Below, I have copied many comments that were originally posted in a long consolidation-related thread of discussion on the New Paltz Facebook group. I stripped out most of the "likes" info but I took pains to retain the person's name making the post (at the beginning) and the date of the post (at the end). Not every comment that was made in these FB threads was cross-posted, but I believe I included all the relevant ones. Many of the video links and notes are in posts made on January 20th, with a few on later dates.
Mike Russo
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There's a number of aspects worthy of critique in the Town/Village Consolidation Report but my initial questions relate to the two largest items in the expenditure savings column: (1) why a $300,000 reduction in police expenditures savings is being counted as consolidation savings when the annotation says "reduced due extenuating circumstances in 2011, no longer anticipated." It seems like that means the $300,000 savings would be obtained whether or not consolidation would take place; (2) about 20% savings is estimated from a majority of DPW/Highway code line items, i.e. $520k reduction from what appears to be about $2.6 million of Town and Village expenditures. That's almost one-third of the $1,625,258 total reduction in expenditures, yet I don't see any details on how these savings would be achieved. What duplication of DPW/Highway services is occurring now that would allow consolidation to yield such a sizeable reduction?
Mike Russo My next question involves the Law expenditures line. If legal expenditures for the village and town were about $59k and $115k respectively, how could consolidation result in a reduction of these costs to $95k, much less than the town costs alone? I could understand the possibility of some efficiency here, maybe even 20-25%, which would reduce combined costs from $174k to $132k-$140k, but on what possible basis would costs drop by 45%?
Mike Russo Next: Line item 1650.4 is Town Central Communications Contractual, for which the entire $40,535 of expenditures is saved because, according to the notes, that item is absorbed by consolidation into Line 1680.4 Data Processing. But for that line item, there is already consolidation savings estimated at $25,650, a 33% reduction. So we looking at a net reduction from $115k to $50k. While one would expect that consolidation could realize significant savings in this category, I cannot imagine a justification for estimating how it could bring about an efficiency of 55%.
Jason West there are also further hidden issues: for example, the line under insurance claims ~$165,000 in savings for consolidation, yet when I asked the Village Treasurer about it, she explained that the savings were due to the elimination of several positions in the Town Highway/Water dept. that happened last fall. That savings is already reflected in the current Town budget, yet is claimed as a savings due to consolidation.
Jason West Also, a year and a half ago, I provided Peter Fairweather with proof from the village grantwriter that we would lose ALL access to Small Cities/CDBG grants (dependent on average income) as well as low-interest subsidized loan/grant programs from the USDA (dependent on population and income). The Village has gotten ~$600,000 a year for the past four years for water/sewer upgrades from Small Cities, and is currently applying for a multi-million dollar grant/subsidized loan from USDA for water system upgrades at an all-time low interest rate of 1.85%. These facts (along with others) were kept out of the final Fairweather report. A few weeks ago, I provided the Finance Committee with the same documentation, yet this loss of revenue was again ignored. Paying cash for these upgrades eliminates one-third of the supposed 'savings' to consolidation. To the point that this morning, grantwriter Mark Blauer (who has secured more than $1.2 MILLION from these sources for the Village in the past year and a half) said to me, "Well, it was nice working for you."
Jason West Both myself and Town Councilman Jeff Logan have asked more than half a dozen times how much of the proposed savings are unique to consolidation, and how much we could do today without consolidating at all. In other words, the Finance Committee may have done extraordinary work in finding savings, but those savings may be due more to a 'cleaning of the books' after near-catastrophic fiscal mismanagement of the Town, rather than the inherent value of consolidation. We have both been met repeatedly with utter silence.
Jason West It's a snowjob.
Jason West Just to put the interest rates in context: the Village has a better credit rating than the USA, and we get on average 2-4% on a five year serial bond.
Jason West The loss of Small Cities and USDA Rural Development financing was ignored by the Finance Committee, despite being provided rock-solid proof of the risk. I can handle disagreement, but not silence.
Jason West To address the legal question, it seems the Finance Committee thinks that an attorney would be willing to do more than double the work for the same amount of money the Village currently pays our under-paid attorney. I find this to be irrational. Frankly, any attorney willing to do the job for that amount of money wouldn't be worth hiring, and would probably cost us more than we'd save.
Jason West In terms of the supposed savings from the Planning Boards and Zoning Boards of Appeal (only five-figures, so small potatoes), my question is this: given that the rate, scale and complexity of development will remain the same after consolidation, and given that we currently require two Planning Boards and Zoning Boards of Appeals, are we to expect the consolidated Planning Board and Zoning Board of Appeals to meet twice as often, or for twice as long? And why - if development pressure remains a constant - are there any projected savings at all?
Mike Russo Are there no other supporting documents other than the ones listed in the report? When performing analysis such as this, all the material assertions about line item savings should have their own supporting documents, explaining with narrative and numbers how the savings is to be achieved. Another example: The consolidation of Treasurer, Personnel/Payroll and Bookkeeping/Budget (A1325.1, A1340.1, A1430.1) is shown as yielding a 25% savings. That seems extremely optimistic and I'll like to see the analysis that explains how the combined workload could be reduced that much. My guess is that the approach used by the committee to formulate many of the labor assumptions such as this was by body counting alone, without adequate focus on actual job tasks and the time savings of those that would be duplicative.
Jason West No, there are absolutely no other supporting documents. I was assured over and over and over by Sally Rhoads that this report would have full citations, footnotes, and narrative explanations. What you have is what the Finance Committee believes to be a fantastic, thorough, unassailable budget for a consoliated New Paltz. It is being portrayed as a document one must have faith in. For example, Town Councilor Kristin Brown, upon the completion of the presentation, announced, "I trust these numbers". Without having seen them before, and simply on the Committee's say-so. The kind of questions you are asking now are the kind of questions the Town and Village Board members should have been asking all along. Unfortunately, it was never something any of them were interested in, other than Jeff, and his opinions were critically undermined when he failed to convene his committee, and mine were critically undermined because I had become a broken record and therefore not worth taking seriously.
Jason West I would VERY, VERY much like to see the kind of common-sense information you ask for above, Mike Russo. I've even explained in detail what should be included to allow the public to be able to walk through the reasoning on their own. As usual, ignored.
Jason West Here is an email I sent yesterday to both the Town and Village Clerks:
Jason West "Dear Katy and Roseanna --
Please consider this a Freedom of Information Law request for the following documents generated by the Finance Subcommittee of the Volunteer Consolidation Study:
1) Any and all emails between members of the Committee regarding the work of the Committee, both formal, public emails and any and all email messages sent between Committee members which discuss the work of the Finance Committee
2) Any and all draft spreadsheets, excel files or other such documents outlining the specific budgetary changes the Committee considered for their final report.
3) All reports, memoranda or other communication from outside consultants regarding the work of the Finance Committee, including but not limited to communications from the New York State Department of State, Village Treasurer, Village and/or Town Attorney, pro-bono consultant Ken Bond and any other communication used by the Committee to research or justify their recommendations.
Thanks.
Jason West"
Please consider this a Freedom of Information Law request for the following documents generated by the Finance Subcommittee of the Volunteer Consolidation Study:
1) Any and all emails between members of the Committee regarding the work of the Committee, both formal, public emails and any and all email messages sent between Committee members which discuss the work of the Finance Committee
2) Any and all draft spreadsheets, excel files or other such documents outlining the specific budgetary changes the Committee considered for their final report.
3) All reports, memoranda or other communication from outside consultants regarding the work of the Finance Committee, including but not limited to communications from the New York State Department of State, Village Treasurer, Village and/or Town Attorney, pro-bono consultant Ken Bond and any other communication used by the Committee to research or justify their recommendations.
Thanks.
Jason West"
Jason West The entire Town and Village Boards were copied on it, so that no is shocked or surprised. We'll see if that gets the information needed to make an informed decision. God knows simply asking for it hasn't worked.
Mike Russo As per Jason's and Jeff's question (mentioned by Jason above) about distinguishing savings obtained from consolidation from savings that could be achieved regardless of consolidation, that is obviously a critical issue that should be tackled at the outset of such analysis, if indeed the point is to present an economic picture regarding possible savings from consolidation.
Yet the report not only fails to do this, it seems to obfuscate the picture in both its treatment of numerous line items and its methodology in presenting, not a pro forma to-date analysis, but an analysis of year 2011, without adjustment or reference to any material budgetary changes made in Town or Village after that year.
I am confused by the sentence in the report that reads "Please note: The consolidated budget presented reflects personnel adjustments already made in the 2013 adopted Town Budget, and therefore, there are minimal employee impacts (except for elected personnel)." This statement suggests to me that labor savings that has already been initiated in the Town per its 2013 Budget is being presented erroneously in this report as savings that would be obtained by means of consolidation.
Yet the report not only fails to do this, it seems to obfuscate the picture in both its treatment of numerous line items and its methodology in presenting, not a pro forma to-date analysis, but an analysis of year 2011, without adjustment or reference to any material budgetary changes made in Town or Village after that year.
I am confused by the sentence in the report that reads "Please note: The consolidated budget presented reflects personnel adjustments already made in the 2013 adopted Town Budget, and therefore, there are minimal employee impacts (except for elected personnel)." This statement suggests to me that labor savings that has already been initiated in the Town per its 2013 Budget is being presented erroneously in this report as savings that would be obtained by means of consolidation.
Steve Greenfield What were the extenuating circumstances in 2011 that cost us $300,000 in extra policing?
Jeff Logan i asked similar questions. was yelled at and got following. the 300k was to close contract being closed so that expense will not be seen again. why was it added then? the highway savings is easy ..... roads will be plowed with 5 to 7 days of storms, please let us know which streets are most important. close the village garge and move equipment far away as possible from core. the savings on legaal and engineering are going to be tough unless combining the planning codes is a no brainer… i doubt it is. i am away this weekend sorry for short comments but more info is needed. if we can save $$$ iam first on board!!! if we can save by annexing and not consolidating lets do it!
Mike Russo Jeff, if I'm understanding you correctly about the DPW/Highway line, the only savings that is applicable is that of the insurance, utilities and maintenance upkeep of the village garage structure itself. The roads need to be repaired and plowed regardless of whether there is one or two governments, and any estimates of how many storms per year and what streets to prioritize when plowing have nothing to do with the question of consolidation. The vehicle maintenance costs remain the same. I don't understand how the committee could arrive at a conclusion that consolidation would produce $520,000 of savings, or 20% reduction of those combined DPW/Highway lines.
Jeff Logan Yes. The village and town highway are run very efficent as is. I cannot see 500,000 in savings in highway even with closing a building. Stiil have 45 miles of village and 65 miles town, can't see anyway to reduce. The 4 million dollar gorilla is still in the room.
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Mike Russo Well, I just watched the video of the Jan 9th Town/Village meeting when this report was presented and that gave me a larger perspective of what is going on with this issue.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vxkUBlexIcM#!
I just drafted a letter summing up all the above and more, but since the next T/V meeting is tomorrow (Tuesday 1/15) when Q&A takes place, much of what I wrote may already be discussed. I'm wondering if some of the supporting documents to the savings claims will be made available at tomorrow's meeting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vxkUBlexIcM#!
I just drafted a letter summing up all the above and more, but since the next T/V meeting is tomorrow (Tuesday 1/15) when Q&A takes place, much of what I wrote may already be discussed. I'm wondering if some of the supporting documents to the savings claims will be made available at tomorrow's meeting.
First meeting of the year.
Jason West What are your thoughts having seen the video? And Mike, I hope you'll be coming to the meeting tomorrow Tuesday) to voice all of this to the Board in person and on-camera.
Jason West Based on past practice, tomorrow's meeting will be the FINAL and ONLY chance for the public to weigh in. At our next scheduled Joint Meeting we are supposed to hire attorney Ken Bond to make sure this gets on the ballot and passes this spring.
Jason West for $75,000.
Jason West which the Village does not have in the budget.
Jason West And please don't be fooled by all the talk of "we got the million dollars". We did not get a million dollars; the State passed a law offering UP TO a million dollars in state aid to consolidated municipalities UNDER CERTAIN CONDITIONS. This 'citizens' empowerment tax credit' is being presented as if it is a guarantee, and a perpetual guarantee at that. As in, once we get, we will get this state aid in perpetuity to offset costs of consolidation. This is simply not true and never has been. I ran into Assemblyman Kevin Cahill a few months back and asked him how protected that pot of money was if the State rran short in another area. He actually laughed out loud.
Mike Russo My thoughts having seen the video? Troubled. There is powerful momentum pushing consolidation led by a group who is armed with a load of assertions and numbers on a page, which they claim are solid but which for me are unsubstantiated and which are definitely unsupported by any narrative made explicit to the public. The report as presented last week without those supporting documents, remains an unprofessional job while being presented and lauded as if it were professional.
Tim Hunter I do not have an opinion here...what is the argument against consolidation
Jason West It's not about that Tim. The two sides are "CONSOLIDATE NOW" vs. "Shouldn't we find out what the impacts are before we decide whether consolidation is good?" It's Propaganda v. Science.
Tim Hunter it would be nice to see objective pros and cons for both sides of the argument
Mike Russo Tim, my issue here has to do with when large numbers get used to persuade people but in fact, those numbers have not been soundly calculated. In this case, claims about financial savings due to consolidation are being made without adequate explanation about how those savings would be obtained. For many line items, those claims look unreasonably optimistic, inaccurate or misleading to me but I can't really tell because to date, the numbers have been presented without any explanations as to how they are figured. Those explanations should have accompanied the report.
Tim Hunter It seems that there must be some savings eliminating duplicated services alone...but the question is what are the benefits and do they merit the costs of consolidation
Jason West there has never been any duplication of services identified. the two government dovetail, they don't really overlap.
Steve Greenfield If I had a dollar for every time Susan Zimet asserted we definitely get the million bucks, I'd have a million bucks...
Mike Russo Pointedly ironic since all during the Middle School Renovation issue, she and her group continually issued rhetoric contending that we couldn't count on state government -- it may renege on its promise of matching funds.
Steve Greenfield Except for one big difference: the aid we were touting was guaranteed -- we did not have to apply for it and hope the legislature would approve it. It was a codified aid ratio for the NPCSD. And after the renovation was voted down, the state actually expanded funding for the renovation reimbursement budget. I compliment you for your use of the phrase "pointedly ironic." Very diplomatic. I would have used a couple of words that would have been more, er, pointed.
Mike Russo Tim, agree that there would be some savings from elimination of the duplication of costs of infrastructure and administration, and some savings from economies of scale. An obvious example is that there is savings to be had, for example by combining computer servers and networks, although the same number of workstations would still have to be maintained. Similarly, reducing to one facility would save maintenance costs (although I don't know if it would be possible to compress both Town and Village operations into the village facility as has been suggested, and is that supposed to include Town Court?). The main question is how much would all the savings from consolidation realize. The Fiscal Committee presented a cost reduction figure of $1.6 million and then figured property owners' tax rates savings based on that figure. But the more I examine the spreadsheet they provided, the more questions come up and the smaller the actual savings seems likely to be. It would be terrible to place a referendum on the ballot, while presenting a unrealistic impression to the voters of very high tax rate savings. The calculations for overall savings should be solid and well-supported; these from the Fiscal Committee are not. As I said above, this is not a professional-grade report, and on such a matter of consolidation, it should be. What I would like to see is an experienced well-reputed accounting firm perform the consolidation analysis with current budgets and expenditure projections, not those from year 2011.
Mike Russo That is not to say that outside accounting firms can't sometimes make a mess of such a studies as well. But the concept of a professional grade report means it will follow standard accounting principles, and include full supporting narrative and numbers, so readers can examine and critique as needed how the analysts obtained their figures.
Jason West god, that would be fantastic.
Jason West I would have to say that at this point, Mike, given the number of bad 9-1, or 8-2 decisions that have been made, this is pretty much a runaway train. By my estimation, of the ten Board members, there are three of us who have any idea of what is happening, three who could understand but don't bother, and four who just nod, smile, and vote with the majority because dissenting would require an answer why, whcich would betray their ignorance.
Jason West The only way your points will make any difference is if they're asked publilcly. And by enough people that the Boards can't rush through without looking stupid. If its just you asking, you will be provided disinformation and then ignored. If a decent cross-section of people start publicly asking even the most common-sense basic questions, this process will have to stop long enough for them to be answered.
Jason West Reason, facts, evidence and proof have never once had any place in this process, despite the best efforts of a tiny number of us to demand that they are important. If anyone thinks I'm exaggerating, please just read the Fairweather study or any of the documents this process produced. It's all garbage and propaganda and lies by omission.
Jason West This hasn't been a social-scientific effort to see if a different arrangement of the deck chairs is better; it's been a moral crusade by a handful of people who are aesthetically and culturally driven bananas by the fact "we" are 'one community' with 2 governments. The final tax rate hasn't mattered from the start, because this was going to be studied until numbers could found to justify consolidating.
Jason West The comment is often made that we've been studying this for 40 years, and references are made to the consolidation efforts of the early '90's and before. Here's a thought: if people have been putting consoliation up for a vote over and over for decades, and if those votes fail over and over across decades; and if the $50,000 Fairweather Study showed no savings and no other benefits to consolidation, and if the subsequent volunteer research study (to fix the broken Fairweather Study) has shown no benefits without twisting and padding the numbers, THEN MAYBE WE'VE PROVEN OVER AND OVER AGAIN THAT CONSOLIDATION IS A BAD IDEA THAT THIS COMMUNITY KEEPS VOTING DOWN!
Jason West except then there's the Middle School vote, when this community trusted propaganda over data, so it's entirely possible New Paltz will march happily to the polls to vote themselves a huge tax hike because no one could be bothered to pay attention to any of this. Again. Americans are like that. I mean, we elected the star of "Bedtime for Bonzo" to run our country after all. Twice.
Mike Russo Jason, I apologize for having shown up so late to the game on this issue myself. And I don't a lot of time -- anywhere as much time as I'd like -- to catch up on what has transpired previously or to address the challenging situation at present. But I will show up tonight.
Mark Portier Thanks for your diligence, Mike.
Jason West You dont owe any apologies to anyone, Mike. Just the opposite. The fact that you have such precise, diligent questions gives me hope that people are watching this more closely than i think. It's hard to tell from the other side of the camera and an empty room.
Mike Russo Jason - Can you clarify your comments and thoughts regarding the Fairweather study? I assume this is the 2011 study -- I'm looking at version 2.1 dated 11/11/2011 (Final Draft for Public Input), which I just downloaded from the web. Was there a later version? Pages 23-24 of the version I'm looking at suggests that savings due to consolidation is likely to be modest, making such statements as "This reiterates the concept that restructuring through consolidation is not an effective means in overall reduction of the cost of local government."
Mike Russo I wonder about potential "due diligence" liability of Board members who promote to voters a study representing such high tax rates savings, without a credentialed accounting firm supporting such assertions. Do Board members have a duty of care in this case, much like being required to seek a reputable attorney's advice in legal aspects? As elected officials, wouldn't they be required to buttress any official representations of large tax savings with a professional opinion, to protect that voters aren't being unduly swayed in their voting choice by their own elected officials?
Mike Russo Thinking this through further, I believe the T/V elected officials have no choice but to have the Fiscal Committee's report reviewed and substantiated by an accounting or similarly credentialed firm. They have the professional 2011 Fairweather report that suggests modest, if any, savings can be realized through consolidation and they have their internal assessment that suggests much the opposite. As fiduciaries, they have a standard of care to ensure their internal report is accurate before accepting it and propagating it to the public. Anyone who reads this and has knowledge of the ethics rules of elected officials, please comment on this reasoning.
January 15 at 12:14pm · · · 1
Kristin Brown Mike, I will forward these questions to the two boards for tonight so they can be answered. And of course you would still be able to ask them yourself. But I think you will get better answers if we have them in advance. Both Ariana and I have posted the contact info for questions before, and here it is again: npconsolidationquestions@gmail.com. See you tonight!
Jason West Mike, the Fairweather study is also riddled with errors, false assumptions, etc. I can send you 30 or so pages of comments I submitted at the time if you're having insomnia. However, Fairweather, et. al. did provide some useful points. None of them support consolidation all that much. At the end youll find a list of "potential benefits" to consolidation, all of which are achievable with or without consolidating. It's part of the reason I think more and more that consolidation is an aesthetic issue for supporters. I simply cant think of any other reason. I've been waiting and wating for the supposed evidence of its' economic benefits. But now we're done. This is it. No more research. And no evidence that consolidation will be a benefit.
Jason West And we haven't even begun to talk about the enormous costs to actually do it, plus the risks. A couple things to keep in mind: we're talking a literal corporate merger (at the on the Village end; I often sign contracts as the CEO of a municipal corporation) of two multi-million dollar organizations. Any thoughts on the legal bills alone to collate two Codes, renegotiate contracts (whose outcome we can't predict), re-organize any ongoing legal issues, etc. Six figures, minimum. And I can't imagine a more complicated minefield of lawsuits. I won't go into that. As an "investment" decision, it's an ENORMOUS risk with a low payoff if successful.
Jason West And all Town and Village Board members always have a fiduciary responsibility to our constituents.
Jason West It's a word that gets misunderstood, and applies to us in the narrow legal sense:
Jason West fiduciary 1) n. from the Latin fiducia, meaning "trust," a person (or a business like a bank or stock brokerage) who has the power and obligation to act for another (often called the beneficiary) under circumstances which require total trust, good faith and honesty. The most common is a trustee of a trust, but fiduciaries can include business advisers, attorneys, guardians, administrators of estates, real estate agents, bankers, stock brokers, title companies, or anyone who undertakes to assist someone who places complete confidence and trust in that person or company. Characteristically, the fiduciary has greater knowledge and expertise about the matters being handled. A fiduciary is held to a standard of conduct and trust above that of a stranger or of a casual business person. He/she/it must avoid "self-dealing" or "conflicts of interests" in which the potential benefit to the fiduciary is in conflict with what is best for the person who trusts him/her/it. For example, a stockbroker must consider the best investment for the client, and not buy or sell on the basis of what brings him/her the highest commission. While a fiduciary and the beneficiary may join together in a business venture or a purchase of property, the best interest of the beneficiary must be primary, and absolute candor is required of the fiduciary. 2) adj. defining a situation or relationship in which a person is acting as a fiduciary for another. (See: trust, fiduciary relationship)
Copyright © 1981-2005 by Gerald N. Hill and Kathleen T. Hill. All Right reserved.
Copyright © 1981-2005 by Gerald N. Hill and Kathleen T. Hill. All Right reserved.
Rebecca Rotzler So will the public be allowed to ask questions tonight? I may not be able to attend.
Jason West Absolutely. Since the next meeting we have scheduled is to decide to spend money we don't have to get this on the ballot, and Stewart Glenn and Ariana Basco's committee is set to start selling this to the voters, tonight is likely the last chance the public will have to weigh in. Hopefully people will demand more time to understand what's being asked of them before the sales pitches start.
Jason West at least I assume that's what the Outreach Committee is supposed to do, since they're both on record as supporters of consolidation.
Mike Russo On second thought, with respect to my above thoughts about liability, it appears that the bar is fairly low with respects to public officials, much lower than that placed on corporate directors. As long as they stay clear of advocating policies for reasons of personal gain, they are fairly immune. The logic seems to stem from this: If the voters want to elect officials who make potentially reckless decisions or who impart limited or inaccurate information to the public, the voters are free to do so and they collectively, as the municipality, accept responsibility for the results.
Jeff Logan I hope all turn out and speak, ask questions and give us questions to work on. if people were elected on the premise of consolidation being the only answer to our fiscal issues and it turns out the savings are not there then the electorate shall speak at the polls.
January 15 at 2:51pm via mobile · · 1
Mike Russo Per Kitty's post above, here are eight questions that I am emailing to npconsolidationquestions@gmail.com
1. The single largest cost savings line in the Expenditures spreadsheet is comprised from a collection of DPW and Highway item lines. The total savings is stated as $520,077. This figure seems unrealistically high for savings realized by consolidation, since regardless of whether we have one or two governments, we still have the same number of roads to be plowed and repaired, and the same number of vehicles, more or less, to be maintained. Consolidating to one garage will save a limited amount of money. So how will this cost savings be realized?
Note: I would like to ask follow-up questions in person in regard to this question 1.
2. Regarding Line items A3120.1&2&4, why is a $300,000 reduction in police expenditures being counted as consolidation savings when the annotation states "reduced due extenuating circumstances in 2011, no longer anticipate"? That brief note seems to imply that the $300,000 reduction has been already taken place, and has nothing to do with whether or not consolidation takes place. Please clarify.
3. The Fiscal Committee report contains a sentence that reads "Please note: The consolidated budget presented reflects personnel adjustments already made in the 2013 adopted Town Budget, and therefore, there are minimal employee impacts (except for elected personnel)." This statement suggests to me that labor savings that has already been initiated in the Town per its 2013 Budget is being presented erroneously in the report as savings that would be obtained by means of consolidation. Those 2013 personnel adjustments should show up as a correction line in the cost analysis and not be included in the tally for savings due to consolidation, yet I see no such correction. This leads me to believe that those personnel adjustments that are already in place and unrelated to consolidation, are nevertheless being included as savings in the various labor lines and the labor-related lines, such as A9010.8, A9030.8, A9040.8, A9060.8. Please clarify.
4. Line item A1420.4 Law expenditures in 2011 for the village and town were about $58,997 and $115,484 respectively, so how could consolidation result in a reduction of these costs to $95,000, a much lower amount than the Town’s costs alone? On what possible basis relating to consolidation, would legal costs drop by 45%?
5. Line item A1440.4 Engineer is being cut from $137,071 in combined 2011 expenditures to $50,000. Such a decrease seems unrealistic. Furthermore, since the village had less than $2,000 in 2011 costs, why would this $86,971 in cost reduction be counted as savings due to consolidation?
6. The consolidation of Treasurer, Personnel/Payroll and Bookkeeping/Budget (A1325.1, A1340.1, A1430.1) is shown as yielding a 25% savings. That seems highly optimistic. Since this line is primarily labor and related, what are the specifics in terms of job roles and costs of the analysis of the combined workloads that determined that 25% of the tasks are duplicative of town and village?
7. Line item A1680.4 Data Processing shows consolidation savings estimated at $25,650, a 33% reduction. While one would expect that consolidation will realize savings in Data Processing costs, the total number of workstations and software user licenses will not decrease; therefore this seems like unrealistically high reduction in costs. What are the specifics in terms of item and dollar costs that would result in a reduction of 33% in costs?
8. Line item A1650.4 is Town Central Communications Contractual, for which the entire $40,535 of expenditures is in the Savings column because, according to the spreadsheet note, this item is absorbed by consolidation into Line A1680.4 Data Processing. But since Data Processing expenditures is already reduced by 33%, it would seem that expenditures for this Central Communications line item are being completely eliminated. Is this an accurate assumption? What are the individual components of this line’s $40,535 costs? How much of the savings would directly relate to consolidation?
1. The single largest cost savings line in the Expenditures spreadsheet is comprised from a collection of DPW and Highway item lines. The total savings is stated as $520,077. This figure seems unrealistically high for savings realized by consolidation, since regardless of whether we have one or two governments, we still have the same number of roads to be plowed and repaired, and the same number of vehicles, more or less, to be maintained. Consolidating to one garage will save a limited amount of money. So how will this cost savings be realized?
Note: I would like to ask follow-up questions in person in regard to this question 1.
2. Regarding Line items A3120.1&2&4, why is a $300,000 reduction in police expenditures being counted as consolidation savings when the annotation states "reduced due extenuating circumstances in 2011, no longer anticipate"? That brief note seems to imply that the $300,000 reduction has been already taken place, and has nothing to do with whether or not consolidation takes place. Please clarify.
3. The Fiscal Committee report contains a sentence that reads "Please note: The consolidated budget presented reflects personnel adjustments already made in the 2013 adopted Town Budget, and therefore, there are minimal employee impacts (except for elected personnel)." This statement suggests to me that labor savings that has already been initiated in the Town per its 2013 Budget is being presented erroneously in the report as savings that would be obtained by means of consolidation. Those 2013 personnel adjustments should show up as a correction line in the cost analysis and not be included in the tally for savings due to consolidation, yet I see no such correction. This leads me to believe that those personnel adjustments that are already in place and unrelated to consolidation, are nevertheless being included as savings in the various labor lines and the labor-related lines, such as A9010.8, A9030.8, A9040.8, A9060.8. Please clarify.
4. Line item A1420.4 Law expenditures in 2011 for the village and town were about $58,997 and $115,484 respectively, so how could consolidation result in a reduction of these costs to $95,000, a much lower amount than the Town’s costs alone? On what possible basis relating to consolidation, would legal costs drop by 45%?
5. Line item A1440.4 Engineer is being cut from $137,071 in combined 2011 expenditures to $50,000. Such a decrease seems unrealistic. Furthermore, since the village had less than $2,000 in 2011 costs, why would this $86,971 in cost reduction be counted as savings due to consolidation?
6. The consolidation of Treasurer, Personnel/Payroll and Bookkeeping/Budget (A1325.1, A1340.1, A1430.1) is shown as yielding a 25% savings. That seems highly optimistic. Since this line is primarily labor and related, what are the specifics in terms of job roles and costs of the analysis of the combined workloads that determined that 25% of the tasks are duplicative of town and village?
7. Line item A1680.4 Data Processing shows consolidation savings estimated at $25,650, a 33% reduction. While one would expect that consolidation will realize savings in Data Processing costs, the total number of workstations and software user licenses will not decrease; therefore this seems like unrealistically high reduction in costs. What are the specifics in terms of item and dollar costs that would result in a reduction of 33% in costs?
8. Line item A1650.4 is Town Central Communications Contractual, for which the entire $40,535 of expenditures is in the Savings column because, according to the spreadsheet note, this item is absorbed by consolidation into Line A1680.4 Data Processing. But since Data Processing expenditures is already reduced by 33%, it would seem that expenditures for this Central Communications line item are being completely eliminated. Is this an accurate assumption? What are the individual components of this line’s $40,535 costs? How much of the savings would directly relate to consolidation?
Mike Russo Some people may favor consolidation because, asJason West puts it, aesthetics. Others may prefer keeping the village separate for aesthetics. Power issues may come into play for some folks, or other self-interested reasons. Several months ago, Steve Greenfieldmade what I thought a cogent case for keeping the two governments, based on political preference. All that is fine in the spirit of everyone being entitled to their opinion. But the likely assumption is that for most voters, the tax rates issue is going to be front and center- they will vote for consolidation if there's the promise of significant reduction of taxes. That's why the financial picture of consolidation has to addressed with the upmost of care. Most people are too busy or not comfortable to delve deep in the analysis of double-checking and questioning the figures given to them by public officials, even if they are provided full information. Our elected officials are charged with the public trust, with the responsibility to present a fair and clear assessment of what savings would be obtained by the consolidation of the Village and Town governments. I must admit that I am surprised and troubled by the many flaws, inaccuracies and obfuscations that appear to be present in the Expenditures spreadsheet and by the stridency of the Fiscal Committee’s report and recommendation made on the basis of this problematic analysis. I am further troubled by the sharp contrast of the Fiscal Committee's high figure for savings due to consolidation as compared with the statements of the 2011 Fairweather study. What will happen, if consolidation is approved and then it turns out that the expert consultants, in fact, were right? Therefore, I request that we all insist that prior to referendum, a reputable accounting firm be retained to perform a professional grade report on the cost savings analysis using current budgets and cost projections.
(Not same wording but similar to comment sent in to npconsolidationquestions@gmail.com)
(Not same wording but similar to comment sent in to npconsolidationquestions@gmail.com)
January 15 at 4:39pm · · · 4
Mike Russo Another question I just emailed to be posed to the Fiscal Committee:
In approaching the Fiscal Committee’s report and Expenditure spreadsheet, two Basic Principles of Accounting come to mind, those of Full Disclosure and Conservatism.
The Full Disclosure principle holds that all past, present and future information that may have had an impact on the financial performance needs to be fully disclosed.
The Conservatism principle holds when choosing between two solutions, the one that will be least likely to overstate assets and income should be picked.
My examination of the Fiscal Committee’s report and Expenditure spreadsheet suggests that neither of these tenets have been observed.
My questions with regard to Full Disclosure are:
1) When will supporting documentation for all material line item savings be made available to the public?
2) Why was this documentation not made immediately available along with the Report and Expenditures spreadsheet so that ample time was available to the public to properly critique the Report?
My question with regard to Conservatism is:
Will you endorse the idea of retaining a reputable Accounting Firm to ascertain the accuracy of your figures in regard to estimated savings obtained from consolidation, and to perform similar analysis on current year budgets and cost projections?
In approaching the Fiscal Committee’s report and Expenditure spreadsheet, two Basic Principles of Accounting come to mind, those of Full Disclosure and Conservatism.
The Full Disclosure principle holds that all past, present and future information that may have had an impact on the financial performance needs to be fully disclosed.
The Conservatism principle holds when choosing between two solutions, the one that will be least likely to overstate assets and income should be picked.
My examination of the Fiscal Committee’s report and Expenditure spreadsheet suggests that neither of these tenets have been observed.
My questions with regard to Full Disclosure are:
1) When will supporting documentation for all material line item savings be made available to the public?
2) Why was this documentation not made immediately available along with the Report and Expenditures spreadsheet so that ample time was available to the public to properly critique the Report?
My question with regard to Conservatism is:
Will you endorse the idea of retaining a reputable Accounting Firm to ascertain the accuracy of your figures in regard to estimated savings obtained from consolidation, and to perform similar analysis on current year budgets and cost projections?
Mike Russo Sorry for dominating this thread.
Alice Andrews Are you kidding, Mike Russo? We welcome your detailed analysis! Thank you! Got anything to say about giving kids breaks from hw over the holidays?
Alice Andrews Mike! Thank you for weighing in on that hw thread! I love it! Will go Like it now...
Mike Russo At the Town/Village meeting tonight, some of the board members felt it important to spent a lot of time explaining to me why consolidation is a good idea for other reasons besides the financial. They didn't seem to get it that I am strictly interested in the accuracy of the numbers in the report -- and any talk about other aspects of consolidation is wasting my time and theirs. If board members want to make the case for consolidation with arguments other what the Fiscal Report estimates will be the effect on tax rates, fine. I don't care how many times consolidation has been attempted, I'm indifferent to some emotional concept about "One New Paltz." I appreciate the enormous amount of time that people put into the study but I'm sorry that it doesn't change the way the Fiscal Report numbers look to me one iota. I'm stuck on the numbers, the estimations of savings and big claims of big tax cuts for almost every taxpayer and why so much of that is unexplained and doesn't seem to make sense.
Jason West thank you. it's a shame most of our elected officials simply don't give a shit about what consolidation means for the people they claim to represent. Ariana Basco and Brian Kimbiz actually said out loud that they don't care about the fiscal impact and only care about whether the elections would be nonpartisan. "Irresponsible" does not begin to cover the breadth of what these people are trying to do to us. And given the number of personal attacks I've been under for making similar points, it's clear that anyone who questions anything they say is "unpatriotic". Frankly, after tonight, I realized the majority of my colleagues are tinpot McCarthys.
Jason West In fact, it has been implied that those who questioned the party line had been coached by me. The same way the nearly 100 town and village staff were apparently coached and riled up by me personally because they asked questions about this. It's pathetic.
Jason West I believe the phrase is, "four legs good, two legs bad." I'm nauseous, angry and sad for our community that public policy and discourse has descended to this awful level.
Mike Russo Jason, is my recollection is correct on this, that at one point during the meeting, you were told that because you had declined to participate on the Fiscal Committee, you shouldn't now be asking questions about its report? But perhaps that was not said but only that I thought that was what was being implied. I have to revisit the videos to see if this is so.
Mike Russo Well, let it be known here that my interest in the Fiscal Committee's Report came strictly on one post that Jason West made on this FB group page about the fact that he was not being given a chance to examine the report before the committee had a chance to present it. That comment piqued my interest enough to look at the Report and some of the attachments, and in doing so, I saw many things that didn't seem correct to me, ergo the first post of this very thread. In fact I have had no exchanges with Jason on this matter other than what has occurred publicly in this group, mostly on this very thread, over the last several days. In fact, I haven't shared any other exchanges with Jason, digitally or verbally, even so much as a hello, in at least six months and maybe more. My comments are my own, and if they resemble Jason's or Jeff Logan's, it's probably because we are all having a similar problem in understanding the basis of the Report's numbers. And there was other folks last night besides Jason and Jeff, who also seemed to have similar questions. And I am asking myself what chance do I, or any other mere resident of the Town or Village, have of getting full answers to these questions, if Jason and Jeff, who are elected officials and thereby insiders, cannot obtain those answers.
January 16 at 6:45am · · · 3
Mike Russo The problem I have with the Fiscal Committee's Report is that it claims that every taxpayer (except maybe those in Village District 6) is going to get a big cut in taxes due to consolidation -- I (and others) question the basis of this claim. We look at the spreadsheet and see savings numbers that don't make sense. Still no supporting documents have been provided, other than one sheet last night that I didn't get to see; in fact it sounds like supporting documents may not exist, judging from one board member's comment tonight that in order to understand how the spreadsheet figures were obtained, we would have to watch all the videos of all the various Consolidation committee meetings.
Mike Russo I heard one significant, really stunning thing near the end of last night's meeting, that the reason the Town 2013 Budget had over $200,000 less in Building and Grounds expense lines was that those reductions were anticipatory of consolidation. As one Town Board member expressed it, the Town Board took a gamble in not filling vacated positions, the gamble being that they expected consolidation to take place. And here I had been reading articles in the press that said that the reductions in the Town Board budget were because the Board had successfully found ways to tighten the budget belt. Not a word in those article about not filling vacated positions because they anticipated voters to approve consolidation in the future.
From the Daily Freeman 11/22/2012: "Instead of raising taxes up to the 2 percent cap we literally reduced it," Supervisor Susan Zimet said. "So I think that’s a pretty successful budget ... and this is without cutting any services at all."http://www.dailyfreeman.com/articles/2012/11/22/news/doc50ad7542a0fac154992157.txt
From the Suny Oracle 12/6/2012: “I was looking at cost reduction in terms of spending less money and providing the same services if possible, which we were able to deliver,” Zimet said. “We cut $567,509 from actual spending [appropriated]…and the taxes that we’re levying [are] close to half a million as well [$454,789].”
http://oracle.newpaltz.edu/town-of-new-paltz-approves-new-budget/
From the Daily Freeman 11/22/2012: "Instead of raising taxes up to the 2 percent cap we literally reduced it," Supervisor Susan Zimet said. "So I think that’s a pretty successful budget ... and this is without cutting any services at all."http://www.dailyfreeman.com/articles/2012/11/22/news/doc50ad7542a0fac154992157.txt
From the Suny Oracle 12/6/2012: “I was looking at cost reduction in terms of spending less money and providing the same services if possible, which we were able to deliver,” Zimet said. “We cut $567,509 from actual spending [appropriated]…and the taxes that we’re levying [are] close to half a million as well [$454,789].”
http://oracle.newpaltz.edu/town-of-new-paltz-approves-new-budget/
Steve Greenfield Mike Russo, perhaps you'd consider gathering these questions into a guest column for the NP Times.
Steve Greenfield I'm going to reintroduce my structural argument against consolidation, money notwithstanding. Recent very positive events in New York State history have reminded me how this can't be shrugged off over money.
We have a problem in NP in that since we don't have a ward system, only Democrats can get elected. We have seen in clear, terrible detail in 2011 that our elected officials are generally appointed at Democratic Committee meetings at which six or seven people, armed with weighted and proxy votes, limiting attendance by not noticing their meetings in compliance with their own bylaws, name their friends to office. In other cases, even the formality of elections is abandoned, because the Democratic Committee fills vacancies of elected officials who leave office through direct appointment from within the committee. We have seen how this repeatedly results in conflicts of interest and corruption, and how powerless the citizenry is to have action taken. With its non-partisan elections, The Village is the only place where Republicans, Greens, Working Families, and independents can -- and do -- get elected. This has had far-reaching beneficial effects locally, statewide, and I daresay even nationally.
To this last point: there would not be same-sex marriage in New York State today if Tom Nyquist had remained Mayor in 2003. If the two entities had been combined, and Don Wilen was running all of New Paltz, we would not have same-sex marriage. If we consolidate, our government would operate strictly according to the needs and interests of the leadership of the New Paltz Democratic Committee, and that is not acceptable. My taxes would have to go down by quite a lot for me to even consider just turning over my entire community to that corrupt and self-serving group. And based on even the most optimistic, completely uncertified assertions of the report, that's simply not going to happen.
We have a problem in NP in that since we don't have a ward system, only Democrats can get elected. We have seen in clear, terrible detail in 2011 that our elected officials are generally appointed at Democratic Committee meetings at which six or seven people, armed with weighted and proxy votes, limiting attendance by not noticing their meetings in compliance with their own bylaws, name their friends to office. In other cases, even the formality of elections is abandoned, because the Democratic Committee fills vacancies of elected officials who leave office through direct appointment from within the committee. We have seen how this repeatedly results in conflicts of interest and corruption, and how powerless the citizenry is to have action taken. With its non-partisan elections, The Village is the only place where Republicans, Greens, Working Families, and independents can -- and do -- get elected. This has had far-reaching beneficial effects locally, statewide, and I daresay even nationally.
To this last point: there would not be same-sex marriage in New York State today if Tom Nyquist had remained Mayor in 2003. If the two entities had been combined, and Don Wilen was running all of New Paltz, we would not have same-sex marriage. If we consolidate, our government would operate strictly according to the needs and interests of the leadership of the New Paltz Democratic Committee, and that is not acceptable. My taxes would have to go down by quite a lot for me to even consider just turning over my entire community to that corrupt and self-serving group. And based on even the most optimistic, completely uncertified assertions of the report, that's simply not going to happen.
January 16 at 9:50am · · · 1
Jeff Logan Mike - thank you for attending. One note is that as a village taxpayer you would have reduction in taxes since town would share in expense of districs now only payed by village. On the other side town residents would see a increase since will be paying for services not on past taxes. This could also be wrong but iam going with the available information.
January 16 at 10:20am via mobile ·
Mike Russo As Jason indicates above, some of the Village Board members indicated that they can only support consolidation if it includes the non-partisan structure of Village elections. Other Board members indicated their preference for that system. But I wonder (1) What will ensure that a non-partisan election format will be included as part of the exact formulation of the referendum? and (2) even if it is and consolidation occurs, is it possibly that, even though nominally defined as non-partisan, it will slip into some form of political machine that we see presently in the Town?
Steve Greenfield Mike, you're correct in observing that there are more dynamics involved in the possibility of people from any party, or from no party, getting elected in the Village that would disappear at the Town level. Texas is non-partisan, and so is Illinois, yet it's pretty easy to see that their elections are ruled by the major parties. It's nonpartisanship mixed with very specific demographics -- demographics with which the NP Democrats have tried to meddle before when they've gone after the student vote and tried to make Village elections when school is out.
Given the history, and given the vehemence of certain prominent advocates for consolidation, and given the patently false information being given out about the million bucks and other elements of the proposal by those prominent advocates, it is clear that putting the Village, and all its commercial property, under the control of the NP Democratic Party is one the major, likely THE major concept driving the effort. The major advocacy is coming from Town government, which is odd given that the plan will raise taxes on Town residents. Just one more incident of elected Town officials putting the interests of the New Paltz Democratic Party ahead of their constituents. Kind of a running theme.
Given the history, and given the vehemence of certain prominent advocates for consolidation, and given the patently false information being given out about the million bucks and other elements of the proposal by those prominent advocates, it is clear that putting the Village, and all its commercial property, under the control of the NP Democratic Party is one the major, likely THE major concept driving the effort. The major advocacy is coming from Town government, which is odd given that the plan will raise taxes on Town residents. Just one more incident of elected Town officials putting the interests of the New Paltz Democratic Party ahead of their constituents. Kind of a running theme.
Steve Greenfield For example: I just found out that what is now the library parking lot was sold to the library at an enormous profit by former NP Democratic Party chair Ann Rodman. What a coincidence that the Town then agreed to raise its funding to the library to cover those costs, and to bill that funding to the taxpayers. Did anyone get killed? No. But do we need this kind of small-town Tammany Hall crap going on? No. Let's not forget that the current Town Supervisor waited only a couple of months before she and her deputy moved to sell the deputy's worthless swamp to the school district, and that the three new board members, including the Supervisor herself and the deputy she'd been assisting in his profiteering attempt, then voted to give the Supervisor the biggest raise in Town history, which comes out of the taxpayers' pockets.
Jason West Mike Russo wrote above, "Jason, is my recollection is correct on this, that at one point during the meeting, you were told that because you had declined to participate on the Fiscal Committee, you shouldn't now be asking questions about its report?" Yes. That is 100% accurate. I believe my response was, "So it's MY fault the finance committee's numbers are wrong?"
Jason West I spoke to Chris Marx (Highway Superintendant) and to Bleu Terwilliger (DPW Superintendant) about the supposed $520,077 in 'savings' from merger of their Departments. Bleu told me they had one - UNFILMED - private meeting with Sally and Susan (so there is no record). Bleu tells me they identified zero savings under consolidation (he is writing me a memo summarizing his conversation). Chris told me at least half of that, "maybe more" is from cuts the Town has already made. This report is full of outright lies. and I told the Times-Herald Record so.
Jason West Further, for those who didn't see, when several folks wanted an answer last night as to where the half-million "savings" came from, they were refused. At a meeting called SOLELY to answer such questions. The Town Supervisor outright ordered Marx to not answer the question. Repeatedly. The thing is, Marx doesn't report to Zimet any more than he reports to me: they are independently elected. Meaning our Town Highway Superintendant is willing to publicly take orders from the Town Supervisor to keep secret any data that could put consolidation in a bad light. Remember this on election day.
Jason West Personally, I will absolutely be openly campaigning against both Zimet and Marx in any office they ever run for again because of the lies (both overt and by omission) that were said last night. If anyone in New Paltz wants honest government, you will too. You all deserve honest answers to honest questions. It's a standard neither the Highway Superintendant nor the Town Supervisor are interested in.
Jason West If consolidation does go through (and if it does, let's all pray these people guessed right by accident and it's a good idea), and if I'm running it, Chris Marx will not have a job if it's within my power. Last night's behavior proves him unfit for both public service and municipal employment.
Steve Greenfield Jason: I wasn't there, but based on what you describe, I'm a bit concerned about the Chris Marx angle. Susan and Chris are elected separately from each other, but oh, so far from independently of each other. Every elected Town position is decided by the Democratic Party Committee. Chris knows that. In addition, Susan controls Chris's department budget, and even his pay and benefits, which, if I recall correctly, she recently raised, along with her own. She and her heavily weighted, and heavily proxied friends control the entire process. She feels immune from consequences, and the pale excuse for public oversight the Democrats have codified in the Town validates that feeling.
Rather than taking out this situation on a blue-collar guy who supervises my snow-plowing and pothole filling and doesn't have any knowledge of, or interest in politics (and why should he?) other than understanding its role in whether he can keep his job, why not meet with me to discuss how to get Susan's repeated lawbreaking addressed under the law? I'm talking felonies, and I can back it up. That way, she will cease to be a voice for consolidation, we don't even need to oppose her next November, and Chris can draw his first full breath since he took office. Feel free to message me off this thread for details.
Rather than taking out this situation on a blue-collar guy who supervises my snow-plowing and pothole filling and doesn't have any knowledge of, or interest in politics (and why should he?) other than understanding its role in whether he can keep his job, why not meet with me to discuss how to get Susan's repeated lawbreaking addressed under the law? I'm talking felonies, and I can back it up. That way, she will cease to be a voice for consolidation, we don't even need to oppose her next November, and Chris can draw his first full breath since he took office. Feel free to message me off this thread for details.
Mike Russo I sat right next to Chris last night and I had very much the same thoughts as Steve has expressed, that even though he is an elected official, he might feel that he could lose his job if he doesn't hold the party line. As well, Susan had mentioned that Chris has been working extraordinary hours during these last storms (perhaps it's because he had agreed not to fill the vacated posts) and I'd like to credit him respect for getting the job done for all of us under duress.
Jason West Chris Marx does a very good job managing the department. I've heard much good about him
in that regard. However, from those who choose on their own to become politicians of any kind,I require the barest minimum of political courage. For instance, the courage to call a spade a spade when asked point blank by their constituents. I'm sure there's someone who can handle BOTH facets of the job.
in that regard. However, from those who choose on their own to become politicians of any kind,I require the barest minimum of political courage. For instance, the courage to call a spade a spade when asked point blank by their constituents. I'm sure there's someone who can handle BOTH facets of the job.
January 16 at 9:57pm via mobile · · 1
Mike Russo I plan on watching at least two videos of the Fiscal Committee meetings sometime over the weekend. When/if any of the line items that were cited as problematic by anyone at last night's meeting are discussed in the videos, I will jot down the times. I did watch about 30 minutes of one meeting and although none of the cited line items were discussed, it was instructive to watch because I did see people working hard around the table to unravel some budget line confusions and arguing logically with each other about the amounts of savings. At this particular meeting, however, they were already reviewing figures in what was a preliminary version of the final spreadsheets, so the basic amounts of savings had already been established. It is absurd to have to watch hours of videos hoping to get a clue of how estimations were reached but it might more productive to seek answers there than to sit through another live meeting like last night's.
Mike Russo Jason, when you talked with Chris Marx, did he vouch for what Susan had said at the meeting about the Town 2013 budget B&G line being lower due to not filling vacated positions in anticipation of consolidation?
Jason West he didn't say the reason the positions were eliminated, but having been a part of several meetings with Susan regarding the future of Sewer 6, I can tell you that up until the meeting the other night, the re-arrangement of the water deptbuildings and grounds and highway was due to the retirement of long time Water/B&G head Bob Leghorn. That how it was presented to me -- as an internal matter about whether to fill his now vacant position. That's why I was told they were hiring Environmental Consultants (who run the Village water and sewer systems). They were using an outside contractor instead of a staff position. The further cuts were simply personnel cuts made last year, and Chris didn't mention anything about it being in anticipation of consolidation.
Jeff Logan I have known Chris for many years (grade school, boy scouts, sports ...) and truly believe he is a honest, hard working, dedicated and deserving public servant. I asked about the $500,000 savings Dave Lent could explain about $45,000 of it. Dave, sally and susan all stated it was Blu and chris, along with supporting email from sally, that said they helped find the savings. I asked Chris who was sitting in back of room if he could answer - even before he could speak he was told to not answer by many in raised voices. I think Chris felt intimidated, that does not make him unfit for office.... it possibly makes others unfit .... The question(s) is(are) still not answered, or any of the questions I asked. If consolidation saves $$$$$ I am all for it - if it saves nothing (then we dont get any money from state) then lets keep looking at annexation and shared services.
Jeff Logan on youtube video goto hour 2 minute 35 ..... Dave says he doesnt know where savings came from "...blu and chris came up with those savings.." I am confused
Mike Russo The DPW/Highway line item savings is the biggest number in the report and the way it is presented is undeniably opaque. Many people have asked questions about this $520,077. I don't see how a meeting between Sally Rhodes and myself will adequately serve the public in explaining this figure. Since the Fiscal Committee spent so many hours in going through all these budget lines, I presume they thoroughly examined this $520,077 number, and someone from that committee should be able to prepare a breakout of the full calculation in writing and post it on the website, and then lead the public through it at the next Town/Village meeting. Sally mentioned that two auditors served on the Fiscal Committee, so I assume that either one of those persons has the facility to make the DPW/Highway savings calculation arithmetically explicit. I will send an email to Sally Rhoads requesting this.
Jeff Logan ira margolis and ross pollack were on committie they may be able to attend
January 17 at 8:27pm via mobile ·
Steve Greenfield When I was in government not that long ago, and we had an issue before the voters that was going to have financial impacts on both the entity and taxpayers financing it, we worked long hours for many months to be able to tell people a pretty accurate estimate of what they'd be paying based on the assessment of their property. We took apart every component of the project and gave its specific cost and its specific reimubursement rate (since different rooms in schools actually have different reimbursement rates depending on their use) to show that we'd created a floor plan that maximized the total aidability. We ran many public forums, recorded questions, answered them all in public forums, and distributed manually and online tens of thousands of copies of all of these details. All of the numbers were created by professional accountants, engineers, and project managers with long, and in one case national award-winning experience in NY school construction. Sure, the people who were just making shit up carried the day by a wide margin, but the point is, at the very least, when election day rolled around, everyone knew nearly exactly what was going to happen to their wallets, and however they voted, they voted. Most decided they didn't consider the proposal to provide a good return on their dollar. So be it. My point here is only that what's going on with the consolidation, which is a very big deal, is the exact opposite. After all this time we still know next to nothing, and far worse, people who can answer questions are being told to shut up.
In other words, this is bullshit. Is someone going to start telling these people that if some sharp pencils don't come out, fast, that we're going to call shenanigans on this?
In other words, this is bullshit. Is someone going to start telling these people that if some sharp pencils don't come out, fast, that we're going to call shenanigans on this?
Mike Russo To follow on Jeff Logan's reference to the video, right after Dave Lent's comments at 2:35-2:38, and Jeff's questions in response, Sally states that the figures were compiled by Susan, Sally, Bleu and Chris. Then Susan makes the point that every discussion was videoed, implying that we can find all the answers if we watch the videos. So maybe someone who attended the meetings could help us out a little in pointing out the date and committee meeting when the DPW/Highway lines were discussed. I'd hate to have to watch all the videos, only to find out that Bleu was correct in recalling that the one meeting he participated in was not videoed. To expect the public to have to pour through hours of videos is much like saying if you desperately need a needle, there's one in that haystack.
Jason West there is no video of the meeting with chris and bleu. according to bleu
January 17 at 9:01pm via mobile ·
Mike Russo After saying her piece about the videos, Susan at 2:40 then explains the Fiscal Committee methodology in analyzing 2011 figures, just as described on page 1 of the Report. Yet Sally's subsequent explanation of the DPW/Highway savings makes reference to 2012 costs and 2013 budget lines as components of the $520,077 calculation. So it sounds like there is inconsistency in the committee's methodology. In the 30 minutes I watched of the 12/3/2012 FC meeting at around 21:00, there's discussion around questions of methodology, and even a vague passing mention of the Building and Grounds costs.
http://youtu.be/6Do7Xggy8LM?t=21m
http://youtu.be/6Do7Xggy8LM?t=21m
January 17 at 9:15pm · · ·
Mark Portier Mike Russo, if you receive answers to your questions in linkable/postable form, could you append them to this thread? Thank you very much.
Friday at 12:18am · · 1
Mike Russo Sally Rhoads replied to my request as noted a few posts above saying "I think your idea is a good one and I will suggest it to the committee." The request was for someone from the Fiscal Committee to write up an explicit arithmetic breakdown of how the DPW/Highway line savings was calculated, to post it on the Village website, and then to review that breakdown at the next Town/Village meeting.
Friday at 12:35am · · · 1
Mike Russo There may be no video of the meeting with Chris and Bleu, but in my viewing of only the first 30 mins of the 12/3 Fiscal Committee meeting video, the committee spent gobs of time hashing over much smaller lines of savings such as Safety Inspections. So, although I may be wrong on this, I would expect that the committee spent significant time hashing out the DPW lines at some point in those videoed meetings. Or to repeat my analogy, I would expect that there is a needle somewhere in that haystack. By the way, at 9:21 into the 12/3 meeting, Nancy Branco mentions that she has "notes on everything" from previous discussions. So she might be able to identify dates when the DPW savings was discussed (and when other lines in question were discussed as well, such as the Police line savings of $300,000, which I still don't understand).
Jason West I spoke to Nancy about this report. She told me her role was to help check the numbers on the actual expenditures, etc. The technical aspects. And not the policy decisions about where cuts could happen, or what they would be. So she was involved in the first columns, but not the last. I'm going to clarify and get that in writing when I see her.
Jeff Logan here is sallys explanation of police: I dont understand.POLICE APPROPRIATIONS AND EXPENDITURES ALL CODES 522-3120-100 TO AAA 522-3120-400
ADOPTED ACTUAL
BUDGET EXPENDITURES
2010 2,431,395
2011 2,709,919
2012 2,261,415 2,134,988 *with encumbered added
2013 2,130,050
* as of 12/31/12 $19,626 is encumbered to pay outstanding bills. Unexpended balance is projected to be $126,427
ADOPTED ACTUAL
BUDGET EXPENDITURES
2010 2,431,395
2011 2,709,919
2012 2,261,415 2,134,988 *with encumbered added
2013 2,130,050
* as of 12/31/12 $19,626 is encumbered to pay outstanding bills. Unexpended balance is projected to be $126,427
Jeff Logan Good Morning All!
Jeff you asked last Wed. night about the $300,000 in savings in the Police line for 2011.
Attached are the Police figures for 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013 which I think will clarify for you why we believe the 2011 expenses have an aberration (one time) of excess expense. If you look at actuals for 2010, 2011 and 2012 it becomes clearer.
I believe the source was when the Town Board discovered overtime expenses vs. part-timers and moved to correct which is now reflected in your 2012 actuals and the town 2013 approved budget, but it also could have been when the Town paid all the expenses involved in setting up the new police station or a combination. As you know, past budget lines did not always reflect what was actually budgeted and for what.
Speaking of the police station one of the questions raised was regarding the 12 year contract to rent the station. The lease began, I think, as a 3 year lease, but sometime in 2010 or 2011 got amended to 12 years. Since Kevin, Jean and Susan were not involved do you or Kitty remember, or do you have the Board minutes that authorized the extension of that lease?
Did the terms and conditions of the original lease change? I know the original lease required quite a large expenditure from the Town including, I think, requiring the taxpayers pay the property taxes for the building.(Is this correct? and is this now for 12 years?) We made no financial adjustments( up or down) in this area as we do not have a clear handle on this. We just rolled the $. Do you know?
As soon as I have a moment, I will address your other question-how did we arrive at the $520,000 savings in DPW.
Hope this clarifies your question. If not please let me know.
Sally
Jeff you asked last Wed. night about the $300,000 in savings in the Police line for 2011.
Attached are the Police figures for 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013 which I think will clarify for you why we believe the 2011 expenses have an aberration (one time) of excess expense. If you look at actuals for 2010, 2011 and 2012 it becomes clearer.
I believe the source was when the Town Board discovered overtime expenses vs. part-timers and moved to correct which is now reflected in your 2012 actuals and the town 2013 approved budget, but it also could have been when the Town paid all the expenses involved in setting up the new police station or a combination. As you know, past budget lines did not always reflect what was actually budgeted and for what.
Speaking of the police station one of the questions raised was regarding the 12 year contract to rent the station. The lease began, I think, as a 3 year lease, but sometime in 2010 or 2011 got amended to 12 years. Since Kevin, Jean and Susan were not involved do you or Kitty remember, or do you have the Board minutes that authorized the extension of that lease?
Did the terms and conditions of the original lease change? I know the original lease required quite a large expenditure from the Town including, I think, requiring the taxpayers pay the property taxes for the building.(Is this correct? and is this now for 12 years?) We made no financial adjustments( up or down) in this area as we do not have a clear handle on this. We just rolled the $. Do you know?
As soon as I have a moment, I will address your other question-how did we arrive at the $520,000 savings in DPW.
Hope this clarifies your question. If not please let me know.
Sally
Jeff Logan the $300,000 i believe was a one time expense to payback for no contract for several years so at signing of contract we owed back money to PD. If Iam wrong - sorry - but either way it is not a savings since it was a 1 time expense.
Friday at 11:42am · · 1
Jason West Sally above clearly points out that the $300,000 claimed as a cost savings due to consolidation does not, in fact, have anything to do with consolidation. By ignoring (or not understanding) that latter part, she also implies that it is, in fact, a savings due to consolidation and clearly feels that her answer should persuade you that we will save $300,000 a year in police were we to consolidate. If this is not true, she needs to put in writing that this particular $300,000 out of the $1,600,000 in "savings" needs to be removed from the column in the Finance Committee report which claims this is due to consolidation. And then we can go through the many other parts of this report which also misrepresent the true cost of consolidation.
Jeff Logan the questions on the lease have been discussed for 12 months. There were discussions in executive session, since it was contract negotiation and if discussed in public could cause 1 or both parties harm. The building was decided as the best option from the search committee, Dave Lent, Josh Honing and others. The extension of the lease gave the town better terms and locked in reasonable rates we were told. I did not know that the supervisor was working for the building owner at the time. No public vote was made on the lease, I have watched 3 complete meetings from the times the new lease was signed by Toni and at no time was a public vote made allowing the lease extension. The taxes being paid for the building are for the % of square footage we hold, our attorney approved this provision in the lease, I know Susan has been working on the many issues with the lease and the taxes being paid.
Steve Greenfield Jeff, it is clear that this is not the only "savings" in the consolidation report that has nothing to do with consolidation, and that the percentage of the total that is not consolidation-related may be quite high. It would be a mitzvah if you could assist the public in uncovering all of the line items in the report that are ordinary administrative matters. We cannot determine that on our own.
Jason West DPW Superintendant Bleu Terwilliger has no idea why the FC caimed 520,0777 in savings. The 300,000 from police above is obvious. And the Village Treasurer tells me 165,000 is due to personnel cuts already done in the Town. That's $ 985,077 gone out of a claimed $ 1,600,000. More than half.
Jason West Now, when you add in the extra police tax residents of downtown will have to pay, PLUS the $ 600,000 increase in costs to maintain the water/sewer system, it turns out those who live in the Village will likely see zero savings at all. In exchange, they give up self-rule.
Jason West Since the Village already pays higher tax than the Town, it's possible the poorer Village residents will not gain a thing, while subsidizing the wealthier Town residents' tax cuts.
Jason West I think. But who knows? No one is willing to provide any accurate data for us to even have this conversation, so I'm just guessing based on the tiny scraps of information I've been able to find out.
Jason West The special police tax is particularly irksome. The Chief tells me that the calls are split pretty even between Town and Village now, drifting above or below 50/50 year to year. Since the population is also about 50/50, our policing costs are spread fairly evenly. Of course a concentration of late night bars means more police, and the Chief also tells me much of those resources are dealing with out-of-towners here to spend their money. At other times of day they're called 'tourists'.
Jason West There is a good argument to be made for a tax on the businesses whose profits generate increased police needs (like the money made on serving drinks to crowds late at night), but that's not been mentioned at these meetings by anyone but me. Instead, FC Chair and Town Supervisor emeritus Dave Lent explained the special police tax by saying the people who live downtown cause most of the problems. It was presented as a special tax on the RESIDENTS of the Village, not on the businesses.
January 18 at 12:32pm · · · 1
Jason West As an aside, I had an argument with Sally (who I love to death) the Friday before the FC presented their report. It is the longstanding tradition in the Village that all Board members (and the public) have copies of all informatino to be discussed the Friday prior to the meeting. That way, we have four or five days to find to to read it all, digest it and ask clarifying questions. When I got upset that this as not provided, I was told it would not be. And told that the reason they weren't providing it was that the FC didn't want any criticism before presenting it of the kind I levied against the HR Report (which sent nearly 100 public employees into a panic with its' calls for eliminating 13 nameless position "by attrition where possible". At the meetings, you'll see HR Chairs Kevin Barry and Brian Kimbiz repeatedly lie about calling for jobs to be cut. They point to the first two words of that phrase as if its all they said. Maybe my reading comprehension level is less than a 3rd-grader, but as far as I remember, the phrase 'where possible' means the jobs ARE to be cut, but they would PREFER it by attrition. If attrition is not possible, their own report clearly states they should happen anyway. Including the very first recommendation they make. The rampant dishonesty of this process has been nauseating.
Steve Greenfield It has been my understanding (without data, of course, just hearsay from Town sources) since this whole thing got underway that there would be a tax increase for Townies because we'd be included in the budgets of certain municipal services that we do not currently use or pay for. But Jason West just said Villagers would be subsidizing me -- which, believe it or not, I find even more unpalatable than the other way around. As I told Kevin Barry a few weeks ago when he was trying to "fiscal cliff" his way into lowering his own taxes, I pay my own freight, which includes services provided in a jurisdiction in which I and my family work, play, consume, get educated, and volunteer, even if I don't have a house or vote there. So what's the real story? Are Town taxes going up, or down?
Jason West No one knows until we have numbers that can be verified by an outside expert. Or, you know, anyone with a calculator and a working knowledge of addition and subtraction.
Jason West Here are the relevant parts of the email Sally Rhoads handed out at the FC explanatory meeting this past week. She was clear she felt this both explained their methodology and justified their claim of just over half a million dollars in savings from consolidating the town and village public works departments. I don't have an electronic copy yet or I would've cut and pasted the whole thing:
"without going into great detail, Bleu and Chris recommended and we all agreed the best way to approach this was to use the total 2011 actuals and come up with a total DPW/Building figure. Then compare these figures to the Village's 2012-13 DPW/Building budget total and the proposed total 2013 Town budget."
and later;
"Village 2011 Actual $ 624,330
Town 2011 Actual $ 2,075,606
Total T/V 2011 $ 2,699,936
Merged " $ 2,179,859
Savings $ 520,077 (Yeah and Congrats Chris and Susan!)
The 2012-2013 Village budget is $ 497,107. The proposed Town 2013 budget is $ 1,682,752. The difference from total 2011 is the savings above. "
"without going into great detail, Bleu and Chris recommended and we all agreed the best way to approach this was to use the total 2011 actuals and come up with a total DPW/Building figure. Then compare these figures to the Village's 2012-13 DPW/Building budget total and the proposed total 2013 Town budget."
and later;
"Village 2011 Actual $ 624,330
Town 2011 Actual $ 2,075,606
Total T/V 2011 $ 2,699,936
Merged " $ 2,179,859
Savings $ 520,077 (Yeah and Congrats Chris and Susan!)
The 2012-2013 Village budget is $ 497,107. The proposed Town 2013 budget is $ 1,682,752. The difference from total 2011 is the savings above. "
January 18 at 8:28pm via mobile ·
Jason West I think it's possible that there wasn't any dishonesty, as hard as it is for me to believe that such smart people made such colossal, obvious mistakes. The more data I unearth, it seems plausible these people brilliant in other arenas simply had no fucking idea what they were doing, and worse - no idea they had no idea what they were doing.
January 18 at 8:37pm via mobile ·
Steve Greenfield Having no idea that you have no idea what you're doing is what makes truly great having no idea what you're doing possible.}
I do not see what's supposed to be shown, which is how a merged budget is supposed to be less than adding up two separate budgets. What am I missing?
I do not see what's supposed to be shown, which is how a merged budget is supposed to be less than adding up two separate budgets. What am I missing?
Katherine Preston I've read that no less than 10 times and am just befuddled-- how did they get the "merged" number?
Steve Greenfield Based on what's there, the "merged" number is simply the two next year's budgets added together. That's why I'm trying to figure out what I'm missing. It specifically says that the savings comes from merger, but it also specifically says that the two numbers being added together are just the current year's Village DPW budget and next year's Town building budget. While both budgets show reductions in their own right, those are reductions from the separate entities, and there's not discussion, nor any numbers, reflecting how merging would make a lower number than the two separate numbers added together. If they're saying the merger makes the number lower than the two separate numbers added together, which as far as I can tell is the sole definition of "savings due to merger," they have not shown one single proposed dollar of that, certainly not in this methodology. I'm going to be pretty upset if it turned out the FC spent all that time doing nothing more than adding up the combined budgets of two separate governments that have recently done some budget trimming, and then declaring that to be the savings made possible by merger. There's supposed to be some line item stuff showing duplication that can be eliminated, or inefficiencies that are improved by the expanded scale, or things like that.
Mike Russo The methodology used for the DPW line savings and Police line savings (and maybe some other lines) seems to be very different than what was used for many of the lines, the latter approach being what is described in paragraph three and four of the Fiscal Committee report and described by Susan at 2:40 at the 1-15-2013 meeting. So this is a third basic accounting principle, Consistency, that appears to be breached, along with the principles of Full Disclosure and Conservatism.
Mike Russo We don't have to speculate on anyone's outright intention. The whole notion that any weighty and significant report that is produced by folks who mostly favor a specific point of view should accepted without vetting is ludicrous -- it doesn't serve the public at all. Bias can creep into even the most well meaning participants in such a group. That's why a report like this one, especially with its claims of savings at odds with the Fairweather report, should be subject to scrutiny by those who may disagree and by outside analysts, neutral and non-aligned, and not as Susan suggested, an acquaintance of hers in Albany, not matter what his level of expertise. Being that many board members seem unwilling to spend any real money for outside experts (this for a matter that would dramatically affect the entire community), it is left upon those of us who are willing to ask questions about this report to fill out all of the vetting role as best as we can. The committee members should recognize that only with proper due diligence that our questioning is at least partially supplying, is it ethical to present to the public the claims made by this report.
January 19 at 12:01am · · ·
Jeff Logan I have seen and had explained to me municipal budgets since I was a young man. H.W, DuBoise, Col. Remsnyder,.....and many other mayors and budget officers and of course my best teacher John Logan. I prepared staffing and equipment budgets for Verizon Wireless for many years. The budget principles used to test a proposed change or budget under a single entity were ignored. The simple spreadsheet system of figures lie and liars figure was used. From the onset the goal was to consolidate and then hope money is saved. If this is so great why are there still 950 (+/-) towns? Why so many consolidation votes failed? Why have Villages been added in last 7 years to NY State if such a bad form of government. If consolidation will save us money I am all for the process and presenting to the public to vote on, but only with the correct and fully vetted information. I never met as the facilities committee, from the onset the goals were set to show consolidation is the only answer - I dont agree that is the only answer, it may be the best but when that is all some are looking for that is what will be found - we have a facilities committee that just meet to find us new space for PD, they studied all our space needs. We have a full report we paid for from Alfandra assoc. that was completed a few years ago to study all municipal space. No reference has been made. The current Town board has done a fantastic job of re- organization of depts to maximize efficiency, I never once heard us discuss consolidation during these reorg planning and implementation sessions. In fact Kevin Barry and I made the motions to reduce our work force by 2 employees to control costs within our buildings/grounds/highway budgets wqithout once discussing consolidation. The village has shown for years that fiscal over site of there depts maintains a very controlled budget. efficiency is the goal - how did this get lost? Lets look to all areas of where we can be more efficient in providing services to our community. If consolidation is a answer then show us the money! and I am all for it then. (and not the money from the state, show that we can pull up our own bootstraps and reduce the fiscal burden on our taxpayers without relying on the state).
Mike Russo Jason, I can understand how Nancy was there in a technical and facilitative role, and not to opine on what consolidation savings would occur. But she was part of the committee, presumably present at every meeting. In the 12-3 meeting video, she refers to her "old notes" in trying to look up how they arrive at certain figures previously (8:10), and she comments that she has "notes on everything" (9:20). So, it sounds like she could help us out by looking at those notes and telling us (1) when the various problematic line items were discussed, and (2) making explicit what her notes say about what was discussed with those line items. Go to that video and listen to minutes 6 through 10, where the committee discusses safety inspections and see how Nancy's role plays out as she tries to clarify what the group had previously decided about consolidation savings.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Do7Xggy8LM&feature=youtu.be&t=6m00s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Do7Xggy8LM&feature=youtu.be&t=6m00s
Mike Russo A minor item but points up a semantical issue: as per 12-3 video 38:50, A8160.4 refuse and garbage shows up as a $2000 expense reduction but it is directly offset by a loss in revenue shown on A2130 Landfill Revenues. So that $2000 as part of the $1,625,258 is a reduced expense but cannot be referred to as savings.
Steve Greenfield Jeff, that was great. Now if only that could be applied to the concept of a fire district... ok, let's not go there right now, but we're going to have to, eventually, and sooner, rather than later.
But in answer to your questions, a lot of this has to do with Andrew Cuomo and his political ambitions, and those of the lower-tiered consolidationists trying to get sucked along his pipeline. It's going to be about doing it, not whether it was the right thing to do. That's why they have an awesome logo, but a terrible financial report. When it's done, everyone behind it, from Susan Zimet right up to Cuomo's presidential primary, will be able to say "We reduced the number of separate governments in New York from X to Y," and that will sound good, because Y will be a lower number, and nobody will care to ask how that worked out for either tax rates, cost of services, or services delivered. The FC report is just Display One in this process. It touts efficiencies from consolidation that are very clearly nothing more than ordinary budget cuts. It even goes that one step overboard in thanking Fearless Leader for making it happen. Should consolidation happen, and the new combined budgets be lower than the previous separate ones, who's going to listen to Jeff Logan, Jason West, or Steve Greenfield when we point out that the reductions were ordinary, and had nothing to do with consolidation? It will be there plain as day: we reduced the number of governments, and the budgets went down. We are great at improving government efficiency. Vote for us.
But in answer to your questions, a lot of this has to do with Andrew Cuomo and his political ambitions, and those of the lower-tiered consolidationists trying to get sucked along his pipeline. It's going to be about doing it, not whether it was the right thing to do. That's why they have an awesome logo, but a terrible financial report. When it's done, everyone behind it, from Susan Zimet right up to Cuomo's presidential primary, will be able to say "We reduced the number of separate governments in New York from X to Y," and that will sound good, because Y will be a lower number, and nobody will care to ask how that worked out for either tax rates, cost of services, or services delivered. The FC report is just Display One in this process. It touts efficiencies from consolidation that are very clearly nothing more than ordinary budget cuts. It even goes that one step overboard in thanking Fearless Leader for making it happen. Should consolidation happen, and the new combined budgets be lower than the previous separate ones, who's going to listen to Jeff Logan, Jason West, or Steve Greenfield when we point out that the reductions were ordinary, and had nothing to do with consolidation? It will be there plain as day: we reduced the number of governments, and the budgets went down. We are great at improving government efficiency. Vote for us.
Steve Greenfield Mike, you really should prepare something for the paper, and do a public access video.
Mike Russo Watch this: An extended discussion of DPW lines at 12/3 meeting starts at around 41:00 (though it takes a minute to get underway). Nancy points out the EXACT arithmetic error that I pointed out at the 1/15 meeting and at some point even comments that taxpayers will wonder why the numbers don't add up right.
Susan's comments from 47:00 to 48:20 relate to the methodology inconsistency and she references the town's DPW cuts in 2013 without making any qualification to it being anticipatory of merger. She seems concerned about how to present the DPW savings claim but Sally insists that it should remain as is.
Susan and Sally then discuss their meeting with Bleu and Chris. Susan mentions that Chris came back to her later, asking about how they came up with the high $520k number (48:20). But Susan then says she reviewed the figures with Chris and "they were able to build back up to that number."
The committee appears to be working with a separate sheet that breaks out the various DPW lines and calculations.
At 53:00 the discussion shifts to the A9060.8 Hospital/Med/Dental Ins line, where the committee is simply putting in a 10% reduction in cost.
At the time of the 12/3 meeting, the Expenditures sheet reflected a savings of $1.36 million, not $1.62 million.
Susan's comments from 47:00 to 48:20 relate to the methodology inconsistency and she references the town's DPW cuts in 2013 without making any qualification to it being anticipatory of merger. She seems concerned about how to present the DPW savings claim but Sally insists that it should remain as is.
Susan and Sally then discuss their meeting with Bleu and Chris. Susan mentions that Chris came back to her later, asking about how they came up with the high $520k number (48:20). But Susan then says she reviewed the figures with Chris and "they were able to build back up to that number."
The committee appears to be working with a separate sheet that breaks out the various DPW lines and calculations.
At 53:00 the discussion shifts to the A9060.8 Hospital/Med/Dental Ins line, where the committee is simply putting in a 10% reduction in cost.
At the time of the 12/3 meeting, the Expenditures sheet reflected a savings of $1.36 million, not $1.62 million.
January 20 at 9:30am · · · ·
J. Robin Ward Another aspect that disturbs me is that word of potential consolidation of NP is being broadcast on NPR -- but without any balancing information about the questionable accounting practices that are going into the discussion. NPR is not mentioning (as far as I've heard) that a lot of people are finding errors and inconsistencies in the numbers. So there's a PR railroading job going on.
KT Kathleen Tobin just because it's in a press release does not mean it's true. shame on NPR for not investigating the facts
Steve Greenfield I've heard they're communists and take donations from terrorists.
J. Robin Ward Whether it's corruption or incompetence, it scares the hell out of me.
Jason West I wish we had a local-news version of the Daily Show. I've been reading and re-reading all this and now believe only Jon Stewart could possibly explain it. I wonder if he works on contract.
KT Kathleen Tobin Chris is an independently elected official in charge of his dept's budget. He should be answering these questions, I just sent him this email: Chris -
I have some questions about the T/V New Paltz consolidation study HR and Finance reports. It is my understanding that as elected Town of New Paltz Highway Superintendent you participated in and contributed to these committees and made recommendations that were included in their final reports.
1) In the HR report, from page 4, section I, item D:
a. What was the basis for this statement? "Based on input from department heads, council persons and others the committee has been advised that as many as 13 full time positions can be eliminated with many of these positions coming from buildings and grounds."
b. How many positions did you recommend be eliminated from the town highway department?
c. Please provide both the workload and safety analysis that provided the basis for making this recommendation to reduce your staff
d. Please provide your assessment of the potential impacts on service delivery, e.g. how much longer it will take to plow all the roads in a typical snow storm
e. Please provide your assessment of the impact of these recommendations on worker morale and fair collective bargaining practices.
f. Please provide the timeline that you constructed in order to implement the proposed reduction in staffing
2) In the HR report, from page 9, section III, item 2 reads, "Employee head count reductions should coincide with retirement to the extent possible" (italics added).
a. Did you recommend this strategy?
b. Which positions from your answer above (1b) did you recommend be reduced via retirement?
c. Which positions did you foresee reducing via other means and what were those means?
3) In the HR report, from page 9, section III, item 3 recommends transitioning to a part-time staff to reduce health care and retirement costs
a. Did you recommend this strategy?
b. How many positions did you recommend be transitioned to part-time positions?
c. Which positions from your answer above (1b) did you recommend be transitioned to part-time via retirement of full-time workers?
d. Which positions did you foresee transitioning to part-time via other means and what were those means?
e. Please provide both the workload and safety implications for this type of staffing more reliant on a part-time workforce.
f. Please provide your assessment of the potential impact on service delivery based on staffing more reliant more part-time workers, e.g. how much longer it will take to plow all the roads in a typical snow storm
g. Please provide your assessment of the impact of these recommendations on worker morale and fair collective bargaining practices.
h. Please provide the timeline that you constructed to implement the proposed transition in staffing
4) From the Finance report data on public works departments:
$2,699,936 Total town + village budget
$2,179,859 Merged budget
$ 520,077 Savings
a. How was the savings of $520,777 derived? Please provide an itemized list with associated savings including positions, materials, etc.
b. Please provide both the workload and safety analysis behind your recommendations included in the $520,777 reduction.
c. Please provide your assessment of impact on service delivery that will result from your recommendations, e.g. how much longer it will take to plow all the roads in a typical snow storm.
d. Please provide the timeline that you constructed to implement the proposed savings.
Thank you for serving New Paltz.
I look forward to your prompt response.
I have some questions about the T/V New Paltz consolidation study HR and Finance reports. It is my understanding that as elected Town of New Paltz Highway Superintendent you participated in and contributed to these committees and made recommendations that were included in their final reports.
1) In the HR report, from page 4, section I, item D:
a. What was the basis for this statement? "Based on input from department heads, council persons and others the committee has been advised that as many as 13 full time positions can be eliminated with many of these positions coming from buildings and grounds."
b. How many positions did you recommend be eliminated from the town highway department?
c. Please provide both the workload and safety analysis that provided the basis for making this recommendation to reduce your staff
d. Please provide your assessment of the potential impacts on service delivery, e.g. how much longer it will take to plow all the roads in a typical snow storm
e. Please provide your assessment of the impact of these recommendations on worker morale and fair collective bargaining practices.
f. Please provide the timeline that you constructed in order to implement the proposed reduction in staffing
2) In the HR report, from page 9, section III, item 2 reads, "Employee head count reductions should coincide with retirement to the extent possible" (italics added).
a. Did you recommend this strategy?
b. Which positions from your answer above (1b) did you recommend be reduced via retirement?
c. Which positions did you foresee reducing via other means and what were those means?
3) In the HR report, from page 9, section III, item 3 recommends transitioning to a part-time staff to reduce health care and retirement costs
a. Did you recommend this strategy?
b. How many positions did you recommend be transitioned to part-time positions?
c. Which positions from your answer above (1b) did you recommend be transitioned to part-time via retirement of full-time workers?
d. Which positions did you foresee transitioning to part-time via other means and what were those means?
e. Please provide both the workload and safety implications for this type of staffing more reliant on a part-time workforce.
f. Please provide your assessment of the potential impact on service delivery based on staffing more reliant more part-time workers, e.g. how much longer it will take to plow all the roads in a typical snow storm
g. Please provide your assessment of the impact of these recommendations on worker morale and fair collective bargaining practices.
h. Please provide the timeline that you constructed to implement the proposed transition in staffing
4) From the Finance report data on public works departments:
$2,699,936 Total town + village budget
$2,179,859 Merged budget
$ 520,077 Savings
a. How was the savings of $520,777 derived? Please provide an itemized list with associated savings including positions, materials, etc.
b. Please provide both the workload and safety analysis behind your recommendations included in the $520,777 reduction.
c. Please provide your assessment of impact on service delivery that will result from your recommendations, e.g. how much longer it will take to plow all the roads in a typical snow storm.
d. Please provide the timeline that you constructed to implement the proposed savings.
Thank you for serving New Paltz.
I look forward to your prompt response.
KT Kathleen Tobin his email is info.highways@townofnewpaltz.org
Mike Russo From the 12/3 meeting video at 1hr 39min: An interesting 3-min exchange about the rushed timeline going forward to referendum. Russ Pollack shows up as a voice of reason on this matter, though all agree that the report as of that date is not yet a finished product.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Do7Xggy8LM&feature=youtu.be&t=1h39m
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Do7Xggy8LM&feature=youtu.be&t=1h39m
Jason West The FC report is also missing pieces of the Village budget. For instance, Bleu told me Friday it is short $ 10,000 or so in actual expenses for the Shade Tree Commission. It will take hours and hours, days possible to fact-check the numbers
January 20 at 9:06pm via mobile ·
Jason West I'll say it again: all this is why it was important to have this information made public with plenty of time before the marketing pitches and grandioise claims were publicly announced. and why it is unacceptable to rush to judgement again with no room for discussion. we can't rubber stamp this on faith
January 20 via mobile
Mike Russo If I understand Sally's description of the methodology used for the DPW/Highway lines correctly, they subtracted 2012 Village expenditures and 2013 Town Budget expenditures from the sum of 2011 Town and Village expenses, and the resultant figure is $520,077.
But if the 2013 Town budget assumed they would do without hiring a new Water & Sewer expert (as Sally said at the 1/15 meeting (at 3h6m30s),and instead would use the same water and sewer contractor as the village uses, than how come we aren't seeing in the Savings column, an increase in cost, i.e. negative savings, for water and sewer contractual expenditures? Would the water and sewer contractor be willing to bundle in the Town sewer responsibilities at no extra cost? -- update: Actually I realize I can't tell this because I don't know all the codes included in the 520,077. It's on that sheet that Sally handed out but she didn't give me a copy. Would this be in the SSA, SSE, SSF, SWA, SWB, SWC, and SWD funds? I don't see an appreciable change in the lines of those funds from Town Budget 2012 to Town Budget 2013. I guess I have to wait for the breakout schedule that hopefully will come from the Fiscal Committee.
But if the 2013 Town budget assumed they would do without hiring a new Water & Sewer expert (as Sally said at the 1/15 meeting (at 3h6m30s),and instead would use the same water and sewer contractor as the village uses, than how come we aren't seeing in the Savings column, an increase in cost, i.e. negative savings, for water and sewer contractual expenditures? Would the water and sewer contractor be willing to bundle in the Town sewer responsibilities at no extra cost? -- update: Actually I realize I can't tell this because I don't know all the codes included in the 520,077. It's on that sheet that Sally handed out but she didn't give me a copy. Would this be in the SSA, SSE, SSF, SWA, SWB, SWC, and SWD funds? I don't see an appreciable change in the lines of those funds from Town Budget 2012 to Town Budget 2013. I guess I have to wait for the breakout schedule that hopefully will come from the Fiscal Committee.
January 20
J. Robin Ward Oh, I really think we need to pay for a good sewer expert. Just Sayin'.
Mike Russo Also in regard to the DPW issue, Sally said in the 12/3 meeting (at 48m40s) that she sent Chris and Bleu "the outline of the results of our discussion and what was what and where was where, and he [Chris] did not call me so I'm going to go with the results of the discussion." So it would be helpful if the FC provided us with that document. Or at the very least, Jason should receive that document via his FOIA request.
KT Kathleen Tobin Mike Russo Thank you so much, I am incredibly appreciative of your time and efforts evaluating the mish mosh of documents and spreadsheets posted to the village website and also actually watching hours of these meetings - I'm astounded and extremely grateful!
January 20
Mike Russo At the 12/3 FC meeting at 1h20m40s, the issue of apportioning an unequal burden of police costs to Village District #6 is discussed. The extended exchange immediately follows after Dave Lent points out that tax cuts for town taxpayers would be quite modest (even using the FC's outsized claims of cost savings). Dave then states "However, this in my mind, is the perfect timing to consider if we want to try to allocate the police costs more to those responsible for creating the need for police..." All agree about redistributing police costs in some way, but there is a difference of opinion on whether the extra burden should be on every taxpayer in District 6, or only commercial properties (including any rental properties, which would require a change in the assessment rules).
http://youtu.be/6Do7Xggy8LM?t=1h20m48s
http://youtu.be/6Do7Xggy8LM?t=1h20m48s
Mike Russo So, from the above exchange, there is the problematic appearance here that in order to be able to offer more tax cuts to town taxpayers (and thereby entice them to vote for consolidation), the Fiscal Committee wants to fold into the consolidation proposal, an entirely separate matter, which is whether Village District 6 should shoulder more tax burden due to police costs. After all, there are far more voters in the town than in Village District 6.
January 20
Tim Hunter The residents of District 6 do require more Police services, however that is as a result of the College & the businesses, so it seems to me that these entities should shoulder their appropriate share
January 20
Mike Russo Tim, the point is the police issue is unrelated to consolidation and should not be rolled into that of consolidation, which is already a major proposition. But on that police issue, since the downtown area generates far more tax revenues per square mile than the outlying town, do the downtown area taxpayers deserve a large tax reduction for that aspect?
January 20
Steve Greenfield Wait, I'm confused -- are we discussing consolidation with Gardiner?
January 20
J. Robin Ward Hey, I live on the walking path from the bars to the college/housing. I absolutely think the bars should foot the bill for the amount of trouble their late-night patrons cause to private property and quality of life.
January 20
J. Robin Ward Actually, I'd prefer if SUNY had its own on-campus night club, complete with liquor license. We had that at SUNY Purchase; don't see why we can't have it here.
January 20
Mike Russo Mayor Bloomberg announces that he will increase taxes on the residents and businesses in the neighborhoods of Brownsville and Mott Haven because the crime in those communities is costing the city a lot of money.
January 20
J. Robin Ward Mike, you can't honestly be comparing the college drinking crowd to the poverty of Mott Haven. Really...step it back and think what you're saying. We're dealing with criminal nuisance committed primarily by children of privilege (or at least, comfort), and exacerbated by the businesses that court their patronage in the late night hours.
January 20
Mike Russo Robin, increasing taxes on the bars is a totally separate issue from consolidation. As it stands, my reading of the Fiscal Committee's proposal is to tax all property owners in District 6, and that includes all businesses, homeowners and renters, since any increased tax on rental property is generally assumed to be passed to the renters (though obviously this may or may not happen on an individual basis depending on landlord).
January 20
J. Robin Ward Well, yes, it should be a separate issue, but apparently (if I'm reading you right), it's being lumped into the math for consolidation.
January 20
Steve Greenfield It's not that cut and dried, Robin. The overwhelming majority of the bar patrons don't cause any harm, and the money they -- and the troublemakers -- spend, and the taxes paid on it, are huge part of the revenue stream here. They also generate employment, and people who buy the pizza and deli items while they're out. Several times a year they generate employment for me, and I don't even drink, but without people who drink, and places that serve them, I would have had to become a cubicle jockey 30 years ago. At least some part of your complaint can be compared to the guy across the street from the firehouse who is annoyed by the sirens waking him up at night, or if my family had had issues with all the airport noise from JFK even though we could have bought a house in any of the millions of places that aren't off the end of the runways. Your house was where it is, and those businesses what they were, long before you bought your house. Do not take this as a lack of concern with your situation, but the overwhelming majority of people in Brownsville never commit any crimes, and they have higher numbers of residents going to church than we do in comfortable New Paltz. Policy makers can't just disaggregate individual quality of life issues and figure out who to bill for it.
January 20
KT Kathleen Tobin <---- criminy! re: police, where to begin?!?!? 1) bc town people and people from Gardiner, and er, elsewhere, never come to the village +/or benefit from its existence, right? 'specially not townies 2) methinks this is a tax shift that the current and former town superintendent could not accomplish in that role? 3) a tax shift in tandem with loss of home rule, what's not to love?!?!?!
January 20
KT Kathleen Tobin ( J. Robin Ward there used to be bars on campus here too, not sure when it stopped, I'll try to find out when and if it was a suny system or state directive )
January 20
Steve Greenfield I suspect that we cannot make consolidation contingent upon changes in the tax code that will be specific to policing. I suspect that policing and how its costs and revenue streams are divvied up is a separate matter that, unless decided upon and completed in advance, could not be part of consideration of costs and savings of consolidation. Of course that, by definition, means that it is not a cost/saving due to consolidation, but simply a change that is just as available without consolidation as with consolidation, meaning it can't be sold to us as a savings attributable to consolidation.
Since some people have done a lot of research on this already, let me ask point blank: Is there anything at all in the financial report that is exclusively attributable to consolidation that could not happen wiithout consolidation? Is there a genuine redundancy of services that can be eliminated, as opposed to a simple reduction in services? Is there a savings from purchasing economies made possible by the expanded scale? Anything? Because this was supposed to be about realizing efficiencies that could not happen otherwise. We shouldn't be consolidating just so Cuomo can say there was a lot of consolidation when he starts running for President. If the theory is that governments will be more efficient when they're made fewer and larger, where's the part of the report that shows me that?
Since some people have done a lot of research on this already, let me ask point blank: Is there anything at all in the financial report that is exclusively attributable to consolidation that could not happen wiithout consolidation? Is there a genuine redundancy of services that can be eliminated, as opposed to a simple reduction in services? Is there a savings from purchasing economies made possible by the expanded scale? Anything? Because this was supposed to be about realizing efficiencies that could not happen otherwise. We shouldn't be consolidating just so Cuomo can say there was a lot of consolidation when he starts running for President. If the theory is that governments will be more efficient when they're made fewer and larger, where's the part of the report that shows me that?
January 20
Steve Greenfield I wouldn't be surprised if campus bars were stopped when the drinking age went up.
January 20
KT Kathleen Tobin re: services - page 8 of the Fairweather report, ".. there is little if any true duplication of services in the Town and Village; though some services are equivalent, they are generally provided to different consumers." We are actually already - in many instances (e.g. police, fire) - a model case for shared services.
January 20
Jason West Steve wrote, "Since some people have done a lot of research on this already, let me ask point blank: Is there anything at all in the financial report that is exclusively attributable to consolidation that could not happen wiithout consolidation?"
January 20
Jason West I haven't found any at all. The only "savings" even remotely attributable to consolidation - the elected and appointed Boards -- is based on a false assumption. They claim savings due to merger of the Planning Boards and Town/Village Boards (and byextension ZBA, ENCC, Historic Preservation Boards, etc.). Without any reason, the one-government partisans who wrote the FC report have across-the-board savings (no pun intended). However, they don't seem to understand that, for instance, the number of applicants who want to build things won't change. Nor will the number of constituents who need help change. So we have a situation where they are proposing drastic cuts in the funding for staff (including electeds) and consultants while not facing a reduction in workload. I assume this would mean that while they are cutting the number of volunteer Planners in half, they are doubling the workload for those left. Will the Planning Board need to meet twice as long, or twice as often? And with less access to expert advice? And they propose one full time Supervisor/Mayor do the work of two full time positions with the same pay the Supervisor alone now makes. Which means a massive paycut in terms of workload, while doubling the work required and reducing the staff support we currently need. With no worload analysis to show what would no longer be done. Or perhaps we'll just magically have half as many constituent calls, emergencies, local laws, capital projects, etc., etc.
January 20
Jason West I just don't understand the wishful thinking that doubling the size of the organization means half the work.
January 20
Jason West Understand, too, that personally I could gain ENORMOUSLY under consolidation. As one of the few people who have chosen to put in the time to learn how to be a citizen-ceo of our local government, and only one of 3 people left alive who have ever been Mayor, by default that makes me one of the few people (not the only of course) with the expertise to run the thing. (Villages and Towns are structured very differently under the hood, even though the results are often identical). At the end of the day, with nearly identical populations, the Supervisor and the Mayor are both full time positions doing nearly the exact same thing. The Supervisor just makes twice as much money as I do and has a full time assistant. To do the same work. So I'd LOVE to make $70,000 and have a full time assistant instead of $35,000 without one. But not if it means screwing over everyone else in New Paltz.
January 20
Katherine Preston You'll never be able to afford a house in Gardiner with that attitude, young man.
January 20
Jason West Just to be clear, my comment above is based on the consolidationsts' false premise that a 40 hour a week Mayor's job and a 40-hour a week Supervisor's job would become a 40-hour a week Consolidated Mayor's job. (which also puts aside the reality that neither is actually a 40-hour a week job. In my experience it averages 60-70 hours a week now. There are some slow weeks, but not nearly as many that have long days and 7-day work weeks). So personally, either massive amounts of policy work would simply not get done, lots would get done but none of it well, or we would end up hiring a Village Manager almost immediately. And in that scenario what doesn't get done is the innovative, moving-us-forward type of work, as that will get shelved just trying to keep up with the basic mechanisms of keeping things functioning. Were we to hire a Manager (not only a good idea, but a structural necessity at that level), we would be looking at a 6-figure increase. It's out of date, but back in '05-'06, Village Managers in Maybrook, Ellenville, and Montgomery made +/- $100,000 a year, not counting benefits and perks like a village car. And these are villages with a much smaller population (2,000-4,000 vs. the ~14,000 of a Consolidated New Paltz), no Thruway exit, no SUNY, etc., etc.
January 20
Jason West The same applies to the Trustees/Councillors as well: double the population to deal with, half the number of volunteers to help, and the same pay for twice the work. Since in my experience only about half of any given set of Trustees or Councillors do any work besides attending VB or TB meetings, it would mean even MORE of a workload shift onto the rest of us than currently exists. When Brian Kimbiz disappeared for four months in 2011 to go camping in national parks, or when Stewart Glenn doesn't show up to the Fire Department meetings he asked to be assigned to for six months because, "no one told me when they were.", the work doesn't stop: it's just someone else now has to do it. Doubling the consequences for such failures to perform the tasks of your office will exponentially slow down the work we all run for office promising to attend to. A small thing, but they add up; especially when one new Consolidated Trustee would be abandoning the work currently being abandoned by two people.
January 20
Steve Greenfield Speaking of screwing people over, what's this crap about turning a lot of our employees into part-timeres so we can save their bennies and pensions? And then what -- give Susan another raise for having figured that out? What are we, Wal-Mart? And what does it have to do with consolidation?
January 20
Steve Greenfield Yeah, we haven't been talking about the boards and committees. I don't know what your experience is in the Village, but in the Town it's commonplace for Planning Board members to not fill out their terms. There's a high turnover rate and a long learning curve. How does the consolidation report expect to keep the consolidated Planning Board staffed, especially when the members are going to have to face adding new zoning and code madders to their knowledge base, and to the types of submissions they're reviewing? What if we end up needing to pay people to be on these boards -- not just their secretaries and advisors? How do they know we won't get hit by lawsuits from developers whose applications are sitting their gathering dust?
January 20
Mike Russo 12/3 meeting video 1h20m about tax rates: Something I missed in my previous comment about this video segment is that I believe Sally is pushing for the idea of taxing rental properties at a higher tax rate through the community, not just in Village District 6.
January 20
Mike Russo 12/3 meeting. Later in that same discussion at 1h36m52s: Susan says "Not the specifics, but if the concept is written into the overall plan, the people of the town residents outside the village might be more willing to vote for this consolidation because they are going to see a government that is thinking about the fact that they've been getting taxed for god-knows-how-long , in their mind unfairly -- I don't care if you agree with that or not, but in their mind, unfairly -- you're giving them a reason to say there's value to this new government because it's going to correct the inequities, so therefore support it."
Well, this seems to me pretty much out-and-out crossing the line from the job of estimating potential savings due to consolidation, to talking about how to package and sell the idea. Is that a problem for anyone else? Am I making too much out of this aspect, being that politics is politics so no surprise, who would expect anything but? To me, if they are supposedly doing an objective, unbiased internal study in lieu of contracting an outside accounting firm, then this crossing the line is tantamount to yet another (the fourth) breach of an accounting principle, that of Neutrality.
Neutrality: Information contained in financial statements must be free of bias. It should reflect a balanced view of the affairs of the company without attempting to present them in a favored light.
http://youtu.be/6Do7Xggy8LM?t=1h35m28s
Well, this seems to me pretty much out-and-out crossing the line from the job of estimating potential savings due to consolidation, to talking about how to package and sell the idea. Is that a problem for anyone else? Am I making too much out of this aspect, being that politics is politics so no surprise, who would expect anything but? To me, if they are supposedly doing an objective, unbiased internal study in lieu of contracting an outside accounting firm, then this crossing the line is tantamount to yet another (the fourth) breach of an accounting principle, that of Neutrality.
Neutrality: Information contained in financial statements must be free of bias. It should reflect a balanced view of the affairs of the company without attempting to present them in a favored light.
http://youtu.be/6Do7Xggy8LM?t=1h35m28s
January 20
Mike Russo Another example of overt bias in presentation intent: 12/3 meeting 1hr47min. Dave Lent points out that with consolidation, those town property owners who pay for water will receive a major discount in their rates, while those water users in the village will pay a slightly higher rate. At 1h48m25s, Sally says to Dave: "I'm going to insist that you exploit and emphasize the decrease and benefit to the town users." The word "exploit" has no business showing up in a meeting that purports to be for the purpose of objective analysis.
http://youtu.be/6Do7Xggy8LM?t=1h48m24s
http://youtu.be/6Do7Xggy8LM?t=1h48m24s
January 20
Mike Russo Important segment of 12/3 meeting. At 2h6m24s, Ross argues that a rush to referendum may be a mistake - if referendum fails, another one cannot be held for four years. He worries that with the current timetable, the public may not have enough time to receive and understand the information. (He also contended this same point earlier in the meeting.) Sally and Susan argue against his point. At 2h7m24s, Susan states: "Come May, Stewart Glenn leaves the board. Brian Kimbiz leaves the board. You can't have a board that is totally against consolidation. Within a year, my term is up. You don't know what's going to happen with the next supervisor; if they're going to support it. So basically we are at a moment in time when we have a lot of people who are committed; we have the support of both boards to move this forward. If we don't grab the opportunity now, and we wait longer than April 1st, then you're dealing with a bunch of unknowns and as far as I'm concerned, kiss it goodbye."
http://youtu.be/6Do7Xggy8LM?t=2h6m24s
http://youtu.be/6Do7Xggy8LM?t=2h6m24s
January 20
Mike Russo (DPW/Highway-related) Another critical segment at the end of the 12/3 meeting. I have transcribed the full exchange:
Susan: "Because of the reductions we've already made in the town government, it's already aligning itself -- we've already absorbed some of the changes --"
Ross: "making the process much softer --"
Susan: "that's exactly right -- so the process now of merging the two governments because we've been making reductions in the town government and merging our departments, it's almost in a way a first step to this bigger merger that actually makes the potential to merge these governments without any layoffs that much more viable because we're already done. --"
Dave: "Susan, may I suggest that, and this is not a fact but a probability, but if in fact if the merger is not the end result of this situation, then some of those reductions may have to be changed and new people hired -- "
Susan: "I can say that the reductions that are reflected in here from the town -- those reductions are here to stay."
http://youtu.be/6Do7Xggy8LM?t=2h25m19s
Susan: "Because of the reductions we've already made in the town government, it's already aligning itself -- we've already absorbed some of the changes --"
Ross: "making the process much softer --"
Susan: "that's exactly right -- so the process now of merging the two governments because we've been making reductions in the town government and merging our departments, it's almost in a way a first step to this bigger merger that actually makes the potential to merge these governments without any layoffs that much more viable because we're already done. --"
Dave: "Susan, may I suggest that, and this is not a fact but a probability, but if in fact if the merger is not the end result of this situation, then some of those reductions may have to be changed and new people hired -- "
Susan: "I can say that the reductions that are reflected in here from the town -- those reductions are here to stay."
http://youtu.be/6Do7Xggy8LM?t=2h25m19s
January 20
Mike Russo Susan's contention above at the 12/3 FC meeting "those reductions are here to stay" is in direct CONTRADICTION to her statement at the 1/15 Town/Village meeting at 3h7m55s.
She lists out many vacated positions that were not planned for rehire in the Town 2013 Budget, and says "So every decisions that was done in the 2013 Budget was done with the eye towards hopefully we can consolidate."
Then she says "I can assure you that if we do not consolidate, next year's budget, we might see people added back to the budget because that assumption is off the table, gone, and we'll make certain assumptions in the Town Board, how we present our next budget based on the fact that consolidation is no longer on the table and the status quo will not be acceptable."
http://youtu.be/YXvRHgMM_X4?t=3h7m55s
She lists out many vacated positions that were not planned for rehire in the Town 2013 Budget, and says "So every decisions that was done in the 2013 Budget was done with the eye towards hopefully we can consolidate."
Then she says "I can assure you that if we do not consolidate, next year's budget, we might see people added back to the budget because that assumption is off the table, gone, and we'll make certain assumptions in the Town Board, how we present our next budget based on the fact that consolidation is no longer on the table and the status quo will not be acceptable."
http://youtu.be/YXvRHgMM_X4?t=3h7m55s
January 20
Mike Russo 11/5 FC meeting starts right off with a discussion of the $520k DPW/Highway savings -- it sounds like this figure has newly arrived, at least to Dave Lent. Dave questions various aspects of this savings figure. Susan says that water and sewer was never discussed in the meeting between her, Sally, Bleu and Chris. She says that savings was identified in the purchasing of salt, in equipment such as the village being able to use town trucks for snow removal instead of contracting out, and in other contractual services. It did not include a reduction of staff or benefits. However, it sounds like the 2013 Town budget reductions are already included in the $520k savings.
At 8m40s the discussion turns to the HR report.
Since this meeting is many weeks prior to 12/3, discussion about the figures and the numbers themselves are still in development. This meeting is just prior to when the NP Times quoted Sally as saying that the committee has "come up with right now $1.4 million in savings" if merger occurs (11/9/2012).
http://youtu.be/Ao4fQbdFjbo
At 8m40s the discussion turns to the HR report.
Since this meeting is many weeks prior to 12/3, discussion about the figures and the numbers themselves are still in development. This meeting is just prior to when the NP Times quoted Sally as saying that the committee has "come up with right now $1.4 million in savings" if merger occurs (11/9/2012).
http://youtu.be/Ao4fQbdFjbo
January 20
January 20
J. Robin Ward It's like a goldmine of crap. A crapmine. The New Paltz Litter Box -- doesn't take much digging to turn up another nugget.
January 20
KT Kathleen Tobin Michael Zierler are we happy now that we pushed so hard to get these meetings public and taped? was it worth it? was it ridic important? holy cannoli.
January 20
J. Robin Ward KT, that has been one of my thoughts on reading all this: "Does Zimet realize she's being recorded? Does she realize she's going to be held accountable for this shady accounting?"
January 20
J. Robin Ward I just emailed Brian Shields in the news department of WAMC (NPR affiliate) to ask them to examine this issue in a more balanced fashion rather than just repeat the Zimet press releases.
January 20
KT Kathleen Tobin I just uploaded a statement to docs made by multiple members of the community advisory committee (which fell apart quickly after) in April 2011, most of the issues that were identified have still not been remedied, but at least they started video taping the meetings
January 20
KT Kathleen Tobin Also uploaded original grant proposal, see this and Nikki Koenig Nielson's letter to the editor this week about how different what has transpired is from the original intent, and premise for funding
January 20
Steve Greenfield J. Robin Ward: she knows she's being taped. She has some kind of compulsive disorder. Back when she was appearing before the Ethics Commission on the Kevin Barry land-Middle School matter, she actually called everyone's attention to the fact that she had only agreed to testify if the meeting was going to be open to the public and recorded. She then lied under oath, and I can prove it with more than one piece of evidence and more than one witness. I've mentioned this several times in this forum, and begged for anyone to help me not be alone in complaining about it, and asked for people to message me, but nobody ever has. And that's why yes, Susan knows she's being recorded. She knows she doesn't have to care. It's a game she plays.
As far as the observation by Mike Russo that at times it sounds like she's openly considering marketing angles, and whether that violates one of the GAP's, well, she's a marketer by trade, not an accountant, and in fact I have never heard her comment upon an issue or candidacy without focusing on the marketing angles rather than the substance. That is why I made the sarcastic comments about the awesome logo. But we need to be smart here. because there's a reason corporations pay their marketers so much more money than their engineers. If we can give the public 200 reasons why the merger proposal is dangerously flawed and well over the line into fraudulent, but the advocates have a great logo, guess who wins?
As far as the observation by Mike Russo that at times it sounds like she's openly considering marketing angles, and whether that violates one of the GAP's, well, she's a marketer by trade, not an accountant, and in fact I have never heard her comment upon an issue or candidacy without focusing on the marketing angles rather than the substance. That is why I made the sarcastic comments about the awesome logo. But we need to be smart here. because there's a reason corporations pay their marketers so much more money than their engineers. If we can give the public 200 reasons why the merger proposal is dangerously flawed and well over the line into fraudulent, but the advocates have a great logo, guess who wins?
January 20
Mike Russo Let's bear in mind that objectivity and accuracy are two different things. Mistakes can be made in any study. It is possible that a biased group can still come up with correct figures, and conversely a neutral third-party can produce a report with many errors. But the presence of bias opens up a wide avenue for erroneous information to flow into a given study. There should be no pretense of objectivity in a study when bias is present. Obviously, a report from a biased group does not carry the same weight as an objective professional report, and it warrants a greater depth and degree of scrutiny. One would expect the vetting process for a report from a biased group to take a considerably longer time.
I can idealize a way to get to reasonable results among biased parties (without an objective study) might be if advocates of an issue to say to the public: "We're going to put together a study and try to be as objective as possible. But we recognize that our bias may color our judgment so when we give you the finished study, we are going to give you all the pertinent information that led us to our results, and then any of you who are skeptical can critique it and show us where you think we made mistakes or chose wrong assumptions. And then we can talk about those aspects and try to reach a common understanding, or at least isolate those aspects to that we cannot agree. And then from there, we can put out a report that shows the conclusions reached in common by advocates and skeptics, and the various positions on those conclusions about which there is disagreement."
This situation did not go that way. Here we had a biased group -- without a doubt, a group who worked very hard for many months -- but nevertheless a biased group who was already promoting in the press that a savings of $1.4 million had been identified, months before the report was released to the public or approved by the town and village boards. And when the report was released, there was very little in the form of explanations of the various claims of savings. And when obvious and predictable questions were then asked about some of the very high estimations of savings, information explaining those claims was still not prepared or readily shared. And yet, the biased group continues to insist on a rapid timeline for decision-making - why? Well, now we know it is because they are afraid they will lose the ability to control the process by the time of Village elections this May.
I can idealize a way to get to reasonable results among biased parties (without an objective study) might be if advocates of an issue to say to the public: "We're going to put together a study and try to be as objective as possible. But we recognize that our bias may color our judgment so when we give you the finished study, we are going to give you all the pertinent information that led us to our results, and then any of you who are skeptical can critique it and show us where you think we made mistakes or chose wrong assumptions. And then we can talk about those aspects and try to reach a common understanding, or at least isolate those aspects to that we cannot agree. And then from there, we can put out a report that shows the conclusions reached in common by advocates and skeptics, and the various positions on those conclusions about which there is disagreement."
This situation did not go that way. Here we had a biased group -- without a doubt, a group who worked very hard for many months -- but nevertheless a biased group who was already promoting in the press that a savings of $1.4 million had been identified, months before the report was released to the public or approved by the town and village boards. And when the report was released, there was very little in the form of explanations of the various claims of savings. And when obvious and predictable questions were then asked about some of the very high estimations of savings, information explaining those claims was still not prepared or readily shared. And yet, the biased group continues to insist on a rapid timeline for decision-making - why? Well, now we know it is because they are afraid they will lose the ability to control the process by the time of Village elections this May.
January 20
Steve Greenfield If consolidation could be objectively determined to be useful, the timeline wouldn't matter. The numbers would speak for themselves. There could be public officials who would still oppose consolidation for other reasons, but the whole point of a financial report is to let the numbers speak for themselves. Instead we got a report in which all the numbers prompt questions, questions for which the answers are being refused and blocked. I suggest using the election timeline quotes as the reason why the vote needs to be delayed until some semblance of mathematical utility can be restored to the report. I suggest taking those quotes to appropriate state authorities. There's a case to be made here, on several levels, for abuse of power.
January 20
Jason West I'll say it again: all this is why it was important to have this information made public with plenty of time before the marketing pitches and grandiose claims were publicly announced. and why it is unacceptable to rush to judgement again with no room for discussion. we can't rubber stamp this on faith
Mike Russo If I understand Sally's description of the methodology used for the DPW/Highway lines correctly, they subtracted 2012 Village expenditures and 2013 Town Budget expenditures from the sum of 2011 Town and Village expenses, and the resultant figure is $520,077.
But if the 2013 Town budget assumed they would do without hiring a new Water & Sewer expert (as Sally said at the 1/15 meeting (at 3h6m30s),and instead would use the same water and sewer contractor as the village uses, than how come we aren't seeing in the Savings column, an increase in cost, i.e. negative savings, for water and sewer contractual expenditures? Would the water and sewer contractor be willing to bundle in the Town sewer responsibilities at no extra cost? -- update: Actually I realize I can't tell this because I don't know all the codes included in the 520,077. It's on that sheet that Sally handed out but she didn't give me a copy. Would this be in the SSA, SSE, SSF, SWA, SWB, SWC, and SWD funds? I don't see an appreciable change in the lines of those funds from Town Budget 2012 to Town Budget 2013. I guess I have to wait for the breakout schedule that hopefully will come from the Fiscal Committee.
But if the 2013 Town budget assumed they would do without hiring a new Water & Sewer expert (as Sally said at the 1/15 meeting (at 3h6m30s),and instead would use the same water and sewer contractor as the village uses, than how come we aren't seeing in the Savings column, an increase in cost, i.e. negative savings, for water and sewer contractual expenditures? Would the water and sewer contractor be willing to bundle in the Town sewer responsibilities at no extra cost? -- update: Actually I realize I can't tell this because I don't know all the codes included in the 520,077. It's on that sheet that Sally handed out but she didn't give me a copy. Would this be in the SSA, SSE, SSF, SWA, SWB, SWC, and SWD funds? I don't see an appreciable change in the lines of those funds from Town Budget 2012 to Town Budget 2013. I guess I have to wait for the breakout schedule that hopefully will come from the Fiscal Committee.
January 20 at 12:56am · · · 1
J. Robin Ward Oh, I really think we need to pay for a good sewer expert. Just Sayin'.
Mike Russo Also in regard to the DPW issue, Sally said in the 12/3 meeting (at 48m40s) that she sent Chris and Bleu "the outline of the results of our discussion and what was what and where was where, and he [Chris] did not call me so I'm going to go with the results of the discussion." So it would be helpful if the FC provided us with that document. Or at the very least, Jason should receive that document via his FOIA request.
KT Kathleen Tobin Mike Russo Thank you so much, I am incredibly appreciative of your time and efforts evaluating the mish mosh of documents and spreadsheets posted to the village website and also actually watching hours of these meetings - I'm astounded and extremely grateful!
Mike Russo At the 12/3 FC meeting at 1h20m40s, the issue of apportioning an unequal burden of police costs to Village District #6 is discussed. The extended exchange immediately follows after Dave Lent points out that tax cuts for town taxpayers would be quite modest (even using the FC's outsized claims of cost savings). Dave then states "However, this in my mind, is the perfect timing to consider if we want to try to allocate the police costs more to those responsible for creating the need for police..." All agree about redistributing police costs in some way, but there is a difference of opinion on whether the extra burden should be on every taxpayer in District 6, or only commercial properties (including any rental properties, which would require a change in the assessment rules).
http://youtu.be/6Do7Xggy8LM?t=1h20m48s
http://youtu.be/6Do7Xggy8LM?t=1h20m48s
Mike Russo So, from the above exchange, there is the problematic appearance here that in order to be able to offer more tax cuts to town taxpayers (and thereby entice them to vote for consolidation), the Fiscal Committee wants to fold into the consolidation proposal, an entirely separate matter, which is whether Village District 6 should shoulder more tax burden due to police costs. After all, there are far more voters in the town than in Village District 6.
Tim Hunter The residents of District 6 do require more Police services, however that is as a result of the College & the businesses, so it seems to me that these entities should shoulder their appropriate share
Mike Russo Tim, the point is the police issue is unrelated to consolidation and should not be rolled into that of consolidation, which is already a major proposition. But on that police issue, since the downtown area generates far more tax revenues per square mile than the outlying town, do the downtown area taxpayers deserve a large tax reduction for that aspect?
January 20 at 11:21am · · · 4
Steve Greenfield Wait, I'm confused -- are we discussing consolidation with Gardiner?
J. Robin Ward Hey, I live on the walking path from the bars to the college/housing. I absolutely think the bars should foot the bill for the amount of trouble their late-night patrons cause to private property and quality of life.
J. Robin Ward Actually, I'd prefer if SUNY had its own on-campus night club, complete with liquor license. We had that at SUNY Purchase; don't see why we can't have it here.
Mike Russo Mayor Bloomberg announces that he will increase taxes on the residents and businesses in the neighborhoods of Brownsville and Mott Haven because the crime in those communities is costing the city a lot of money.
J. Robin Ward Mike, you can't honestly be comparing the college drinking crowd to the poverty of Mott Haven. Really...step it back and think what you're saying. We're dealing with criminal nuisance committed primarily by children of privilege (or at least, comfort), and exacerbated by the businesses that court their patronage in the late night hours.
Mike Russo Robin, increasing taxes on the bars is a totally separate issue from consolidation. As it stands, my reading of the Fiscal Committee's proposal is to tax all property owners in District 6, and that includes all businesses, homeowners and renters, since any increased tax on rental property is generally assumed to be passed to the renters (though obviously this may or may not happen on an individual basis depending on landlord).
J. Robin Ward Well, yes, it should be a separate issue, but apparently (if I'm reading you right), it's being lumped into the math for consolidation.
Steve Greenfield It's not that cut and dried, Robin. The overwhelming majority of the bar patrons don't cause any harm, and the money they -- and the troublemakers -- spend, and the taxes paid on it, are huge part of the revenue stream here. They also generate employment, and people who buy the pizza and deli items while they're out. Several times a year they generate employment for me, and I don't even drink, but without people who drink, and places that serve them, I would have had to become a cubicle jockey 30 years ago. At least some part of your complaint can be compared to the guy across the street from the firehouse who is annoyed by the sirens waking him up at night, or if my family had had issues with all the airport noise from JFK even though we could have bought a house in any of the millions of places that aren't off the end of the runways. Your house was where it is, and those businesses what they were, long before you bought your house. Do not take this as a lack of concern with your situation, but the overwhelming majority of people in Brownsville never commit any crimes, and they have higher numbers of residents going to church than we do in comfortable New Paltz. Policy makers can't just disaggregate individual quality of life issues and figure out who to bill for it.
KT Kathleen Tobin <---- criminy! re: police, where to begin?!?!? 1) bc town people and people from Gardiner, and er, elsewhere, never come to the village +/or benefit from its existence, right? 'specially not townies 2) methinks this is a tax shift that the current and former town superintendent could not accomplish in that role? 3) a tax shift in tandem with loss of home rule, what's not to love?!?!?!
January 20 at 1:02pm · · · 1
KT Kathleen Tobin ( J. Robin Ward there used to be bars on campus here too, not sure when it stopped, I'll try to find out when and if it was a suny system or state directive )
Steve Greenfield I suspect that we cannot make consolidation contingent upon changes in the tax code that will be specific to policing. I suspect that policing and how its costs and revenue streams are divvied up is a separate matter that, unless decided upon and completed in advance, could not be part of consideration of costs and savings of consolidation. Of course that, by definition, means that it is not a cost/saving due to consolidation, but simply a change that is just as available without consolidation as with consolidation, meaning it can't be sold to us as a savings attributable to consolidation.
Since some people have done a lot of research on this already, let me ask point blank: Is there anything at all in the financial report that is exclusively attributable to consolidation that could not happen wiithout consolidation? Is there a genuine redundancy of services that can be eliminated, as opposed to a simple reduction in services? Is there a savings from purchasing economies made possible by the expanded scale? Anything? Because this was supposed to be about realizing efficiencies that could not happen otherwise. We shouldn't be consolidating just so Cuomo can say there was a lot of consolidation when he starts running for President. If the theory is that governments will be more efficient when they're made fewer and larger, where's the part of the report that shows me that?
Since some people have done a lot of research on this already, let me ask point blank: Is there anything at all in the financial report that is exclusively attributable to consolidation that could not happen wiithout consolidation? Is there a genuine redundancy of services that can be eliminated, as opposed to a simple reduction in services? Is there a savings from purchasing economies made possible by the expanded scale? Anything? Because this was supposed to be about realizing efficiencies that could not happen otherwise. We shouldn't be consolidating just so Cuomo can say there was a lot of consolidation when he starts running for President. If the theory is that governments will be more efficient when they're made fewer and larger, where's the part of the report that shows me that?
Steve Greenfield I wouldn't be surprised if campus bars were stopped when the drinking age went up.
KT Kathleen Tobin re: services - page 8 of the Fairweather report, ".. there is little if any true duplication of services in the Town and Village; though some services are equivalent, they are generally provided to different consumers." We are actually already - in many instances (e.g. police, fire) - a model case for shared services.
Jason West Steve wrote, "Since some people have done a lot of research on this already, let me ask point blank: Is there anything at all in the financial report that is exclusively attributable to consolidation that could not happen wiithout consolidation?"
Jason West I haven't found any at all. The only "savings" even remotely attributable to consolidation - the elected and appointed Boards -- is based on a false assumption. They claim savings due to merger of the Planning Boards and Town/Village Boards (and by extension ZBA, ENCC, Historic Preservation Boards, etc.). Without any reason, the one-government partisans who wrote the FC report have across-the-board savings (no pun intended). However, they don't seem to understand that, for instance, the number of applicants who want to build things won't change. Nor will the number of constituents who need help change. So we have a situation where they are proposing drastic cuts in the funding for staff (including electeds) and consultants while not facing a reduction in workload. I assume this would mean that while they are cutting the number of volunteer Planners in half, they are doubling the workload for those left. Will the Planning Board need to meet twice as long, or twice as often? And with less access to expert advice? And they propose one full time Supervisor/Mayor do the work of two full time positions with the same pay the Supervisor alone now makes. Which means a massive paycut in terms of workload, while doubling the work required and reducing the staff support we currently need. With no worload analysis to show what would no longer be done. Or perhaps we'll just magically have half as many constituent calls, emergencies, local laws, capital projects, etc., etc.
Jason West I just don't understand the wishful thinking that doubling the size of the organization means half the work.
Jason West Understand, too, that personally I could gain ENORMOUSLY under consolidation. As one of the few people who have chosen to put in the time to learn how to be a citizen-ceo of our local government, and only one of 3 people left alive who have ever been Mayor, by default that makes me one of the few people (not the only of course) with the expertise to run the thing. (Villages and Towns are structured very differently under the hood, even though the results are often identical). At the end of the day, with nearly identical populations, the Supervisor and the Mayor are both full time positions doing nearly the exact same thing. The Supervisor just makes twice as much money as I do and has a full time assistant. To do the same work. So I'd LOVE to make $70,000 and have a full time assistant instead of $35,000 without one. But not if it means screwing over everyone else in New Paltz.
Katherine Preston You'll never be able to afford a house in Gardiner with that attitude, young man.
Jason West Just to be clear, my comment above is based on the consolidationsts' false premise that a 40 hour a week Mayor's job and a 40-hour a week Supervisor's job would become a 40-hour a week Consolidated Mayor's job. (which also puts aside the reality that neither is actually a 40-hour a week job. In my experience it averages 60-70 hours a week now. There are some slow weeks, but not nearly as many that have long days and 7-day work weeks). So personally, either massive amounts of policy work would simply not get done, lots would get done but none of it well, or we would end up hiring a Village Manager almost immediately. And in that scenario what doesn't get done is the innovative, moving-us-forward type of work, as that will get shelved just trying to keep up with the basic mechanisms of keeping things functioning. Were we to hire a Manager (not only a good idea, but a structural necessity at that level), we would be looking at a 6-figure increase. It's out of date, but back in '05-'06, Village Managers in Maybrook, Ellenville, and Montgomery made +/- $100,000 a year, not counting benefits and perks like a village car. And these are villages with a much smaller population (2,000-4,000 vs. the ~14,000 of a Consolidated New Paltz), no Thruway exit, no SUNY, etc., etc.
Jason West The same applies to the Trustees/Councillors as well: double the population to deal with, half the number of volunteers to help, and the same pay for twice the work. Since in my experience only about half of any given set of Trustees or Councillors do any work besides attending VB or TB meetings, it would mean even MORE of a workload shift onto the rest of us than currently exists. When Brian Kimbiz disappeared for four months in 2011 to go camping in national parks, or when Stewart Glenn doesn't show up to the Fire Department meetings he asked to be assigned to for six months because, "no one told me when they were.", the work doesn't stop: it's just someone else now has to do it. Doubling the consequences for such failures to perform the tasks of your office will exponentially slow down the work we all run for office promising to attend to. A small thing, but they add up; especially when one new Consolidated Trustee would be abandoning the work currently being abandoned by two people.
Steve Greenfield Speaking of screwing people over, what's this crap about turning a lot of our employees into part-timers so we can save their bennies and pensions? And then what -- give Susan another raise for having figured that out? What are we, Wal-Mart? And what does it have to do with consolidation?
January 21 at 12:12am · · · 1
Steve Greenfield Yeah, we haven't been talking about the boards and committees. I don't know what your experience is in the Village, but in the Town it's commonplace for Planning Board members to not fill out their terms. There's a high turnover rate and a long learning curve. How does the consolidation report expect to keep the consolidated Planning Board staffed, especially when the members are going to have to face adding new zoning and code madders to their knowledge base, and to the types of submissions they're reviewing? What if we end up needing to pay people to be on these boards -- not just their secretaries and advisors? How do they know we won't get hit by lawsuits from developers whose applications are sitting their gathering dust?
Mike Russo 12/3 meeting video 1h20m about tax rates: Something I missed in my previous comment about this video segment is that I believe Sally is pushing for the idea of taxing rental properties at a higher tax rate through the community, not just in Village District 6.
Mike Russo 12/3 meeting. Later in that same discussion at 1h36m52s: Susan says "Not the specifics, but if the concept is written into the overall plan, the people of the town residents outside the village might be more willing to vote for this consolidation because they are going to see a government that is thinking about the fact that they've been getting taxed for god-knows-how-long , in their mind unfairly -- I don't care if you agree with that or not, but in their mind, unfairly -- you're giving them a reason to say there's value to this new government because it's going to correct the inequities, so therefore support it."
Well, this seems to me pretty much out-and-out crossing the line from the job of estimating potential savings due to consolidation, to talking about how to package and sell the idea. Is that a problem for anyone else? Am I making too much out of this aspect, being that politics is politics so no surprise, who would expect anything but? To me, if they are supposedly doing an objective, unbiased internal study in lieu of contracting an outside accounting firm, then this crossing the line is tantamount to yet another (the fourth) breach of an accounting principle, that of Neutrality.
Neutrality: Information contained in financial statements must be free of bias. It should reflect a balanced view of the affairs of the company without attempting to present them in a favored light.
http://youtu.be/6Do7Xggy8LM?t=1h35m28s
Well, this seems to me pretty much out-and-out crossing the line from the job of estimating potential savings due to consolidation, to talking about how to package and sell the idea. Is that a problem for anyone else? Am I making too much out of this aspect, being that politics is politics so no surprise, who would expect anything but? To me, if they are supposedly doing an objective, unbiased internal study in lieu of contracting an outside accounting firm, then this crossing the line is tantamount to yet another (the fourth) breach of an accounting principle, that of Neutrality.
Neutrality: Information contained in financial statements must be free of bias. It should reflect a balanced view of the affairs of the company without attempting to present them in a favored light.
http://youtu.be/6Do7Xggy8LM?t=1h35m28s
January 20 at 6:47pm · · · 2 ·
Mike Russo Another example of overt bias in presentation intent: 12/3 meeting 1hr47min. Dave Lent points out that with consolidation, those town property owners who pay for water will receive a major discount in their rates, while those water users in the village will pay a slightly higher rate. At 1h48m25s, Sally says to Dave: "I'm going to insist that you exploit and emphasize the decrease and benefit to the town users." The word "exploit" has no business showing up in a meeting that purports to be for the purpose of objective analysis.
http://youtu.be/6Do7Xggy8LM?t=1h48m24s
http://youtu.be/6Do7Xggy8LM?t=1h48m24s
January 20 at 7:38pm · · · 1 ·
Mike Russo Important segment of 12/3 meeting. At 2h6m24s, Ross argues that a rush to referendum may be a mistake - if referendum fails, another one cannot be held for four years. He worries that with the current timetable, the public may not have enough time to receive and understand the information. (He also contended this same point earlier in the meeting.) Sally and Susan argue against his point. At 2h7m24s, Susan states: "Come May, Stewart Glenn leaves the board. Brian Kimbiz leaves the board. You can't have a board that is totally against consolidation. Within a year, my term is up. You don't know what's going to happen with the next supervisor; if they're going to support it. So basically we are at a moment in time when we have a lot of people who are committed; we have the support of both boards to move this forward. If we don't grab the opportunity now, and we wait longer than April 1st, then you're dealing with a bunch of unknowns and as far as I'm concerned, kiss it goodbye."
http://youtu.be/6Do7Xggy8LM?t=2h6m24s
http://youtu.be/6Do7Xggy8LM?t=2h6m24s
January 20 at 9:32pm · · · 1 ·
Mike Russo (DPW/Highway-related) Another critical segment at the end of the 12/3 meeting. I have transcribed the full exchange:
Susan: "Because of the reductions we've already made in the town government, it's already aligning itself -- we've already absorbed some of the changes --"
Ross: "making the process much softer --"
Susan: "that's exactly right -- so the process now of merging the two governments because we've been making reductions in the town government and merging our departments, it's almost in a way a first step to this bigger merger that actually makes the potential to merge these governments without any layoffs that much more viable because we're already done. --"
Dave: "Susan, may I suggest that, and this is not a fact but a probability, but if in fact if the merger is not the end result of this situation, then some of those reductions may have to be changed and new people hired -- "
Susan: "I can say that the reductions that are reflected in here from the town -- those reductions are here to stay."
http://youtu.be/6Do7Xggy8LM?t=2h25m19s
Susan: "Because of the reductions we've already made in the town government, it's already aligning itself -- we've already absorbed some of the changes --"
Ross: "making the process much softer --"
Susan: "that's exactly right -- so the process now of merging the two governments because we've been making reductions in the town government and merging our departments, it's almost in a way a first step to this bigger merger that actually makes the potential to merge these governments without any layoffs that much more viable because we're already done. --"
Dave: "Susan, may I suggest that, and this is not a fact but a probability, but if in fact if the merger is not the end result of this situation, then some of those reductions may have to be changed and new people hired -- "
Susan: "I can say that the reductions that are reflected in here from the town -- those reductions are here to stay."
http://youtu.be/6Do7Xggy8LM?t=2h25m19s
January 20 at 10:36pm · · ·
Mike Russo Susan's contention above at the 12/3 FC meeting "those reductions are here to stay" is in direct CONTRADICTION to her statement at the 1/15 Town/Village meeting at 3h7m55s.
She lists out many vacated positions that were not planned for rehire in the Town 2013 Budget, and says "So every decisions that was done in the 2013 Budget was done with the eye towards hopefully we can consolidate."
Then she says "I can assure you that if we do not consolidate, next year's budget, we might see people added back to the budget because that assumption is off the table, gone, and we'll make certain assumptions in the Town Board, how we present our next budget based on the fact that consolidation is no longer on the table and the status quo will not be acceptable."
http://youtu.be/YXvRHgMM_X4?t=3h7m55s
She lists out many vacated positions that were not planned for rehire in the Town 2013 Budget, and says "So every decisions that was done in the 2013 Budget was done with the eye towards hopefully we can consolidate."
Then she says "I can assure you that if we do not consolidate, next year's budget, we might see people added back to the budget because that assumption is off the table, gone, and we'll make certain assumptions in the Town Board, how we present our next budget based on the fact that consolidation is no longer on the table and the status quo will not be acceptable."
http://youtu.be/YXvRHgMM_X4?t=3h7m55s
Mike Russo 11/5 FC meeting starts right off with a discussion of the $520k DPW/Highway savings -- it sounds like this figure has newly arrived, at least to Dave Lent. Dave questions various aspects of this savings figure. Susan says that water and sewer was never discussed in the meeting between her, Sally, Bleu and Chris. She says that savings was identified in the purchasing of salt, in equipment such as the village being able to use town trucks for snow removal instead of contracting out, and in other contractual services. It did not include a reduction of staff or benefits. However, it sounds like the 2013 Town budget reductions are already included in the $520k savings.
At 8m40s the discussion turns to the HR report.
Since this meeting is many weeks prior to 12/3, discussion about the figures and the numbers themselves are still in development. This meeting is just prior to when the NP Times quoted Sally as saying that the committee has "come up with right now $1.4 million in savings" if merger occurs (11/9/2012).
http://youtu.be/Ao4fQbdFjbo
At 8m40s the discussion turns to the HR report.
Since this meeting is many weeks prior to 12/3, discussion about the figures and the numbers themselves are still in development. This meeting is just prior to when the NP Times quoted Sally as saying that the committee has "come up with right now $1.4 million in savings" if merger occurs (11/9/2012).
http://youtu.be/Ao4fQbdFjbo
J. Robin Ward It's like a goldmine of crap. A crapmine. The New Paltz Litter Box -- doesn't take much digging to turn up another nugget.
KT Kathleen Tobin Michael Zierler are we happy now that we pushed so hard to get these meetings public and taped? was it worth it? was it ridic important? holy cannoli.
J. Robin Ward KT, that has been one of my thoughts on reading all this: "Does Zimet realize she's being recorded? Does she realize she's going to be held accountable for this shady accounting?"
J. Robin Ward I just emailed Brian Shields in the news department of WAMC (NPR affiliate) to ask them to examine this issue in a more balanced fashion rather than just repeat the Zimet press releases.
KT Kathleen Tobin I just uploaded a statement to docs made by multiple members of the community advisory committee (which fell apart quickly after) in April 2011, most of the issues that were identified have still not been remedied, but at least they started video taping the meetings
KT Kathleen Tobin Also uploaded original grant proposal, see this and Nikki Koenig Nielson's letter to the editor this week about how different what has transpired is from the original intent, and premise for funding
Steve Greenfield J. Robin Ward: she knows she's being taped. She has some kind of compulsive disorder. Back when she was appearing before the Ethics Commission on the Kevin Barry land-Middle School matter, she actually called everyone's attention to the fact that she had only agreed to testify if the meeting was going to be open to the public and recorded. She then lied under oath, and I can prove it with more than one piece of evidence and more than one witness. I've mentioned this several times in this forum, and begged for anyone to help me not be alone in complaining about it, and asked for people to message me, but nobody ever has. And that's why yes, Susan knows she's being recorded. She knows she doesn't have to care. It's a game she plays.
As far as the observation by Mike Russo that at times it sounds like she's openly considering marketing angles, and whether that violates one of the GAP's, well, she's a marketer by trade, not an accountant, and in fact I have never heard her comment upon an issue or candidacy without focusing on the marketing angles rather than the substance. That is why I made the sarcastic comments about the awesome logo. But we need to be smart here. because there's a reason corporations pay their marketers so much more money than their engineers. If we can give the public 200 reasons why the merger proposal is dangerously flawed and well over the line into fraudulent, but the advocates have a great logo, guess who wins?
As far as the observation by Mike Russo that at times it sounds like she's openly considering marketing angles, and whether that violates one of the GAP's, well, she's a marketer by trade, not an accountant, and in fact I have never heard her comment upon an issue or candidacy without focusing on the marketing angles rather than the substance. That is why I made the sarcastic comments about the awesome logo. But we need to be smart here. because there's a reason corporations pay their marketers so much more money than their engineers. If we can give the public 200 reasons why the merger proposal is dangerously flawed and well over the line into fraudulent, but the advocates have a great logo, guess who wins?
Mike Russo Let's bear in mind that objectivity and accuracy are two different things. Mistakes can be made in any study. It is possible that a biased group can still come up with correct figures, and conversely a neutral third-party can produce a report with many errors. But the presence of bias opens up a wide avenue for erroneous information to flow into a given study. There should be no pretense of objectivity in a study when bias is present. Obviously, a report from a biased group does not carry the same weight as an objective professional report, and it warrants a greater depth and degree of scrutiny. One would expect the vetting process for a report from a biased group to take a considerably longer time.
I can idealize a way to get to reasonable results among biased parties (without an objective study) might be if advocates of an issue to say to the public: "We're going to put together a study and try to be as objective as possible. But we recognize that our bias may color our judgment so when we give you the finished study, we are going to give you all the pertinent information that led us to our results, and then any of you who are skeptical can critique it and show us where you think we made mistakes or chose wrong assumptions. And then we can talk about those aspects and try to reach a common understanding, or at least isolate those aspects to that we cannot agree. And then from there, we can put out a report that shows the conclusions reached in common by advocates and skeptics, and the various positions on those conclusions about which there is disagreement."
This situation did not go that way. Here we had a biased group -- without a doubt, a group who worked very hard for many months -- but nevertheless a biased group who was already promoting in the press that a savings of $1.4 million had been identified, months before the report was released to the public or approved by the town and village boards. And when the report was released, there was very little in the form of explanations of the various claims of savings. And when obvious and predictable questions were then asked about some of the very high estimations of savings, information explaining those claims was still not prepared or readily shared. And yet, the biased group continues to insist on a rapid timeline for decision-making - why? Well, now we know it is because they are afraid they will lose the ability to control the process by the time of Village elections this May.
I can idealize a way to get to reasonable results among biased parties (without an objective study) might be if advocates of an issue to say to the public: "We're going to put together a study and try to be as objective as possible. But we recognize that our bias may color our judgment so when we give you the finished study, we are going to give you all the pertinent information that led us to our results, and then any of you who are skeptical can critique it and show us where you think we made mistakes or chose wrong assumptions. And then we can talk about those aspects and try to reach a common understanding, or at least isolate those aspects to that we cannot agree. And then from there, we can put out a report that shows the conclusions reached in common by advocates and skeptics, and the various positions on those conclusions about which there is disagreement."
This situation did not go that way. Here we had a biased group -- without a doubt, a group who worked very hard for many months -- but nevertheless a biased group who was already promoting in the press that a savings of $1.4 million had been identified, months before the report was released to the public or approved by the town and village boards. And when the report was released, there was very little in the form of explanations of the various claims of savings. And when obvious and predictable questions were then asked about some of the very high estimations of savings, information explaining those claims was still not prepared or readily shared. And yet, the biased group continues to insist on a rapid timeline for decision-making - why? Well, now we know it is because they are afraid they will lose the ability to control the process by the time of Village elections this May.
Steve Greenfield If consolidation could be objectively determined to be useful, the timeline wouldn't matter. The numbers would speak for themselves. There could be public officials who would still oppose consolidation for other reasons, but the whole point of a financial report is to let the numbers speak for themselves. Instead we got a report in which all the numbers prompt questions, questions for which the answers are being refused and blocked. I suggest using the election timeline quotes as the reason why the vote needs to be delayed until some semblance of mathematical utility can be restored to the report. I suggest taking those quotes to appropriate state authorities. There's a case to be made here, on several levels, for abuse of power.
Steve Greenfield Perhaps our only demands at this time should just be turn over the financial report to an independent auditor with full access to public records and personnel, and and put a moratorium on guessing at vote dates until that report has come back and been discussed. That way, we can (hopefully) eventually get some information, while avoiding the accusation that we're specifically opposing consolidation -- which I, for one, am not at this time.
Mike Russo Independent auditor, yes, but being that we've gone this far already in looking at this stuff, I'd like the public to have access to those records as well; and for the auditor to take full stock of all questions/comments raised by the public before they commence with their review, so that their examination is assisted contextually by those questions; and for the auditor to include answers to those questions raised by the public in their report.
Jason West Begin forwarded message:
From: <Mayor@villageofnewpaltz.org>
Date: January 18, 2013, 6:06:12 PM EST
To: Katy Bunker <villageclerk@villageofnewpaltz.org>, <clerk@townofnewpaltz.org>
Cc: Sally Rhoads <sallymrhoads@gmail.com>, Ariana Basco <basco54@gmail.com>, Stewart Glenn <stewartglennnewpaltztrustee@gmail.com>, Brian Kimbiz <briankimbiztrustee@gmail.com>, <supervisorzimet@townofnewpaltz.org>, <planb@hvc.rr.com>, Jeff Logan <jtlogan6@aol.com>, Jean Gallucci <jpgallucci@gmail.com>, Kevin Barry <kevinbarylaw@yahoo.com>, Joseph Eriole <vonplawyer@live.com>
Subject: FOIL request
Katy and Roseanna -
I came across the followin passage on page 10.1 of the NYCOM Handbook for Village Officials. I thought it may be useful in figuring out how you will fill my FOIL request for all emails between Finance Committee members:
"A record is considered any information available in physical form. This definition includes...records maintained in a computer. It includes all records pertaining to Village business regardless of where the record is kept. This would include village records even though the record may not be physically located in the village clerk's office, such as a letter addressed to the village which the mayor may have at his or her home or records pertaining to village business even though they may be kept in the village attorney's office"
Clearly, emails among formally appointed committee members discussing the financial future if the village meets this standard even if tey are all on the members's home computers.
The handbook goes on to explain the appeals process if requests are denied, and the applicability of filing an Article 78 lawsuit if such request seem to be illegally denied.
I'd like to let you know of my intention to bring such suit if it becomes necessary.
I know this one may leave you scratching your heads a bit, but please discuss with our respective corporation counsels and/or Bob Freeman.
I'm happy to be patient, but not beyond the deadlines set by state law.
Thanks
Jason
From: <Mayor@villageofnewpaltz.org>
Date: January 18, 2013, 6:06:12 PM EST
To: Katy Bunker <villageclerk@villageofnewpaltz.org>, <clerk@townofnewpaltz.org>
Cc: Sally Rhoads <sallymrhoads@gmail.com>, Ariana Basco <basco54@gmail.com>, Stewart Glenn <stewartglennnewpaltztrustee@gmail.com>, Brian Kimbiz <briankimbiztrustee@gmail.com>, <supervisorzimet@townofnewpaltz.org>, <planb@hvc.rr.com>, Jeff Logan <jtlogan6@aol.com>, Jean Gallucci <jpgallucci@gmail.com>, Kevin Barry <kevinbarylaw@yahoo.com>, Joseph Eriole <vonplawyer@live.com>
Subject: FOIL request
Katy and Roseanna -
I came across the followin passage on page 10.1 of the NYCOM Handbook for Village Officials. I thought it may be useful in figuring out how you will fill my FOIL request for all emails between Finance Committee members:
"A record is considered any information available in physical form. This definition includes...records maintained in a computer. It includes all records pertaining to Village business regardless of where the record is kept. This would include village records even though the record may not be physically located in the village clerk's office, such as a letter addressed to the village which the mayor may have at his or her home or records pertaining to village business even though they may be kept in the village attorney's office"
Clearly, emails among formally appointed committee members discussing the financial future if the village meets this standard even if tey are all on the members's home computers.
The handbook goes on to explain the appeals process if requests are denied, and the applicability of filing an Article 78 lawsuit if such request seem to be illegally denied.
I'd like to let you know of my intention to bring such suit if it becomes necessary.
I know this one may leave you scratching your heads a bit, but please discuss with our respective corporation counsels and/or Bob Freeman.
I'm happy to be patient, but not beyond the deadlines set by state law.
Thanks
Jason
January 21 at 4:59pm via mobile · · 3
Jason West Katy -
As a follow-up to my FOIL request:
I understand from FC videos that Nancy took extensive notes throughout the process.
In addition, one would assume she was copied on most if not all FC emails and other documents.
Please acquire copies of such records from the Village Treasurer. Given the time constraints, refusal to provide records by the FC and likely lawsuits to acquire them, I am following up with you as our Records Management Officer in order to keep request formal. Rather than informally asking Nancy.
Thank You
Jason
As a follow-up to my FOIL request:
I understand from FC videos that Nancy took extensive notes throughout the process.
In addition, one would assume she was copied on most if not all FC emails and other documents.
Please acquire copies of such records from the Village Treasurer. Given the time constraints, refusal to provide records by the FC and likely lawsuits to acquire them, I am following up with you as our Records Management Officer in order to keep request formal. Rather than informally asking Nancy.
Thank You
Jason
January 21 at 5:00pm via mobile · · 3
Jason West I was just copied on this email from Sally Rhoads to Village Clerk Katy Bunker regarding my FOIL request:
"Dear Katie,
You have in your possession as Clerk of the Village, the 2011 Annual Report for the Village, the 2012 Village budget, the Auditor's report to the Village for 2011, the 2011 Town annual report to the auditor, the Town 2013 budget, the discs of all finance meetings unless you were unable to have a film person there, a list of all meetings, dates and locations, the speadsheet and report, the water and sewer rates for the Village and Town.
The only thing you did not have, which you do now, is the email to Chris and Bleu summarizing how they recommended the DPW budget be done. I handed this document out on Tues. evening.
If I missed anything you undoubtedly have access to it as we worked from Village/Town public financial figures.
Sally"
"Dear Katie,
You have in your possession as Clerk of the Village, the 2011 Annual Report for the Village, the 2012 Village budget, the Auditor's report to the Village for 2011, the 2011 Town annual report to the auditor, the Town 2013 budget, the discs of all finance meetings unless you were unable to have a film person there, a list of all meetings, dates and locations, the speadsheet and report, the water and sewer rates for the Village and Town.
The only thing you did not have, which you do now, is the email to Chris and Bleu summarizing how they recommended the DPW budget be done. I handed this document out on Tues. evening.
If I missed anything you undoubtedly have access to it as we worked from Village/Town public financial figures.
Sally"
January 22 at 1:15am via mobile ·
Jason West My response:
"Dear Katy -
Please be aware that the documents Sally references do not meet the criteria of documents covered by my FOIL request.
I am, of course, aware of the records Sally mentions in her email. And she, of course, is correct that these records are both already public and in my possession.
In case there is confusion, I am requesting ALL INTERNAL records generated by and between Volunteer Finance Committee records relating to the internal discussion of FC members. I assume more than a single email was created as FC members discussed among themselves the pros and cons and savings of various aspects of their work: internal email debate, rough drafts of spreadsheets, etc.
Sally's email is on its' face immaterial to my request
Thanks
Jason"
"Dear Katy -
Please be aware that the documents Sally references do not meet the criteria of documents covered by my FOIL request.
I am, of course, aware of the records Sally mentions in her email. And she, of course, is correct that these records are both already public and in my possession.
In case there is confusion, I am requesting ALL INTERNAL records generated by and between Volunteer Finance Committee records relating to the internal discussion of FC members. I assume more than a single email was created as FC members discussed among themselves the pros and cons and savings of various aspects of their work: internal email debate, rough drafts of spreadsheets, etc.
Sally's email is on its' face immaterial to my request
Thanks
Jason"
January 22 at 1:21am via mobile · · 1
Mike Russo Jason -- please post Sally's email to Chris and Bleu summarizing how they recommended the DPW budget be done. She handed copies only to the elected officials. You can post it here on this FB page using "Add Files" if you don't want to put it on the Village website. Thx.
Jason West I was only given a hard copy.
Jason West I posted the relevant sections above.
Jason West Once i get an electronic copy, I will post it so that anyone interested can confirm that I did, indeed, re-type all relevant passages.
Steve Greenfield The "relevant section" is a fail. It shows nothing. It's just two numbers added together with no information on how they were arrived at that specifically relates to combination. As far as I can tell they are just the two dept. budgets added together, as they already are, showing reductions both have already made.
Mike Russo Sally's email gives no information about the actual ways that savings will be achieved. We have a mish-mosh of information when we compare what Susan said at the 11/5 meeting, Sally and Susan said at the 12/3 meeting and what Susan said at the 1/15 T/V meeting (some of which was utterly in contradiction to her last comments of the 12/3 meeting). As for whatever portion of the savings is attributed to the joint buying of salt and macadam, we sure don't need consolidation to do that.
In the 12/3 meeting, it sounded like specific details existed on how the $520,077 in savings would be generated. Those details may or may not have gotten to the whole FC, but it does seem to have existed between Susan, Sally, Bleu and Chris. And there's those comments at the meeting 48m20s by Susan about how Chris got concerned about the $520k number but she sat down with him and reviewed the figures and "they were able to build back up to that number." Then Ross asks "the same number?" and Susan says "pretty much."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Do7Xggy8LM&feature=youtu.be&t=41m00s
Hopefully, we'll get a full response from KT's very detailed inquiry that she sent to Chris.
In the 12/3 meeting, it sounded like specific details existed on how the $520,077 in savings would be generated. Those details may or may not have gotten to the whole FC, but it does seem to have existed between Susan, Sally, Bleu and Chris. And there's those comments at the meeting 48m20s by Susan about how Chris got concerned about the $520k number but she sat down with him and reviewed the figures and "they were able to build back up to that number." Then Ross asks "the same number?" and Susan says "pretty much."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Do7Xggy8LM&feature=youtu.be&t=41m00s
Hopefully, we'll get a full response from KT's very detailed inquiry that she sent to Chris.
Jason West Steve Greenfield and Mike Russo. I think you misundertand: what Steve describes above is EXACTLY how they invented savings. It's utterly irrational, wildly irresponsible and outright dishonest. It's exactly as if - to find out how much a consolidated Treasurer's office was, you just subtracted the 2009 Treasurer budget from the 2011 Treasurer budget, did the same thing in the Town and called it a savings. THAT is their "methodology", if Sally's insistence that that one email explains it all is any indication.
Jason West And Mike Russo, don't forget, Bleu insists that he, Chris, Susan and Sally NEVER IDENTIFIED ANY SAVINGS to merging DPW and Town Highway. Never happened. If savings were identified, they were identified without the input or participation of the Village Superintendant of Public Works. He told me he called Sally to set up a meeting to ask where her numbers came from.
Jason West "From: Bleu Terwilliger
Sent: Wednesday, January 16, 2013 2:03 PM
To: Jason West
Subject: Finance Report
Hi, Mayor
As pertaining to your question on a total savings of $520,077 in DPW and Town Highway savings I don't know how the finance committee came up with these savings. I had one meeting on October 19, 2012 at 10AM in Village Hall with two committee members and Town Highway Superintendent Chris Marx. At that meeting my recommendation was to use the current 2012-2013 Village budget for actual expenditures and comparisons.
Thanks,
Bleu"
Sent: Wednesday, January 16, 2013 2:03 PM
To: Jason West
Subject: Finance Report
Hi, Mayor
As pertaining to your question on a total savings of $520,077 in DPW and Town Highway savings I don't know how the finance committee came up with these savings. I had one meeting on October 19, 2012 at 10AM in Village Hall with two committee members and Town Highway Superintendent Chris Marx. At that meeting my recommendation was to use the current 2012-2013 Village budget for actual expenditures and comparisons.
Thanks,
Bleu"
Mike Russo Jason West, I agree with you in saying "THAT is their 'methodology'" for how they got to the $520,077, although it's contrary to the methodology described in the 3rd paragraph of the report, that was used for many other lines, and that was reiterated by Susan at the 1/15 meeting when she says "What our charge was..." However, it stills seems to me that some specifics were discussed at some point. What was on the outline that Sally sent to Beau and Chris, per Sally's comment: "the outline of the results of our discussion and what was what and where was where, and he [Chris] did not call me so I'm going to go with the results of the discussion" (see my post Sunday 12:59am). Susan makes it sound like details were discussed when she describes her talk with Chris at the 11/5 meeting (see my post Sunday 11:44pm).
Steve Greenfield We've already discussed that Susan is a compulsive liar, even to the point of doing it under oath. Do you remember her denials in the newspaper after I revealed she was running for Supervisor? Do you remember her assertion that if she sold her house, she'd buy another one in New Paltz? Just because she said on tape that details were discussed doesn't mean they were -- it just means she wants you to think they were so you'll accept the numbers. If Bleu says he had just one meeting with them, and all he discussed was standardizing source material, I would be hard-pressed not to take that at face value. And if anything further was discussed with Chris, but without Bleu, then the results are not valid. I think the critical takeaway here is that nobody ever asked the department head(s) what exactly they could save if their departments were merged, in facilities, purchasing, and operations, that they currently cannot save due to their being separate. That's all the FC was supposed to determine, and quite clearly they did not do that. As far as I'm concerned the report is trash, and we probably don't need to fine tooth comb every word and number. We've already determined that almost none of the report is what it claims to be.
Mike Russo Didn't make it to the Village Board meeting tonight but I listened to a bit of the 12/10 FC meeting where the committee reviews their final figures "to make sure everything ... is copasetic." At 4:07, Sally says "... Nancy and I on Friday added complete footnotes, so that the explanation for what we did is there."
The brief single sentences in the Notes column of the Expenditures spreadsheet is supposed to be "complete footnotes" and apparently adequate explanations. We know that Sally and Nancy have worked with professional-grade reports for years, so how could they possibly think that these brief phrases are "complete" footnotes (aside from the fact that technically they aren't footnotes at all)?
http://youtu.be/boq1suqUrRg?t=3m40s
The brief single sentences in the Notes column of the Expenditures spreadsheet is supposed to be "complete footnotes" and apparently adequate explanations. We know that Sally and Nancy have worked with professional-grade reports for years, so how could they possibly think that these brief phrases are "complete" footnotes (aside from the fact that technically they aren't footnotes at all)?
http://youtu.be/boq1suqUrRg?t=3m40s
January 23 at 10:28pm · · · 2 ·
Mike Russo 12/10 FC meeting 5m40s. Committee reviews the group of lines represented by A1340.1 Budget, A1325.1 Treasurer's Office, and A1430.1 Personnel/Payroll, which jointly show a savings of $68,935. Dave questions this, asking "that's sufficient to handle all of that operation?"
Sally: "yep"
Nancy: "yeah, it's just moving their bodies into this office..."
...
Dave: "...all I'm questioning is, you know -- trying to be devil's advocate a little bit, okay -- we're talking about total savings of ... $67,000 between that combination..."
...
The exchange continues and Nancy suggests breaking out the contractual costs because that would explain help the difference, but Sally and Dave say no, that'll make it more confusing. [though actually it would help]
Nancy then says: "because their actual salaries, per Susan, are covered in that $74,000"
Dave: "okay"
Had they actually looked at the contractual expenses associated with those lines, they would have seen that all combined contractual doesn't COME CLOSE to adding up to $68,935 in savings -- in fact, it's only about $4,000 each for town and village. So what about the other $60,000? How many of those bookkeeper bodies are not being moved into the new office, but are actually going to be pink slipped?
Note about Dave Lent: In the videos I've watched, Dave often questions things, but he doesn't stay with it -- he ends up just consenting. I wish he had looked deeper when he thought the numbers didn't make sense, because his instincts were correct. His role in the FC committee was more facilitative -- that is, until the FC committee presented its findings when he unfortunately was willing to be front man for their sketchy work. In a different work group, without Susan and especially Sally driving hard for deep savings, I think Dave would have reached more sound conclusions.
http://youtu.be/boq1suqUrRg?t=5m40s
Sally: "yep"
Nancy: "yeah, it's just moving their bodies into this office..."
...
Dave: "...all I'm questioning is, you know -- trying to be devil's advocate a little bit, okay -- we're talking about total savings of ... $67,000 between that combination..."
...
The exchange continues and Nancy suggests breaking out the contractual costs because that would explain help the difference, but Sally and Dave say no, that'll make it more confusing. [though actually it would help]
Nancy then says: "because their actual salaries, per Susan, are covered in that $74,000"
Dave: "okay"
Had they actually looked at the contractual expenses associated with those lines, they would have seen that all combined contractual doesn't COME CLOSE to adding up to $68,935 in savings -- in fact, it's only about $4,000 each for town and village. So what about the other $60,000? How many of those bookkeeper bodies are not being moved into the new office, but are actually going to be pink slipped?
Note about Dave Lent: In the videos I've watched, Dave often questions things, but he doesn't stay with it -- he ends up just consenting. I wish he had looked deeper when he thought the numbers didn't make sense, because his instincts were correct. His role in the FC committee was more facilitative -- that is, until the FC committee presented its findings when he unfortunately was willing to be front man for their sketchy work. In a different work group, without Susan and especially Sally driving hard for deep savings, I think Dave would have reached more sound conclusions.
http://youtu.be/boq1suqUrRg?t=5m40s
January 24 at 12:38am · · ·
Mike Russo Posted at www.townofnewpaltz.org
REGARDING CONSOLIDATION:
The Finance Committee will be scheduling meetings to share the thought process on consolidation savings on behalf of the public. We will be providing forums, presentation material and video explanations. This will provide the opportunity for the public to have an open dialogue in a non-confrontational setting.
The work of the Finance Committee was the best efforts of highly dedicated and qualified people. The committee members were the chief fiscal officer of the Town, the treasurer of the Village, former chief fiscal officer of the Town, a financial auditor, a lawyer with years of expertise on town and village government, and current deputy mayor who has served on the school board and library board. The numbers used were from the financial reports filed with the State Comptroller’s office, combined with consulting with various department heads. Our decisions reflect our thinking of what a consolidated government would look like.
Individuals can agree, disagree or be somewhere in the middle. However, the discourse should be civil and respectful.
It is our community and we all share it. How we move forward in the future is a decision that should be made by the voters.
To those that truly care about an open an honest discussion, there will be the opportunity.
REGARDING CONSOLIDATION:
The Finance Committee will be scheduling meetings to share the thought process on consolidation savings on behalf of the public. We will be providing forums, presentation material and video explanations. This will provide the opportunity for the public to have an open dialogue in a non-confrontational setting.
The work of the Finance Committee was the best efforts of highly dedicated and qualified people. The committee members were the chief fiscal officer of the Town, the treasurer of the Village, former chief fiscal officer of the Town, a financial auditor, a lawyer with years of expertise on town and village government, and current deputy mayor who has served on the school board and library board. The numbers used were from the financial reports filed with the State Comptroller’s office, combined with consulting with various department heads. Our decisions reflect our thinking of what a consolidated government would look like.
Individuals can agree, disagree or be somewhere in the middle. However, the discourse should be civil and respectful.
It is our community and we all share it. How we move forward in the future is a decision that should be made by the voters.
To those that truly care about an open an honest discussion, there will be the opportunity.
Mike Russo I am reposting below these two entries by Steve and I, in the hopes that we can stay focused on reasonable and achievable goals, and not get sidetracked by squabbling and personal reactions, no matter how difficult that may be to bear for some of us who are questioning the report. It's obvious that the work produced by the Fiscal Committee suffers from bias and thus its claims cannot be represented as objective; it also suffers from flaws in consistency of methodology, inadequate disclosure, and lack of accounting conservatism in its estimations, which appear to be greatly inaccurate for many accounts. Therefore, it is improper to claim the the report's results have any degree of likelihood unless they are validated by an independent and unassociated accounting firm, with a review of adequate scope and depth, and which is given a full account of the information used to develop the report's figures, and various questions brought up by its critics.
Steve Greenfield: Perhaps our only demands at this time should just be turn over the financial report to an independent auditor with full access to public records and personnel, and and put a moratorium on guessing at vote dates until that report has come back and been discussed. That way, we can (hopefully) eventually get some information, while avoiding the accusation that we're specifically opposing consolidation -- which I, for one, am not at this time.
Monday at 2:13pm · · 2
Mike Russo: Independent auditor, yes, but being that we've gone this far already in looking at this stuff, I'd like the public to have access to those records as well; and for the auditor to take full stock of all questions/comments raised by the public before they commence with their review, so that their examination is assisted contextually by those questions; and for the auditor to include answers to those questions raised by the public in their report.
Monday at 4:23pm · Like · 2
Steve Greenfield: Perhaps our only demands at this time should just be turn over the financial report to an independent auditor with full access to public records and personnel, and and put a moratorium on guessing at vote dates until that report has come back and been discussed. That way, we can (hopefully) eventually get some information, while avoiding the accusation that we're specifically opposing consolidation -- which I, for one, am not at this time.
Monday at 2:13pm · · 2
Mike Russo: Independent auditor, yes, but being that we've gone this far already in looking at this stuff, I'd like the public to have access to those records as well; and for the auditor to take full stock of all questions/comments raised by the public before they commence with their review, so that their examination is assisted contextually by those questions; and for the auditor to include answers to those questions raised by the public in their report.
Monday at 4:23pm · Like · 2
KT Kathleen Tobin Chris Marx responded to my inquiry. All the proposed savings ($520K) cuts were already made in the 2013 town budget - with consolidation in mind, including 4 positions ($320K) and the remainder $200K (not buying stuff he knows the village has). All onetime costs, already instituted with the assumption of merger in the short term. Highway Dept in no way can or will cut more people, can not do that safely. Overall it appears none of the cuts require consolidation & he has some great ideas for efficiency that could easily be implemented via inter-municipal agreements.
KT Kathleen Tobin It was unclear - in my conversation with Chris - whether or not they may need to hire some people back if there is not consolidation. But comments by the town supervisor in the FC meeting videos indicate that nothing will put back in. So, these cuts were made as part of her under-the-tax-cap-give-herself-a-raise-budget-package.
Guy Thomas Kempe This is non-sensical, I think. The "manning" levels in the Town Highway Dept and Buildings & Grounds, and in the Village DPW do not necessarily constitute an overlap in personnel capacity to deliver the needed services to a combined town/village. Onewould need to drill down to job titles/descrpitions, hours worked, and identify the surplus hours in both payrolls to identify the BINGO for cuts/ taxpayer savings. As near as I can determine, this exercise has not been undertaken.
Steve Greenfield staffing...
Guy Thomas Kempe when I woked for the town, they were called "manning tables." hence, the quotes.
KT Kathleen Tobin page 8, Fairweather report: ".. there is little if any true duplication of services in the Town and Village; though some services are equivalent, they are generally provided to different consumers."
Jeff Logan I have discussed hours with Chris, we have reduced his work force by 2. Under Mike the work force was reduced by a head or so through attrition and reorg. We have had a dept head retire in water and sewer ..... but ..... as I said and is still be included much of his billing was to special districts so the money would not reduce taxes, just reduce the special districts he worked in.
Guy Thomas Kempe Kt, I think Fairweather has that about right. There may be an opportunity to integrate/merge the services of the building departments. Folks have talked for years about Hghway/DPW, but the truth is they are as efficient as currently structured.
Jeff Logan As has been said and several have pointed out. We can have muni agreements for hyway and grow the village out to take over sewer/water. The annexation of these lands, I will make this simple, will be a major benefit to the special districts since they pay 150% of water rates to cover expense, there bills go down. The people working in town water sewer will be needed in village since users will be same, or may grow since more available to get water sewer and the town will remain a rural highway dept.
Jeff Logan The assumptions do not look at % of time in special districs that do not effect all, just some. Chris run a great crew, they do a incredible job with the crew they have and 60+ miles of roads (and growing). I cannot see how merging would reduce workers.
Jeff Logan I spoke to Cathy our building inspector/fire inspector/code enforcement/plan review = Building Inspector 1 is title and no one has once asked her about consolidation and what she thinks. 5 years ago we had 3 full time people in that office we are now 1.5, how is consolidation going to improve this? go down to 1 or .5. Laws and zoning without enforcement or inspection do not work
Guy Thomas Kempe Jeff, I think annexation is an unnecessary remedy to a governance management issue, and previously pointed out to you that it is inappropriate under the state law. The 150% charge to town customers was merely a political decision by the Village agreedto by the Town, and I would add its unjustified and unnecessary. The rates to customers should be established for all customers of the system regardless to municipal bounds by an Inter-Municipal Water Board. This is one of the issues that routinely pisses off both town and village residents, which gives rise to the Town's impluse to dissolve the Village. Special taxation for infrastructure within the individual districts could simply be based upon the investment and debt in those districts.
Jeff Logan I will make it simple. Annexation has been down in past and has been done 2x in last 5 years. It is legal and is for the advantage of the people in the areas to be annexed, of course it is up to them, it is a vote. The rates are set to pay for services, if we charge the same for water sewer we are being billed then who pays for workers? Your wrong - they have to be paid by distric. Thre are separate rates in some districs and the rates increase for higher use so the higher users pay more for service since they use system more.
Steve Greenfield What time and location for this meeting?
Katherine Preston 7:30, Town Hall (if you mean tonight's meeting?)
Jeff Logan The fee is not actually for the water, its for the delivery system. The cubic foot charge is to have a equatable system of billing. If one looks at all the tables that I worked on with Dave closuser, since Toni and previous administrations had several running at loss. We established new rates to cover expenses. If sewer/water went to village then it would make it more equatable for all users on system and not have to manage a bunch of special districs.
Steve Greenfield Yes, tonight. I don't want to show up at 7:30 and find out I missed 30 minutes of wonderful public comment. So it is 7:30?
Guy Thomas Kempe Let me try to be clear as the water from the NYC aquaduct. The cost of the water that serves town customers through the village delivery system is the same. Does the Village treat the water? no. They provide a simple conveyance. The costs of the individual delivery systems in the town are a seperate matter.
Jeff Logan Sewer 6 is a totally different mess. The other district debt would have to be discussed with state comptroller, but these debts are very small and would not be a issue. The east of NYS Tway sewer district and 1 water district west of wallkill may need to stay in town since very rural and only exist since water from aqueduct passes right through property.
Guy Thomas Kempe We agree that Sewer 6 is an independent matter
Jeff Logan yes its the same - to use simple numbers ... the village charges us $1.00 per bucket of water it then goes to home in town. We the town has a crew that is responsible for delivery system from village line to town resident. If we bill $1/bucket then who pays? it is illegal to pay out of any other fund that special district, so town must bill $1.50/bucket (or around there) to pay for workers. would be better for all if we just annexed all to village and then all is run by one dept and reduce billing headaches
Jeff Logan and reduce wtaer/sewer bills to special district users. The additional growth of system could also help to pay for upgrades needed. All this is legal and could be presented to areas effected and fullfill the requirement that it is for the benefit of all.
Katherine Preston yes, Steve, starts 7:30
Guy Thomas Kempe Jeff, there is no justificaton, rationale or requirement that the base water rate charged by the village to the town have an upcharge. There is no added costs for the village to convey the NYC aquaduct water to town water customers. I understand that the town has added costs associated with system maintenance to pass on to its customers, but that is a different matter.
Jason West the additional cost is standard and oftern lower than other similar arrangements (at the time often 200-300% ). as guy says it was a policy decision based on Village residents iwnership of the system and an understanding of fiduciary responsibility to village residents to lower their costs in exchange for selling water to non-villagers. agree or not, it's at least understandable.
January 24 at 6:43pm via mobile ·
Guy Thomas Kempe Jason, I think we have discussed this before. The impulse to dissolve the Village stems from this sort of impulse. "Standard" is simply not the appropriate standard, and without any better justification it creates the circumstance where town residents resent the village.
Steve Greenfield Can we get back to this after the matter at hand?
Jeff Logan this is the matter. annexation not consolidation. village=density. town=rural. government is to provide to people what they cant provide to themselves ..... and at a appropriate/affordable costs - like up-charging water to pay for same service and 2 neighbors have different rates
KT Kathleen Tobin rationalizing the municipal boundaries to bring them into the 21st century.
Steve Greenfield OK, but right now the matter is what to communicate tonight, and then when that doesn't work, stopping the merger at the ballot, and then we can working on reinforcing my rurality, a topic on which I am still insufficiently informed, but, mercifully, still several months away (at least) from needing to be, which is plenty of time. We have two bridges to drive accross before we're even heading towards that one. My concern is that people who need to be united tonight and over the next few months will become overly concerned about whether we're going to be opposing each other a year from now, and make a poor decision to not work together on the things we agree on. Which reminds me, I have to change into what few articles of clothing I have left that don't say on them anything about a certain organization I'm in, so that it may not be construed that there is an institutional opinion or politicization. Believe it or not, after 9 years, I don't have much left by way of street clothes. I'm going to have to wear my big puffy silly coat. See you shortly.
Mike Russo The matter at hand, however, is good and honest government, not actually consolidation.
Mike Russo That's the message we need to get out to the press, who just want to paint critics of the FB report as anti-consolidation. Some of us might be and some of us may be open to consolidation -- that's not the point. We all reject bad math and backroom tactics as a way to garner votes and push through policy.
January 24 at 7:15pm · · · 2
Mike Russo Okay, there's much to say about this 1/25 meeting but if I knew Susan was going to spend 20+ minutes with a litany of defensive comments, I would have spent more time at the dais giving folks more of a picture of what I saw in the videos I watched.
Now there's a lot of meetings and I only watched a few. I believe the 12/3 meeting is a crucial one, and I spent a lot of time scrutinizing that meeting and watched many segments multiple times. I never saw Dave advocating for a large amount of savings while Susan was holding back. I saw Dave as more a facilitator -- he paused and questioned some of the larger claims of savings but did not delve deep enough -- he ended up just going along with Susan's or Sally's figures. Nancy and Ross played more reserved roles as well, except for the budget/bookkeeping/payroll/Treasurer lines where Nancy pressed for savings, but even then, she ultimately says the savings figures are "per Susan". Ira didn't participate very much in the meetings I watched, (although he did make a case for hiring a controller or manager in a long-term contractual position). So contrary to how Susan portrayed things tonight, at least in the videos I saw, Sally and Susan consistently are the real movers and shakers to maximize the savings claims.
And of course, all of the video segments in this thread gave a link to the video of the WHOLE meeting, and I generally set the time marker back so the context of the discussion could be grasped. So those comments are the very opposite of Susan's example of a deceptive negative campaign clip.
Now there's a lot of meetings and I only watched a few. I believe the 12/3 meeting is a crucial one, and I spent a lot of time scrutinizing that meeting and watched many segments multiple times. I never saw Dave advocating for a large amount of savings while Susan was holding back. I saw Dave as more a facilitator -- he paused and questioned some of the larger claims of savings but did not delve deep enough -- he ended up just going along with Susan's or Sally's figures. Nancy and Ross played more reserved roles as well, except for the budget/bookkeeping/payroll/Treasurer lines where Nancy pressed for savings, but even then, she ultimately says the savings figures are "per Susan". Ira didn't participate very much in the meetings I watched, (although he did make a case for hiring a controller or manager in a long-term contractual position). So contrary to how Susan portrayed things tonight, at least in the videos I saw, Sally and Susan consistently are the real movers and shakers to maximize the savings claims.
And of course, all of the video segments in this thread gave a link to the video of the WHOLE meeting, and I generally set the time marker back so the context of the discussion could be grasped. So those comments are the very opposite of Susan's example of a deceptive negative campaign clip.
January 25 at 12:50am · · · 3
Mike Russo Susan's reaction to the video segment when she talked about the need to rush the vote was interesting -- as she put it, "it was being used against her." No, that segment was mentioned to show that the group was biased, and that when bias is present in such a study, it invalidates any claim of objective results, which means it has to be substantiated by a creditable, competent and neutral third-party.
Mike Russo Sally's point that "audited figures" were used, was meaningless and misleading to the public. It is the Fiscal Committee's savings estimations that are being critiqued, not the figures they used from the Village and Town audits to make those estimations. It is a ridiculous argument and she has made it at two successive T/V meetings -- I cannot see it being anything but an attempt to deceive folks who don't have an understanding of basic budgeting or income projections.
This is as good an analogy as I can come up with right now: If you take two nice colors of paint and crudely mix them together to make a muddy brown, it's the color you created that is of question, not the colors you started with.
This is as good an analogy as I can come up with right now: If you take two nice colors of paint and crudely mix them together to make a muddy brown, it's the color you created that is of question, not the colors you started with.
January 25 at 1:10am · · · 2
Mike Russo Back to the videos for a moment because it's quite funny. At the 1/15 meeting, Susan defended the committee from complaints of lack of supporting documents by saying everything was transparent and all the information is available because every meetingwas videoed -- it's all out there for everyone to watch.
Tonight she takes umbrage from comments drawn from the videos, and cautions everyone that dialogue may be taken out of context. The real problem for her is that the comments extracted from the videos were actually in context.
Tonight she takes umbrage from comments drawn from the videos, and cautions everyone that dialogue may be taken out of context. The real problem for her is that the comments extracted from the videos were actually in context.
January 25 at 1:44am · · · 3
Mike Russo So a number of the board members got that the 2011 analysis was full of holes and may well be an embarrassment if audited.
Quick: New Plan! This time the committee will use current numbers (Kevin's idea). Okay not bad. Ah, but Jean wants the $1 million grant thrown in and the fund balances as well (since the village has debt and the town doesn't). So is that supposed to be a new way of working things to try to keep the town tax rates from increasing because of consolidation? If so, the trouble is:
(1) will we get the $1 million or only a % of it or any of it at all?
(2) even if we get the $1 million, it's still only a short-term thing -- will it last one, two, three years? There's only so much money available in the whole program and lots of municipalities are vying for a share. When that money runs out, what happens to taxes? Do the town rates go up?
(3) much of the village debt service is water and sewer-related and therefore irrelevant to general taxes
(4) if we consider fund balances, are we going to add in all substantive assets and liabilities and make an entire valuation of both village and town? Are we going to consider that the village pulls in far more taxes and revenue per square mile than the town?
Jason -- can you provide the current general debt and debt service of the village? From the VONP 2013 budget, it looks to be about $100,000 per year in debt service and principal repayment going forward, which would be quite a modest figure.
Quick: New Plan! This time the committee will use current numbers (Kevin's idea). Okay not bad. Ah, but Jean wants the $1 million grant thrown in and the fund balances as well (since the village has debt and the town doesn't). So is that supposed to be a new way of working things to try to keep the town tax rates from increasing because of consolidation? If so, the trouble is:
(1) will we get the $1 million or only a % of it or any of it at all?
(2) even if we get the $1 million, it's still only a short-term thing -- will it last one, two, three years? There's only so much money available in the whole program and lots of municipalities are vying for a share. When that money runs out, what happens to taxes? Do the town rates go up?
(3) much of the village debt service is water and sewer-related and therefore irrelevant to general taxes
(4) if we consider fund balances, are we going to add in all substantive assets and liabilities and make an entire valuation of both village and town? Are we going to consider that the village pulls in far more taxes and revenue per square mile than the town?
Jason -- can you provide the current general debt and debt service of the village? From the VONP 2013 budget, it looks to be about $100,000 per year in debt service and principal repayment going forward, which would be quite a modest figure.
S7731-2011 - NY Senate Open Legislation - Provides that municipalities made coterminous may qualify.
m.nysenate.gov
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license are available at http://www.nysenate.gov/copyright-policy.
KT Kathleen Tobin see above, the criteria for distribution has not been determined by the secretary of state yet - "the Secretary of
State is authorized to make rules and regulations to implement the
tax credit in circumstances where the secretary determines that a
coterminous consolidation of the borders of town and village will
result in a savings to taxpayers."
State is authorized to make rules and regulations to implement the
tax credit in circumstances where the secretary determines that a
coterminous consolidation of the borders of town and village will
result in a savings to taxpayers."
January 25 at 7:23am · · · 1
Katherine Preston That's the thing that particularly sticks in my craw-- "may" and "shall" are not the same as "will". There are no guarantees that that money will be forthcoming, and the Supervisor is giving a very strong message that that's a done deal. (Okay, that and the overwhelming message of, "You should appreciate all the hard work we've put into this, hard work hard work hard work hard work is HARD", etc. They're getting *paid* to do this. By us. I'd appreciate it more if it resulted in clear and verifiable answers, and the public wasn't dismissed and condescended to as obstructionist idiots who can't balance a checkbook properly. But I digress.)
Kristin Brown Actually, Kathy, "shall" means no ifs, ands or buts - it a law says you shall, you shall! This is from the law KT talks about above:Within the annual amounts appropriated therefor, surviving muni
cipalities following a consolidation or dissolution occurring on or
after the state fiscal year commencing April first, two thousand seven
shall be awarded additional annual aid,
cipalities following a consolidation or dissolution occurring on or
after the state fiscal year commencing April first, two thousand seven
shall be awarded additional annual aid,
Steve Greenfield I would like to see the actual text of the law, and someplace other than a piece of paper being waved around by Susan Zimet. I do not want to go around believing the million dollars is not guaranteed, triggered entirely by local referendum, if it is. I'd also like to see that it will be in perpetuity, because I would never support a one-time deal that will kick my wallet's ass the following year. We can see all the benefit that's brought to Marlboro and Highland Falls...
Steve Greenfield OK, Kristin Brown, I have read the law as amended for coteriminous. The word "shall" is not germane here. All it says is "may." Many times. I'm not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV, but we all know what that means. We also know that the claim Susan made last night, like so many, many other times, that the grant is triggered by the vote, and that the amount is the full million because our total assessment exceeds the amount for which that would be the grant amount, is, was, and shall (shall, not may) continue to be FALSE. You are on the board longer than anyone. You are trusted, and you care about being trusted. Next Wednesday at the joint meeting, in public, this is going to have to be settled. We are burdened with the most dishonest Supervisor in the history of New Paltz. The rest of the board should not play nicety-nice with that. These are public meetings, These are public proceedings. Allowing Susan to keep lying about this will be enough, in and of itself, to kill a referendum. It may not be enough to trigger an ethics inquiry, which is sad enough, but it will definitely kill the referendum. I'd appreciate it if you'd play a part in stopping this at next Wednesday's meeting.
Steve Greenfield It's not about the sex, it's about the lying...
Steve Greenfield Also, the money for which you may apply to help defray costs of reorganization, to which Susan referred last night, seems to be triggered by a citizen petition. Haven't found the threshold yet. "These grants, which are administered by the Department of State, provide up to $25,000 in immediate financial assistance to a local government petitioned by citizens to act on municipal re-organization to offset expenses related to that process. There is an additional $75,000 that will be made available to assist with re-organization planning and implementation." http://governor.ny.gov/citizenconnects/?q=reforminggovernment/guide-to-consolidating-overlapping-gov
governor.ny.gov
Governor Cuomo created Citizen Empowerment Grants that provides direct financial assistance to local governments to plan for and implement the restructuring of local governments pursuant to the New New York Government Reorganization and Citizen Empowerment Act. These grants, which are administered b...
Steve Greenfield from same link: " not to exceed $1,000,000. This aid can be provided directly to a local government that has re-organized on or after April 1, 2007 and requires that 70 percent of state funds be returned to the citizens of the local governments in the form of direct property tax relief." CAN. Not will, or shall. I await word on where Susan's certainty comes from. I find it in no text, nor on any explanatory pages coming from NY State sources.
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