"Crisis"

Also in the “Star” you'll see the term “financial budgetary crisis,” describing the fiscal state of the County right now, as we work on the 2016 budget. This seems a bit dramatic, although I suppose it depends on your definition of 'crisis.' I need to be a bit closer to impending doom before I use the term, but that's what was in the resolution instituting the “hiring freeze” today (see previous post).

It is true that we're a long way from a balanced budget, a destination we have to arrive at, and approve, before the end of the year. There are a lot of difficult fiscal issues that have converged on Otsego County this year, and it's harder than it has been for a while. But it is not impossible to overcome these problems.

The reimbursement issues affecting the Department of Social Services, which I help oversee as chair of the Human Services Committee, have been trumpeted continually as the source of our troubles by some Board members. We are projecting over two million dollars less in revenues than we have in the past, and this is, surely, a problem. But it's important for us to understand that it's a problem that originates completely in Albany, not Cooperstown. Given this, Treasure Dan Crowell is arranging meetings that will, it is hoped, move us closer to getting the NYS Comptroller, Tom DiNapoli, involved in some reforms that would allow us to receive reimbursements we have earned in a timely and predictable manner. You've heard about this before.

I'm a little put out by the fact that DSS is taking the public brunt of the “crisis.” I've responded strongly in a few meetings, and as a result, the problem is articulated as “Albany DSS.” Just once, I'd like to hear the tower project (which, in another retraction – sorry – actually is costing around $8 million) referenced as a part of the problem. We're in the hole about as much for this project as we are due to the DSS reimbursement issue. We've kicked the can down the road some by borrowing enough money to cover the cost of getting the towers done next year. From what I can tell, it will cost us just under a million a year for the next decade, or nearly. A lot of this – probably most – is because we missed a grant we could have had, and we missed it because we did not ask our grant-writing consultant to write the grant. Why? Lots of eye-rolling and averted gazes.

Don't buy the story that some folks are selling – that DSS is the department that has caused the “crisis.” It's propaganda, and it's not true.