Belmont NY. - The 2017
Legislative session in Albany ended yesterday without action on the sales tax
extender legislation, a critical source of funds for a total of 53
counties. Allegany County is among this group.
Allegany County stands to lose nearly $6.5 million of
revenue, critical to the ongoing delivery of services and programs the citizens
of Allegany County have come to expect.
Ironically, many of these services are mandated by either the state or
federal government that require the county to provide matching funds for their
service delivery. The matching funds for
these programs come from one of two sources -- sales tax or property tax.
The Legislative session provided a mandate for all counties
to convene a County Wide Shared Services Initiative (CWSSI) requiring counties
to meet with every Town Supervisor and Village Mayor within the county with
optional invitations going out to the local school districts, BOCES, and
special improvement districts. The
directive is to identify shared services that could be implemented and reduce
the property tax burden. The goal is
noble, but the legislative inaction renders this nearly impossible.
The failure of this Legislative Session to fully enact the
property tax extender measure places an undue burden on the county to identify
funds to backfill the loss of revenue.
Difficult choices must now be made in relation to the provision of
services the constituency has come to expect.
Every county in the state will need to evaluate how they will
proceed. There is no out-of-the-box
answer for this dilemma. It will need to
be a combination of personnel reduction, cuts in funding for needed
infrastructure (roads and bridges), waiting lists for needed services (possibly
home delivered meals), and reduction/elimination of elective services (i.e.
Cooperative Extension, County Administrator).
The most important decision moving forward will be to
determine how much funding will be needed after the cuts or service reductions
have been identified. After that
decision has been made, the Allegany County Board of Legislators will need to
determine a method to generate that revenue.
Unfortunately, the only viable source for revenue generation is a
property tax increase to reach the funding level needed for the reduced
services.
It should be noted that our local legislative
representatives, Senator Cathy Young and Assemblyman Joe Giglio, have supported
the sales tax extender legislation. They
understand the importance of these funds.
In conversations with Senator Young, she is confident the matter will be
resolved. We hope that this is the
case. It would, however, be woefully
irresponsible for us to assume that everything will be fine. We simply cannot base the needs of our
constituency on the hope that the Tax Extender Legislation will be
renewed. County staff has already begun
to examine cost cutting measures that have the potential to reduce our
operating budget by 5 percent.
This Legislation Session produced the CWSSI to reduce the
property tax burden on our citizenry by encouraging shared services,
cooperation with other local governmental agencies, and cost effective
management. That has all been unraveled
due to their own inability to practice what they preach. The citizens of Allegany County will once
again bear the potential burden of a property tax increase through no fault of
their own.
