Remember - blog posts migrate downward, so the most recent post is at the top; the oldest at the bottom.

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Public Comment on the Budget

Further info on opportunities for the public to speak to the Board about the 2015 budget:
  •  Monday, November 17 at 9:15AM - County Board Chambers in the County Office Building, Cooperstown:  Regular mid-month meeting, called primarily to complete work on a public law, but there will be a time for public comment. 
  • Friday, November 21 at 1:00PM - County Board Chambers in the County Office Building, Cooperstown:  Full-Board meeting of the Budget Review Committee; as a Committee meeting, it is open to the public and public may comment.
  • Monday, December 1 at 6:00PM - Otsego County Courthouse:  The public hearing specifically to address the 2015 budget.  This is the best forum for comment on the budget - and typically, noone comes, and we adjourn at about 6:02PM.
  • Wednesday, December 3 at 10:00AM - County Board Chambers in the County Office Building, Cooperstown:  Regular monthly Board meeting; there will be a time for public comment.
  • There might be a December mid-month meeting of the Board if necessary; public comment will be heard.

Monday, November 10, 2014

Budget Update

A couple of news items from the Budget Review Committee's meeting last Wednesday afternoon:

The Elm Park Church Senior Meals site will remain in operation at least through March 31.  The extension was granted to keep the change from occurring in the difficult winter months, and to allow the Director of the Office for the Aging, Frances Wright, more time to find a more appropriate solution than Nader Towers/242 Main.  It will also provide some time for the Elm Park folks to consider lowering the rent - something is better than nothing.  This is all good news, but good news with a time limit.  Stay tuned, and keep communicating with Board members.

Secondly, $35,000 was added to the Otsego County contribution to Cornell Cooperative Extension, raising that contribution from, I believe, $125,000 to $160,000.


Noone on the Board doubts the importance of agriculture to the past, present and future of Otsego County.  The question is, how do we encorage and support this industry as effectively as possible?  Without a comprehensive plan, of course, we have no idea.  So the funding of CCE has become a controversial hot potato, and our contribution has ebbed and flowed with the political winds (sorry about the mixed metaphor).

I think we need to do everything we can to grow our agricultural sector.  CCE is in that business, and they've gone a fair way toward proving that they can be effective.  Further funding will enable us to re-subscribe to the CNY Dairy and Field Crop Team, and to hire a local Ag Educator to focus on dairy and field crop issues.  With the possible resurgence of hops as a sustainable crop, we should do everything we can to encourage and support this initiative.

In the 19th century, Otsego County was the center of the hops world; most of America's hops were grown here and in surrounding counties.  No reason we can't do it again:  we've got the same land, the same determined work ethic, and all we might need is some help remembering how to do it. 

Update:  I forgot to add this caveat:  the budget is still in draft form and can be changed by Board action.  The next whole Board budget meeting is Friday, November 21, at 1:00PM in the Board chambers in the County Office Building in Cooperstown.  If' you've got something to say about the budget, join us.

Saturday, November 8, 2014

Property Tax Auction

I'd like to say a word or two about the tax auction controversy.

If you don't pay your County property taxes, a four-and-a-half year process starts, during which you receive dozens of notices in the mail and, if you own a residential property, the Treasurer himself goes out to the property to try and contact you in person.  There's a deadline, which in Otsego County's case is not the day of the sale but, instead, about a month and a half before the sale.  If payment isn't made by the deadline, the property goes to auction.  State law prohibits you from bidding on your own property.

In this kind of system, where people's homes are often at risk, it's important to make sure that the owners have every opportunity to pay the back taxes and get their homes off the auction list.  In Otsego County, the notification process is longer and more intense than in many other counties.  Dozens of contacts - including face to face - during four and a half years represents diligence in the extreme.

But eventually, there's a deadline.  In some counties, it's the day of sale.  When that's the case, and properties are withdrawn from sale minutes before it begins, buyers become frustrated and don't return.  In Otsego County, the deadline is more than a month before the auction.  This creates a period of time when the property isn't sold, but during which the owner can't pay the taxes any more.  

A deadline is a deadline, regardless of what comes after.  But when people's homes are at stake, tragic stories unfold.  You'd like to provide a second chance - but the County has provided four and a half years of second chances.  Any exception will embroil the County and its taxpayers in years of litigation when every other tax delinquent property owner demands - and rightly so! - the same exception.

This, then, is the very last step in a very long process that has given the property owner every opportunity to get back on track and retain their home.  Our heartbreak - and it is real - might be eased if we understood that essential concept.

Thursday, November 6, 2014

Budget Time Again

We've had some good financial news and positive events this year – increased sales tax, the sale of the Manor, the dissolution of MOSA, the Oneida Nation's ongoing payment in return for our agreement to stay out of the casino business.  So budget time is not as anxiety-producing as it has been.  There is even the possibility of a miniscule tax reduction.

However, costs continue to rise – the usual suspects, including salaries, health insurance, and unfunded mandates, as well as the usual collection of odds and ends.  So cuts still have to be made.

Some notes on a couple of budget issues.  First, the M&C employees (Managerial and Confidential – everyone who is not represented by a union) are finally going to get their raise, the first in seven years.  It is substantial enough to not be embarrassing, but does not put our County in a salary range which is competitive statewide.  I continue to be astounded at the high quality employees, many in leadership positions, that we retain, year after year, even though they have been treated so badly.  They need to continue to be adequately compensated as the years go by.  And their raises should actually be given to them, not like last year, when the Board approved them in December and the majority of the Admin Committee took them away.

There is some substantial controversy over the closing of the Elm Park Church senior meal center in Oneonta, as well.  This is appropriate controversy, and not unexpected.  The Office for the Aging operates the meal center and a few offices in the church, for which we are charged $13,000 each year (down from the low $20,0000s a couple of years ago).  The meal site will be merged with the existing meal site at Nader Towers, and the offices will be moved to vacant rooms at the County Office Building at 242 Main Street in downtown Oneonta.  In both places, parking is the issue, and having visited both I feel that these moves will be a very big step down. 

I was on the Health and Ed Committee my first two years, and I was active in helping to find an alternative to the too-expensive Elm Park site.  We looked at Nader Towers and 242 Main, and discarded them as alternatives, mostly because of the parking issues.  This year the Health and Ed Committee cut the Elm Park payment and recommended the moves, and the Budget Review Committee approved this move.  Both committees are chaired by Don Lindberg, who represents the eastern end of the County.  He's the one to contact if you feel strongly about this, as I do.

And, finally, there is the County Clerk's office.  The County Clerk is elected, and so has a level of independence from the Board, and she has used that independence often in the past.  Cutting services at the DMV offices in Cooperstown makes sense:  patronage is declining sharply, as more and more people do their DMV business online, and Otsego County does not collect fees for online interactions.  The Clerk's threat to keep the offices (which are losing money) open and suspend out-of-state work (which does produce revenue) does not make sense, and seems to me to be done out of spite, in response to the Budget Review Committee's cuts in her department.  As a taxpayer, I'm appalled. 

More to come on the budget. Stay tuned, as usual...