{"id":1650,"date":"2010-02-24T08:28:00","date_gmt":"2010-02-24T12:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2010\/02\/24\/has-the-north-countrys-small-government-future-arrived\/"},"modified":"2010-02-24T08:28:00","modified_gmt":"2010-02-24T12:28:00","slug":"has-the-north-countrys-small-government-future-arrived","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2010\/02\/24\/has-the-north-countrys-small-government-future-arrived\/","title":{"rendered":"Has the North Country&#8217;s small government future arrived?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Every day, North Country Public Radio reports on the downsizing of another long-established institution, contracting or collapsing because there just aren&#8217;t enough taxpayer dollars to go around.<\/p>\n<p>A nursing home in Alexandria Bay, prisons in Lyon Mountain, Moriah and Ogdensburg, warnings of school teacher lay-offs in Tupper Lake, a vote in Port Henry (scheduled for next month) on whether to dissolve the village government.<\/p>\n<p>The list goes on:  Visitor Interpretive Centers in Newcomb and Paul Smiths on the chopping block.  Nine state parks across the North Country also slated to shut down.<\/p>\n<p>Washington County has even announced that its <a href=\"http:\/\/poststar.com\/news\/opinion\/editorial\/article_9dbfcf54-20f5-11df-bf42-001cc4c03286.html\">Sheriff&#8217;s Department will end overnight road patrols<\/a> as part of cost savings.<\/p>\n<p>Looming behind all this shrink-shock is Albany&#8217;s $8.2 billion dollar budget.  <\/p>\n<p>As the Federal stimulus fades away, the shortage of state dollars becomes more and more glaringly apparent.<\/p>\n<p>In the weeks ahead &#8212; not months, not years &#8212; many of our communities will have four big questions to answer:<\/p>\n<p>1. Which government services are truly &#8220;essential&#8221;?  <\/p>\n<p>2.  If Albany stops paying for them, are we willing to boost our own local taxes to pick up the tab?<\/p>\n<p>3. How do we help the dozens (hundreds? thousands?) of North Country government workers whose jobs are on the line?<\/p>\n<p>4.  Can our private sector adapt, finding new customers and new sources of revenue that don&#8217;t rely on taxpayers?<\/p>\n<p>A year ago, these questions were academic.  They were part of an ideological debate &#8212; big government vs. small government; higher taxes vs. lower taxes.<\/p>\n<p>But now it seems all but certain that deep cuts will be made.  <\/p>\n<p>Mike Dechene, president of Tupper Lake&#8217;s school board, summed it up in an interview with the <a href=\"http:\/\/adirondackdailyenterprise.com\/page\/content.detail\/id\/511423.html?nav=5008\">Adirondack Daily Enterprise<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;I think it&#8217;s devastating&#8230;I think it&#8217;s something that&#8217;s not only going to devastate our education in our district, but it&#8217;s going to devastate our community. &#8230; It&#8217;s one of the worst things that I&#8217;ve ever encountered on the school board.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Every day, North Country Public Radio reports on the downsizing of another long-established institution, contracting [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1650"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1650\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}