State Legislature Adopts 2009-10 Budget PDF Print E-mail
Governor Paterson, Senate Majority Leader Smith and Speaker Silver reached agreement on a state budget for 2009-10, with final passage by the State Legislature completed on April 3. The $132 billion plan closes the state’s projected $17.7 billion deficit and includes approximately $7.2 billion in federal stimulus funding, some of which was used to restore cuts in education and health care funding proposed by Governor Paterson as part of his Executive Budget. The stimulus funding was also used to restore the $112 million reduction to the CHIPS program which supports local roads, highways and bridges -- and although local governments did not receive their scheduled increase, AIM funding was maintained at current year levels.

While these actions came as welcome news for many communities, the Legislature failed to agree on any of the mandate relief items that were proposed by the Governor – once again, missing an opportunity to allow local governments to better manage their costs and reduce the local tax burden. These initiatives include the following:
  • Tier 5 Pension Reform – Would have established a Tier 5 for new state and local non-uniformed employees that would: require a 3% employee contribution for the duration of employment; increase the minimum retirement age from 55 to 62; and eliminate overtime earnings from the final average salary calculation. A new tier would also have been established for uniformed employees in the City of New York.
  • Wicks Law Reform – For a five-year period, would have increased the Wicks Law threshold from $3 million to $10 million in NYC, provided a full Wicks exemption for all school districts, and eliminated the apprentice training program requirement for contractors engaged in a Project Labor Agreement.
  • Judgments Against Municipalities – Would have (1) allowed judgment awards against local governments and the State to be offset by both past and future compensation from all collateral sources (e.g., insurance, social security and workers’ compensation), as they are in the private sector; and (2) established a reasonable market-based method of calculating interest in court judgments similar to the method used in judgments involving the Federal government.
  • Procurement Reform – Would have enhanced procurement flexibility by increasing competitive bidding limits for local governments from $20,000 to $50,000 for public works projects and from $10,000 to $20,000 for commodities; authorized local governments to purchase off of certain Federal IT contracts as well as certain contracts let by other states and local governments; and allowed contracts to be awarded on the basis of “best value” rather than lowest bid.
We must continue to strongly advocate for these and other mandate relief initiatives throughout the remainder of the current Legislative session, as a way of providing important local relief at no cost to the state. Given the current economic environment and the resulting decline in revenues that municipalities across the state are experiencing, local governments must be given the flexibility to operate as efficiently as possible. These and other state mandates stand in the way of this critical goal. The time to act is now so that New York’s taxpayers can get the relief they need and deserve.