{"id":3724,"date":"2011-02-08T09:35:18","date_gmt":"2011-02-08T14:35:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=3724"},"modified":"2011-02-08T16:12:26","modified_gmt":"2011-02-08T21:12:26","slug":"you-think-the-north-countrys-state-mandates-are-bad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2011\/02\/08\/you-think-the-north-countrys-state-mandates-are-bad\/","title":{"rendered":"You think the North Country&#8217;s state mandates are bad?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>North Country lawmakers often describe our part of the state as sort of a polar opposite of New York City, suggesting that Albany and the state legislature cater primarily to downstate interests.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nydailynews.com\/opinions\/2011\/02\/08\/2011-02-08_albany_legislators_show_how_clueless_they_are_when_mayor_bloomberg_visits_asking.html#ixzz1DMq58L5e\">The New York Daily News<\/a> has a revealing piece this morning about NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg&#8217;s effort to convince lawmakers to cut the city loose from its most onerous state mandates.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>At the top of the mayor&#8217;s list is ending a decades-old state law  requiring the city to dole out $12,000 annual bonuses to retired police  and firefighters &#8211; a huge outlay that does nothing to make the city  safer.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Those are just the bonuses, mind you, and the amounts are set in Albany.\u00a0 Unless Albany relents, that mandate alone will cost New York City taxpayers $600 million.<\/p>\n<p>According to Newsday, that would be enough money to hire back as many as 10,000 school teachers.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>[Bloomberg] pointed out that overall pension benefits for retired city workers  &#8211; which are determined by Albany, often against the wishes of City Hall  &#8211; chew up 11% of the city&#8217;s entire budget.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s $8.3 billion next  year, up from $1.5 billion in 2001.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Newsday columnist Bill Hammond, describes the response of lawmakers to Bloomberg&#8217;s testimony as &#8220;clueless.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Assemblyman James Brennan of Brooklyn questioned the legality of getting  rid of the retirement bonuses, since pensions are protected by the  state Constitution.<\/p>\n<p>As Bloomberg quickly informed him, those $12,000  payouts are doled out to certain retirees in addition to, not as part  of, their already generous pension checks.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Sen. Betty Little is on the mandate relief commission.\u00a0 We&#8217;ll find out next month if issues like this one make the list for reform.<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nydailynews.com\/opinions\/2011\/02\/08\/2011-02-08_albany_legislators_show_how_clueless_they_are_when_mayor_bloomberg_visits_asking.html#ixzz1DNTgvifU\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>North Country lawmakers often describe our part of the state as sort of a polar [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[5618,10,4862,20],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3724"}],"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=3724"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3724\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3725,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3724\/revisions\/3725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}