Dog Bites Man

AUDIT: LOCAL GOVERNMENTS IN TROUBLE:

Many local governments in New York, pounded by rising expenses and slow growth, are in financial trouble, according to an audit by the state comptroller issued Wednesday.

Debt has doubled in the last 10 years, property taxes are soaring and people and jobs are leaving many cities, according to a report from state Comptroller Alan Hevesi

"Local government across the state continue to operate amid a barrage of fiscal pressures that show no sign of diminishing in the near future," according to the report.

Ominously, the fiscal conditions of the counties, cities, towns and villages "persists despite many positive developments in the past year," the report says. Those include a state capping of local Medicaid costs, increases in revenue-sharing aid from the state, big increases in state aid to local schools and a strong economy downstate and in the Hudson Valley, coupled with low inflation.

"The report is just more evidence of the imbalance between local fiscal capacity and the cost of providing essential municipal services," Peter Baynes of the state Conference of Mayors said.
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He cited two in particular: the binding-arbitration statute that leaves it up to a state-appointed panel to decide on contracts with police and fire unions; and the Wicks Law, which requires local and state government to let four separate contracts for public-works jobs. That's a mandate critics say adds billions to the cost of public-construction projects in the state every year.

"It's mandates like that that makes us inherently inefficient," Baynes said.