Stop the Mandate Madness

Wednesday, April 29 2009 08:12

After five months of talking about the dangers of tax shifting, I was very happy to wake up to a front page headline in the Empire Falls Times today declaring, "Governor Seeks an End to State Mandates." StopTheTaxShift has highlighted the dozens of offensive and expensive mandates that already cost New Yorkers hundreds of millions of dollars, and without a doubt our state's future depends on these mandates being reformed or repealed immediately. But it is also important that we stop the madness of new state mandates that continually ignore local control and put even more pressure on the property taxes that drive our friends and relatives - and, ultimately, you and me - out of New York.

Turn on any news report and you will here the latest slogan of politicians: "transparency," From what I gather, transparency is supposed to mean openness and accountability. Maybe I'm a bit cynical, but I think the word is overused and underutilized.

Now, with Governor Paterson's Executive Order, it looks like we have a state government that is willing to use transparency to expose the dirty little secret of tax shifting. The Executive Order works like this: if any legislation or regulation from a state office or agency includes a mandate on municipalities, the office or agency must now estimate the mandate's cost to local governments, compare the public cost to the public benefit, and identify the revenue that is going to pay for the mandate. If the state government can actually live by these new rules, New York can finally begin to stop the mandate madness.

I applaud Governor Paterson for taking this important and historic step toward holding the state accountable for the taxes it would shift onto our overburdened property taxpayers. Now it's time for New Yorkers to tell the Senate and Assembly to do the same with all of the bills they propose and pass.

Paid Leave for Cancer Screenings

The Mandate: Sections 159-b and 159-c of the Civil Service Law provide that any public employee or public officer has a right to take paid leave, of up to four hours per year, for breast cancer screening or for prostate cancer screening. As a result, those covered by these laws have paid leave over and above whatever paid leave may have been granted to them by their employer. The reality is that any employee with accrued sick leave could potentially use such leave to undergo screenings for these types of cancer. Consequently, these laws are unnecessary. Furthermore, this coverage extends to part-time employees. While this class of employees is generally not provided with paid leave, any part-time employee seeking a cancer screening would be able to schedule such outside of normal working hours.