Tomorrow during the 8 O’clock Hour, we’ll talk in-depth with Alan Beideck, New York’s labor economist for the North Country.<\/p>\n
Beideck can’t talk about Governor Andrew Cuomo’s looming budget cuts.\u00a0 He’s just a numbers guy and doesn’t weigh in on policy or politics.<\/p>\n
But we collectively face an $11 billion bucket of red ink next year and Beideck does paint a painful portrait of just how dangerously reliant we are on Albany.<\/p>\n
More than 12,000 people in the seven North Country counties that he surveys<\/a> work directly for New York state.<\/p>\n On average, those workers earn $20,000 more each year than private sector workers in the region.\u00a0 They also have better benefits.<\/p>\n In all, more than one out of every ten dollars that people here take home in salary comes in the form of a state paycheck.<\/p>\n And that doesn’t begin to touch the thousands more people who are paid by state grants, pass-through funding for public schools, or Medicaid reimbursements hospitals.<\/p>\n Often when we talk about this situation here on the In Box, it becomes ideological.\u00a0 People who hate “big government” see a proper correction and even a kind of comeuppance in all this talk of slash-and-burn budget cuts.<\/p>\n But put politics aside for a minute.\u00a0 Even if we only see “our fair share” of cuts, our economy will feel it far more because we are so profoundly dependent on Albany.<\/p>\n What’s more, there are growing indications that Gov. Cuomo will single out the state’s prison system for heavy cutbacks.\u00a0 Here’s a bit from Fred Dicker’s morning column in the New York Post<\/a>.<\/p>\n Ten years ago, 69 state prisons employed 20,311 guards and held just over 70,000 inmates.\u00a0 Today, the number of inmates has dropped 19 percent to 56,600 in 66 prisons…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n But the number of guards declined just 7 percent to 18,800.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Again, even if we only lose “our fair share” of prison jobs, the pain will be out-sized because so many of our rural towns rely on corrections as a main pillar of employment.<\/p>\n We’ll get a first look at Gov. Cuomo’s budget proposals early next month and Republican leaders in the state Senate — including Betty Little — will get a chance to push back.<\/p>\n But unless something changes drastically, this is going to hurt.<\/p>\n