It’s time for straight talk on unfunded state mandates
Earlier today, I posted a link to the Adirondack Daily Enterprise’s report on Franklin County’s decision to boost property taxes by more than 20%.
Board Chairman Guy “Tim” Smith (D-Fort Covington) laid the blame directly on the state’s unfunded mandates.
“We did the best we could, and I know the taxpayers aren’t going to be pleased,” Smith said.
Bluntly, I’m not sure I buy it anymore. The “unfunded mandate” argument is too easy, too convenient.
So here’s what I want from county leaders, not just in Malone but in Elizabethtown and all the other county seats around the region.
I want our local politicians to itemize specifically what the services are that the state is mandating, which they think should be cut in order to save the county money.
Which medical services should go? Which housing aid? Which mental health programs? And how much are each of these programs costing property tax payers?
Smith suggests that he could have reduced the tax increase to single digits. How exactly? If given full freedom, what would Franklin County have eliminated?
School districts should do the same with their unfunded mandates. Tell us which ones are wasteful, or simply no longer affordable.
The reason I want this clarity is that county leaders have shown little appetite for cutting even those programs which they do have freedom to downsize.
Essex County flirted with an across-the-board cut of 10% to all its contracting agencies, but is now backtracking.
A plan to privatize the Elizabethtown nursing home has also been shelved, even though there are no state restrictions limiting the board of supervisors’ flexibility.
I’m not suggesting that mandates aren’t an issue. They are, by all accounts, a real concern. But they’ve also become a fig leaf.
In future, when our local leaders cite them as a reason for breathtakingly large tax increases, we need details and specifics.
If nothing else, this will give us a clearer sense of some of the changes and reforms needed in Albany. We’re not going to get rid of all unfunded mandates.
But if we can identify three or four big, costly (and possibly wasteful) programs, it might make a difference.
I’d love to hear back in the comment section from some of our supervisors, legislators, and school board members around the region.
What are some of the mandates that you think should go? Specifically, which ones are big enough line items that cutting them would help us shrink those swelling budgets?
Tags: adirondacks, economy, politics
Frankly, I don’t believe it should be the responsibility of the counties or the schools to suggest what mandates should have their funding cut. They didn’t dream up the mandates. The state did and it should be the responsibility of the legislators to cut the mandates or provide for 100% of the funding.
The same goes for the federal government. The buck should stop where the buck begins.
Pete –
Would you agree that it would at least be helpful for local leaders to list the unfunded mandates, and their costs, so we taxpayers can identify how important they are, and how significant a part of our tax burden?
Brian
Unfunded mandates are one of the many banes of NFPs.
Are county budgets not public information? Maybe NCPR could publish the budgets as a way of starting the conversation.
The bottom line is that Albany should fund at 100% anything it mandates of counties and school districts. It’s not a question of being wasteful or useless. A lot of the mandates are for important things. But if the state views it important enough to mandate it, the state can fund it at 100%. Maybe then it will then be more judicious about its mandates, about distinguishing between wants and needs.
Take the Automatic External Defibulators (AED) case. A few years ago, Albany mandated that every venue where school events occur must have at least one AED. This is not just school buildings, but athletic fields, concert halls, etc. Coaches who are at non-fixed venues (cross country meets, ski trails) must personally lug one around. AEDs are things that can save lives. They also cost about $12,000 each, if I remember correctly. The moderate sized school district in my city had to buy several dozen… total cost around $400,000. And I’m sure they have to be replaced every so often.
If Albany deems it important enough to require, Albany can pay for the whole thing. Otherwise, leave it to the discretion of the counties, municipalities and school districts to run their own affairs. If Albany’s going to meddle and micromanage, why not just eliminate local control altogether and get rid of several levels of government and save the money that way.
Brian M: You don’t buy it? “Too easy, too convenient?”
According to *your own reporting*, “But when all the mandates are added together, counties wind up spending 90 percent of their tax-revenue on things that Albany is making them do. “
YOUR OWN REPORTING: 90 percent.
http://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/story/16638/counties-fear-squeeze-of-state-mandates-tax-cap
Brian,
The information is available from NYSAC. If I recall the figures, not the list, unfunded mandates total about 80% of county budgets.
For the schools, the list is just over 150 unfunded items from the state and federal governments.
Brian
There are 9 mandated programs that make up 123% of the tax levy. This was reported at least a month ago. Specifically, let’s start with Medicaide, Public Defenders, County Jails
The biggest unfunded mandate for counties in NY is Medicaid. NYS has the highest county contributions in the country – 6 billion dollars, which is 6x more than California. NYS requires counties to pay 50% of non-federal Medicaid related expenses. There’s an unfunded mandate for you. How can a poor county like ST. Lawrence or Herkimer pay for these expenses? Arguably the state should be paying a larger share for the medical and administrative expenses, which in NYS are nearly 330 million$ the counties must pick up.
see: http://www.naco.org/research/pubs/…/Health…/Counties%20and%20Medicaid.pdf
http://observertoday.com/page/content.detail/id/538538/Medicaid-shift-could-cost-county-money.html?nav=5047
Listing the most dispensible “unfunded mandates” would help taxpayers pressure state legislators to unmandate specific mandates. This would help, since as it is, the legislators can think that something is a good idea as long as they dont have to pay for it. In part the question is whether something is paid with property tax or state income tax. The weird thing is the state is moving towards a property tax cap. How do you manage unfunded mandates in an era of property tax caps?
Brian Mann’s request is simple and modest: county and school officials should tell us specifically the purpose and cost of each state/federal mandate instead of complaining that in the aggregate they are forcing up property taxes.
With this information we would better understand what our property taxes are for. Brian (I believe the other Brian) has a helpful post regarding AED’s.
I suspect that Medicaid is a large county cost. What part of Medicaid supports family members in nursing homes? Do we feel this appropriately should rest in part on property tax payers? Or should nursing home residents’ children be contribuing more? I don’t know, but with the information Brian Mann requests we can begin a discussion.
I think a second look at the state level is required and if the mandates are truly necessary they should be funded by a broader based tax than the property tax. Whether that means at the state level or a higher sales tax is open to debate. In looking at mandates we should look at how they are implemented as well. Several years ago I overheard a conversation in a restaurant. One of the parties at the next table was in charge of the school lunch program at a local school district and complained that too much of the program’s money was being spent on administrative cost. According to this individual if the district were allowed to stop determining who qualified for free or reduced lunches, the money thus saved would provide a free lunch to all students. The same might not apply to more prosperous areas of the state but the freedom to exercise such options should be available.
Great post I totally agree lets get down to exactly what we are talking about.
Also great idea; lets look at the county budgets.
Great headline!
Good conversation. Let me add a few comments about why I think county leaders (and school districts) are being a bit disingenuous about this.
1. Most “unfunded” mandates are at least partially funded. And because the state spending helps fund jobs, I think a lot of local leaders are loathe to give them up.
It’s true that mandates account for 90% of a lot of county’s spending.
But they also account for thousands of jobs across the region, paid for in significant measure by Albany and Washington.
If county and school leaders weren’t a little ambivalent about giving up these programs and services and the jobs that come with them, I think they would be far more explicit about which ones they deem too expensive and unnecessary.
2. I think the subtext for a lot of this debate isn’t ‘We need smaller, leaner government and more local control,’ but rather, ‘I want someone else to pay for it.’
Remember that even when mandated by Albany, the services in question here are going to local, North Country people.
Why should tax payers in other parts of New York pay for programs that our senior citizens or our mentally ill neighbors receive?
That is exactly what a shift to income tax-based services would do, shift costs for programs that we benefit from to higher income people in New York City.
4. Which brings me to my final point:
Given that local leaders see patients and clients every day, they should be experts on which programs are in fact expendable.
If these programs aren’t needed, or logical, or affordable, we should hear a hue and cry about specific cuts.
Instead, what we hear — I fear — is a different demand: Keep the programs and services and jobs coming, please, but send the bill elsewhere.
–Brian, NCPR
Medicaid and the other big way is pensions. Pension costs continue to rise because state lawmakers keep making them more generous. Let local governments opt out of the excessive pension plan and offer 401ks instead.
“Why should tax payers in other parts of New York pay for programs that our senior citizens or our mentally ill neighbors receive?”
Because they’re state, not local programs. If the state creates them, then let them pay for them. That’s the way every other state handles medicaid. There will always be net benefeciaries to state spending, do you think the fact we should try to do away with that? The only way to do that is to do away with state government altogether. Many have proposed cost cutting solutions to medicaid and other programs- but those solutions haven’t been able to gain traction with NYC lawmakers, so why bother proposing them?
Why not send the bill elsewhere (to NYC)? If some of the services truly arent needed, we should know about that and dispense with them even if it costs a few jobs. I would like to think that placing more emphasis on income tax (relative to property tax) is “fairer” to the middle class, but the problem is that income goes both up and down. What happens in a recession – the need for services goes up but the (income-based) revenue to pay for them goes down?
“county and school officials should tell us specifically the purpose and cost of each state/federal mandate instead of complaining that in the aggregate they are forcing up property taxes.”
Shouldn’t the burden of that be on Albany, the people who are doing the mandating?
In fact, this is precisely the sort of analysis that should be done BEFORE mandates are enacted in the first place by the mandating agency or legislature!
They have no idea what the real effects of their mandates on those bodies who are by law dependent on the regressive property tax. That’s why they pass these mandates so freely because the burden is not on them to figure out how to pay for it*.
(*-Brian M is correct that some mandates are partially funded but when Albany’s in squeeze, they can and do just lower their portion or zero it out altogether. As per the definition of a mandate, counties, municipalities and school districts do NOT have that option.)
You want local leaders to chime up with specifics but their opinion doesn’t matter. They have to fund all mandated services regardless of their opinion or local needs. If services weren’t mandated, then their existence and scope could be better shaped according to local assessments.
Maybe massively raising property taxes will at least have the effect of getting citizens interested in what exactly is going on with their county government.
What exact programs and services are totally unable to be cut in any way because they are mandated? They should be able to answer that question before they go out confiscating this much additional property taxes. You can’t say you care about seniors when they are the ones who will be hit very hard with this type of tax increase.
Good discussion. It makes me wonder what would happen if a county simply refused to fund a mandate based on the inability to pay for it. What, exactly, would the state do besides threaten other funding sources if the county thumbed their nose at unfunded mandates? And has there ever been a case of a county doing this.
Brian M.,
You try to be reasonable but reasonable will not fix the problems. Divide and conquer/compromise is how elected representatives to the state and federal government avoid responsibility.
This problem needs to be thrown back at the state and federal government. If jobs need to be cut, let them take the heat. If beloved programs are slashed, let the state and federal elected representatives deal with the anger.
By the way, we all suffer from state and federal mandates on a personal level. We must have insurance for this, that and the other thing. We must buy this and do that. The list of cost involved requirements is too long to even begin to list.
It often seems to me that many mandates result for the simply reason some business wants to force people to buy their product or service. What do you think lobbyists do other than get congress to pass laws to force people to buy a product or a service? This is true even when it comes to defense spending. It happens when congress requires some new do-dad be required on cars. The mandates are all over the place.
Brian M. says
“Instead, what we hear — I fear — is a different demand: Keep the programs and services and jobs coming, please, but send the bill elsewhere.”
That’s not what the tea-partiers said. Maybe they need a little more positive coverage, Brian.
I’m with Clapton, if the mandates are too expensive why shouldn’t several northern counties band together and refuse to pay? That would certainly make more of a statement than a few NCPR bloggers complaining. But, getting our respective County legislators to make such a….rebellious move would be quite an undertaking.
I don’t pretend to have a grasp of all the various mandates, funded or unfunded. I would be very interested in seeing some sort of list of what our various counties, towns, and villages are forced to pay by the State and what the State is forced to pay by the Feds. When you consider the unfunded mandates put on public sector, it’s quite staggering. Consider OSHA regulations. I know several years back OSHA was about to fine certain agencies within NYS gov’t for non-compliance, something around $250K a day. IIRC an agreement of sorts was hashed out, but that hatchet still hangs over NYS head. If you consider private industry and the unfunded mandates NYS and the Fed Gov puts on them as part of this issue it goes beyond staggering and into appalling.
I think this is bigger than just unfunded mandates at the County or State level. Look at Jacks post- $6 billion dollars for Medicade. 6 times what California pays. Why? Are the rules here different or are we just more generous? Is our case load heavier? Do we simply have more eligible citizens? I believe that’s one of the items breaking California’s bank, how can we afford it? Who is it that expects us to pay and who makes the rules on this? I’d be interested in knowing.
I find it refreshing to see this kind of interest shown here. Gives me hope people will see that it’s more than right wing demagoguery that drives the TP and other conservative voices with an interest in seeing more responsible gov’t and spending.
On Medicaid we are more generous. Medicaid covers more in NYS than in many other states that is a choice that NYS makes.
“Why New York’s Program is the Most Expensive in the Nation and What to Do About It”
http://www.cbcny.org/MedicaidREV4Web.pdf
I found this part interesting.
NITV, that’s incredible! So, someones spouse or child becomes ill and they just refuse to take responsibility? The obvious question is how can they do that? The larger question is what group of idiots passed such a law allowing that!!! I thought people were loosing their homes right and left because of medical bills? Now we find out you can just walk away? Then why does NY need Obamacare?!!!
Man, no wonder we’re broke.
Pete Klein says “…we all suffer from state and federal mandates on a personal level. We must have insurance for this, that and the other thing. We must buy this and do that.”
Pete, I’m having trouble coming up with even a short list. Car insurance is the only thing that comes immediately to mind, and that provision exists because without it, you’d have uninsured drivers plowing into you leaving you stuck with the bill. And I guess there’s fire and CO2 detectors– I find it hard to see those as bad ideas. Can you give me a few more, just to get me started? Especially ones you think are outright stupid?
Bret, if you consider the exorbitant fees extracted by long term care providers and medical facilities, it’s not hard to understand how these situations arise. Granted, I’m sure some people doing this stuff are more than wealthy enough to pay. But I’m equally sure that many of these non-supporting relatives are just trying to avoid having their life savings sucked dry by granny’s last 20 years of life. Of course, if we had a decent medical system like the civilized world does, this wouldn’t be an issue!
What exactly would a decent system be? Maybe you should respond up the page in the “tax and spend” entry. Besides, this was talking about spouses. That’s a bit different than “granny”, although my mother in law would probably not see it that way!
In response to your post to Pete, not to butt in, but the largest class of unfunded mandates put on the individual are taxes, fees, licenses, etc. We have no choice in paying these if we want to…..live basically. You want to drive you have to have a license ($$) and if you own the car there’s registration and insurance and excise taxes on fuel. You drive for a living and there are medical tests, records that have to be kept, plus for the owner operator there are more fees and regulations and record keeping that cost you. For the homeowner there are land and school taxes, sales taxes on upkeep and home improvement projects, hidden taxes on fuels and electricity. You want to hunt or fish there’s licensing and taxes on sporting goods under the Pittman-Robertson Act. If you want to buy food to eat all the producers taxes, costs and fees are passed on to you along with all the middlemans taxes, fees, and costs.
We think of unfunded mandates as demands made on gov’t from a higher gov’t that is passed onto the taxpayer for a service or hardware or to comply with a regulation of law. Well, isn’t that the same as a tax or fee for a service or license, hardware (smoke detectors) or to comply with a regulation (having to hire a trash service since burning was outlawed)?
A rose by any other name?