Hundreds filed into The Westchester County Center Tuesday to have their say before the county officials pass next year’s budget.
A cross section of community residents gathered at the to sound off on County Executive Robert Astorino’s for the last of three public budget hearings. More than three hundred people could be seen inside the Little Theater, where the hearing was held, while a couple hundred more people were directed to a flow-off area where the hearing was shown on large screen.
There were varying opinions and concerns amongst the people in attendance.
Katrina Vidal, a Scarsdale resident, said she attended Tuesday’s public hearing to support Astorino’s budget.
“The taxpayers cannot afford to pay the county union employees’ wages and their benefits, which are out of line with the economic reality of this county, of this state and of this country,” Vidal said.
Iris Pagan, who ran unsuccessfully this year against Bill Ryan for the District 5 seat of the Westchester Board of Legislators, said many of the people she met during her campaign understood the need for a safety net for county residents. But those people also expressed a desire for greater transparency in how much of the funding for those programs is appropriated for salary and not programming.
“This is the type of transparency that many of the people I met want,” said Pagan, a White Plains resident.
Astorino’s proposal is about $100 million less than this year’s budget and represents a zero increase to the tax levy, which stands at $548 million this year. It calls for 210 layoffs and 367 total job eliminations.
The proposal would also reduce spending for parks and recreation by 5 percent, to $48 million; decrease the county Health Department’s budget by $160 million, or 3 percent; and the reduction of $1.9 million worth of contracts with the Mount Vernon Neighborhood Health Center, Hudson River Healthcare in Peekskill, and the .
The budget would also eliminate $990,000 in funding for the Cornell Cooperative Extension, which would effectively end the program, and reduce funding to ArtsWestchester by $750,000, which is about 50 percent what the program received this year.
Brittany Bollenbach, a student at Purchase College, came to the hearing with a group of other students to voice their concern over proposed cuts to parks and environmental projects in the county.
“I really like the environment and parks so I am here with my team we just want to be heard,” Bollenbach said while trying to gather signatures for petition asking for parks funding to be restored.
Curtis Wegener, a White Plains resident and member of the count pest management Committee, attended the hearing to speak on behalf of the Cornell Cooperative Extension. He said Cornell Cooperative Extension offered number of programs that can’t be readily replaced.
“Cornell’s expertise with education and the information it provides about pesticides and the new laws and pesticide labels...it’s just irreplaceable,” Wegener said.
Troy Hyman, a county worker and member of the local Civil Service Employees Association, said he remained optimistic after attending the pubic hearing.
“I found out some information that I didn’t know,” Hyman said. “You always hear from Astorino, but you never here what the Legislators are really saying. It was very informative for me and it gave me a better understanding of what we are fighting for.”
County officials have already made additions to the budget, which can be seen in the PDF to the right of this story, and are scheduled to make necessary line item deletions before they pass a budget Thursday.
Astorino still has the option of overriding the changes made by the board of legislators. If that happens, the Board of Legislators would vote to override the veto on Dec. 22.
"As well as wage cuts and 1,000 lay-offs, the mayor needs big concessions from the unions, ranging from pensions and health-care reform to changes in restrictive work rules. ... The unions may realise that the game is up. One representative—among the 45 with whom the city must negotiate—says his members feel up against a wall." Being "up against the wall" is a feeling that taxpayers in this area already have - witness the defeat of schools bonds in Rye and Cortlandt/Peekskill. Jeff's public union friends may be also "up against the wall" here sooner than anyone can imagine.
There is a public policy exception to almost every law ever written. When taxpayers wake up and decide it's contrary to public policy to create a favored class of people -- for example, public employees who are given benefits that far exceed the value they deliver -- this scandal will end. I applaud Dick Hubert for sticking his neck out. If he lived in Peekskill, he'd have to fear retribution from the reigning political thugs who share Jeff's vision of the world.
If your are such a big believer in personal responsibility why don't you sign on under your own name like Jeff does? I would guess it is because at the core of your being you are a hypocrite.
How did the police and fire contracts end up being so favorable? Could it have something to do with the political lobbying in Albany, or the political activism at the local level? Does the PBA support local candidates based on their willingness to support rich contracts for uniformed employees, or is it fiscal prudence that it is looking for? You can close your eyes to the reality of how you and your fellow retirees ended up with such a rich package of salaries and benefits and then remind us all about the sanctity of contracts, but you very well know that these contracts have been the product of little more than politics - getting acquiescent politicians at the local level and at the state level, both Republican and Democrat, to simply bend to the PBA's wish lists. Yes, most police officers and firefighters work hard, but so do most working people, so that's no excuse for ripping off the rest of us. Yes, it is a rip-off to use the political system to gouge taxpayers with outlandish pay and benefits, and it is police contracts that are the worst.
The average pension for the sixteen Yonkers police and firefighters who retired in 2010 was $120,000. The typical (e.g. median) retiree was eligible for a pension benefit of $124,000 after 31 years of service; if their median age at hire was 24, then they were 55 years old at retirement . Pension, not pay. In 2009, the average pension for the 52 Yonkers uniformed employees who retired that year was $95,000. The median pension was $99,000 for 23 years of service and retirement age was 47 (assuming same age at hire of 24). In 2010, 64 Yonkers teachers retired with an average pension of $85,000; the median was a pension of $94,000 and 36 years of service. Assuming a typical hire age of 24, the typical retirement age was 60. In other words, in Yonkers uniformed employees retire with higher pensions and many fewer years of service as compared to teachers. Of course, this also means that taxpayers are on the hook to pay medical insurance for these retirees and their families for that many more years. By my calculation, the typical W-2 earnings prior to retirement was $201,000 and $198,000 for the 2010 and 2009 uniformed retirees, respectively, and $150,000 for the teacher retirees. Francis, I hope that helps to explain what I mean by "rich" contracts.
Three hours later he was taken to the emergency room. He's been on disability since mid-September and reports that he is "working diligently with my doctors to recover from my injuries". Oh, he's also planning to sue White Plains for damages. That's rich! Francis, what's your guess, will he settle the lawsuit for a non-NY State taxable disability pension at 75% of pay plus lifetime health insurance or will he also require monetary damages for his physical and mental pain and suffering?