Welcome to the Town of Greenburgh
Supervisors Office  
News & Information  

  Select News to View

Please select the year.
2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002

Back to Article List

BUDGET CUTS BEING MADE IN 2010
Release Date: October 21, 2009

 
Budget season is here. I'm working with the Town Board and Comptroller, Bart Talamani, preparing the 2010 budget. This years budget will be released a week from Friday - October 30th. It will be a difficult budget. The town has lost substantial revenues. We're down almost 8 million in ratables (due to tax grievance challenges). Our mortgage tax revenue is down by about 1.3 million. Sales tax  revenue down 12%. We're required by state law to contribute more towards the pension system (50% jump). The state now requires additional contributions to the MTA. And—that is just for starter’s.
I have been meeting with all employees to discuss the need for cuts in our spending and anticipate significant cuts will be made in 2010.  Less fund balance (savings) will be used in 2010 than it was in 2009. Fund balance has been used every year to reduce tax hikes. We have to recognize the fact that our fund balance is getting smaller and we will have no fund balance left in a few years if we use it at the levels it was used in the past.  The members of the Town Board (Sonja Brown, Diana Juettner, Kevin Morgan, Francis Sheehan & I) have been reviewing budget requests with department heads at work session meetings.   A series of meetings will be held in the community with residents, civic associations to discuss the budget cuts and budget after the budget is presented. The first community meeting will be held at the Greenburgh Library on Thursday, November 5th from 7 PM to 9 PM. If you would like to organize a community meeting on the budget please e mail townboard@greenburghny.com.
Town spending needs to be reduced. We need to reinvent the way government is operated. We can’t run government in 2010 as we ran it in previous years—at every level.  A Town Board created commission is currently reviewing the possible consolidation of the three paid fire districts (Hartsdale, Greenville, Fairview). In 2009 the three paid fire districts (which serve less than 73% of the entire town cost  28 million to operate. The police dept, which serves the entire unincorporated Greenburgh, cost 22 million.
I am determined to reinvent the way our government operates. The cuts that will be announced next week will be difficult but they are necessary.  If you want to call me to chat- these are my phone numbers: 993-1540 (office), 478-1219 (home), 438-1343 (cell).
PAUL FEINER
 
THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED IN NEWBURGH—WE WON’T LET IT HAPPEN HERE!
From: Bart J. Talamini
Sent: Wednesday, October 14, 2009 7:44 AM
To: Paul Feiner
Subject: Budget
 
Paul,
    I heard on the radio, coming in to work today, that the City of Newburgh announced an 82% tax rate increase for 2010 because they ran out of fund balance that they had always used in prior years to keep the tax rate down.
Pension Costs for Local Governments May Triple
 
By DANNY HAKIM  NY TIMES
Published: July 7, 2009
ALBANY — Local governments in New York State face an unprecedented increase in pension costs that will force them to triple their contributions to the state pension system over the next six years, according to an analysis prepared by the comptroller’s office.
By 2015, pension costs borne by local governments upstate, on Long Island and in New York City’s suburbs will exceed $8 billion a year, compared with $2.6 billion last year, under the analysis, which was circulated to legislative and county leaders and obtained by The New York Times this month.
The analysis predicts that counties will have to contribute an amount equal to nearly one-third of their civilian payrolls to the state pension system and more than 40 percent of their payrolls for police and fire departments.
County leaders fear that the soaring contributions will put heavy pressure on their budgets as they struggle to keep up with retirement promises made in times of prosperity.
And there is no clear strategy to mitigate the damage, as Gov. David A. Paterson and Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli have clashed over plans to provide even modest pension relief.
“It’s alarming, eye-popping and unthinkable,” said Stephen J. Acquario, executive director of the New York State Association of Counties. “To manage that liability in the face of this deep decline in government revenues is going to be a challenge,” he said. “Where is this money going to come from?”
A less sharp rate of increase has been forecast for New York City, which has its own pension system, but only because it is more poorly funded than the state pension fund and already requires steeper contributions. Still, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg suggested in January that the city could face a 50 percent increase in contributions over the next six years, potentially rising to about $9 billion from $6 billion.
Much depends, of course, on how the financial markets perform: The state’s pension fund was $109.9 billion at the end of March and $153.9 billion a year earlier. It lost $44 billion in the fiscal year that ended on March 31. The loss represents 26.3 percent when considering the sharp downturn in the stock market, but does not reflect the contributions and payouts into and out of the pension system last year.
Mr. DiNapoli’s office cautioned that the figures it circulated represented only one possible chain of events, and depend in part on a healthy stock market recovery in the first half of the next decade.
The analysis envisions a market rebound similar to the one after the crash of 1987, with a return of 1.5 percent in the current fiscal year, annual returns in excess of 13 percent in the next two years and more than 10 percent in the succeeding three years.
According to the analysis, pension contribution rates for civilian employees in local governments will soar to 30.3 percent by 2015, from 7.4 percent of payroll this year. Contributions to police and fire department retirement plans are expected to increase to 41.1 percent in 2015 from 15.1 percent this year.
“It is staggering,” said Peter Baynes, executive director of the New York Conference of Mayors. “The only way they’re going to deal with it is through property taxes and reductions in the work force.”
If there is any silver lining, the trends appear to have somewhat curbed Albany’s appetite for extending pension enhancements to public employees to placate labor unions, which wield enormous clout and lobbying dollars in the capital.
“I’m alarmed,” said Assemblyman Peter J. Abbate Jr., a Brooklyn Democrat and the chairman of the Assembly’s Governmental Employees Committee, who is one of the capital’s more reliable union allies.
“Bluntly,” he said, “I’ve spoken to a lot of the union leaders and their lobbyists and said I don’t want to see bills that will cost the counties and the state millions of dollars.”
The governor and Mr. DiNapoli have wrestled over strategies to address the pension burdens. Mr. DiNapoli has proposed allowing local governments to amortize their payments: They would essentially borrow from the state to ease their payments now, and make interest payments later.
Mr. DiNapoli said his plan would “clearly mitigate the impact of rising rates on the state, local governments and taxpayers.”
But the governor, as well as local officials, have criticized it. Mr. Paterson said in May that increased pension contributions would have “a devastating impact on already overburdened local property tax payers,” adding, “the comptroller’s proposal does nothing to mitigate these additional burdens.”
Mr. Acquario agreed, saying the idea of borrowing from the state was “like buying groceries on a credit card.”
The governor has proposed limiting the pensions offered to new state workers, an idea embraced by many fiscal watchdogs. But he was working on revisions to the bill and failed to present it to the Assembly before the end of its legislative session last month, which halted action on the measure.
Pension woes are only one financial burden facing New York. This year, the governor and state lawmakers relied on federal stimulus payments and a two-year tax increase on the wealthy to balance the budget in the short term, but left large deficits in the succeeding years. Wall Street, the state’s main financial engine, has been severely weakened, and tax revenues across the board have fallen sharply and even more steeply than anticipated. Then there is the stalemate in the State Senate, which has paralyzed capital business.
For all states, sustaining traditional pensions could be difficult. “We’ve promised more than we can deliver,” said Zvi Bodie, a pension expert and a professor of finance at the Boston University School of Management. “Going forward, we’re going to have to promise less.”
 
 
 



Print this page Print this page Print this page Email this page Email this page





Contact Information | Home | Town Supervisor | Town Council | Town Clerk's Office | Tax Department | Departments | Documents & Forms | Town Code | GIS Maps, Tax and Assessment Information | Agendas & Minutes | Watch Live Board Meetings | Public Access TV On Demand | Links | Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) | Employment Opportunities | Town Updates by E-Mail | Pay Parking Tickets Online | Pay Water Bill Online | On-Line Tax Payments
Use Mobile Site

Copyright © 2014 Town of Greenburgh, NY. All Rights Reserved.

Powered by Cit-e-Net