The following was written in today’s New York Times:
The Bureau of Labor Statistics does not track pay cuts, but it suggests they are reflected in the steep decline of another statistic: total weekly pay for production workers, pilots among them, representing 80 percent of the work force. That index has fallen for nine consecutive months, an unprecedented string over the 44 years the bureau has calculated weekly pay, capturing the large number of people out of work, those working fewer hours and those whose wages have been cut. The old record was a two-month decline, during the 1981-1982 recession.
“What this means,” said Thomas J. Nardone, an assistant commissioner at the bureau, “is that the amount of money people are paid has taken a big hit; not just those who have lost their jobs, but those who are still employed.”
In today’s Buffalo News it was also reported:
Unemployment in Western New York reached 8.4 percent in August, compared with 5.8 percent a year ago. Some town supervisors realize taxpayers who don't have a job or have not gotten a raise lately don't want to pay more taxes for government workers who have top benefits and pensions. It's unfair to our taxpayers who are bankrolling this, especially when the total compensation packages are skyrocketing," Orchard Park Supervisor Mary Travers Murphy said."
Taxpayers are sick and tired of hearing town and school district officials declare their hands are tied considering how much of the budget is mandated. It’s about time our representatives lobby on our behalf for change; else, change the board makeup.
I no longer want to or can afford to pay more tax or fee increases to pay for health care and retirement benefit programs that far exceed my own. Mr. Supervisor, get out your pencil, the one with the eraser on it and get to work. I am mandated to pay taxes and I have had enough tax increases.
It's time for you guys to stop picking my pocket and pay your fair share.
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