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Bondi Points to Budget Woes in Declining to Fund Cold Spring 2008 Refuse Grant
County Exec announces County hiring freeze and discontinuance of funding for School Resource Officers
by Margaret Sternberg
Although a resolution giving a $7,500 Cold Spring/County Tourism Partnership grant from the County was approved in the Legislature's Economic Development Committee two weeks ago following a request by Mayor Anthony Phillips and Legislator Vinny Tamagna, hope dimmed for Cold Spring to actually get the funds when, during the Legislature's March 24, 2008 Audit Committee meeting, it was learned that County Executive Bob Bondi had not issued a resolution authorizing the disbursement of the funds to the Village.
The funds, because they had not been specifically allocated for in the 2008 budget, are required to be taken from the Contingency Fund and should have been approved by Mr. Bondi prior to any Legislative approval.
Mr. Bondi said that he will not approve the funds, saying in a memo to Tony Hay, Chairman of the Legislature, "I cannot in good conscience agree to fund a program that is currently not in the 2008 budget. We must begin to rein in our costs somewhere and, certainly, refusing to appropriate funds that are not even in this year's budget is a perfect place to start."
Mr. Bondi announced a hiring freeze the following day and forecasted "many layoffs" within the County. He also said that he had not signed any requests to fill vacancies and has told departments for which he had already signed off on requests to fill vacancies not to hire the additional personnel, citing a lack of money to fill the positions. One of the affected positions is Assistant Coordinator in the Office for People with Disabilities, a position paying $27,589 per year.
Mr. Bondi also cited the County's discontinuance of its half of funding for the School Resource Officers that several of the school districts in the County now have. According to him, doing so would save the County $336,610. Mr. Bondi said that not restoring the refuse funds to Cold Spring is "one part of the County's response to rapidly deteriorating economic conditions not only for the Hudson Valley region, but for the State of New York."
Not surprisingly, Legislator Vinny Tamagna, who represents Cold Spring and Cold Spring Mayor Anthony Phillips were not pleased with Mr. Bondi's decision.
Legislator Tamagna described the action as "outrageous. It's $7,500 out of a $128 million budget. It's about our economy and the economy of Putnam County and how Cold Spring contributes to that..." Calling Mr. Bondi "out of touch with the business community," Legislator Tamagna called the action "short-sighted on building economic development for this County. If you're not supporting business and economic development for the sales tax, I don't know what the County will do."
At times sounding almost in shock, Mayor Phillips repeatedly said he was "surprised" at Mr. Bondi's action, saying there was not much he could do at this point to get the funds. Citing County use of the Cold Spring salt shed in exchange for free salt spreading during the winter, Mayor Phillips questioned where the Village/ County partnership was headed. "It doesn't make sense. Garbage is a serious issue if you're going to promote tourism," Phillips said.
Although Mayor Phillips said that he hadn't realized the Village would not receive the funding, both the County Executive's office and a source within the Legislative office said the Mayor had been apprised the prior week, in writing, that funding would have ended last year had it not been the case that the Mayor was never notified the funding had been stopped, which is the reason the Village received 2007 funding. The letter advised him there would be no county funding for Cold Spring refuse in 2008.
Despite the ominous news of a possible 22 percent property tax increase that occasioned the refusal to fund Cold Spring's $7,500 request, the Sales Tax Report showed revenues for January and February approximately $675,000 ahead of last year at the same time and approximately $194,000 ahead of the average monthly amount needed to meet the $48,774,100 budgeted for sales tax revenue for 2008.
The budget crisis also made itself felt in another part of the Audit Committee meeting when a resolution by the County Executive did not get approved even at Committee level. The resolution stated that both the County Executive and the Legislature would ensure that "reductions, cuts and eliminations will be shared equally by each and every department of County Government."
Legislature Chairman Tony Hay derided the resolution, saying "I don't…and this Legislative body doesn't need a Legislative resolution to tell it how to do its job." Hay said that he wanted the County Executive or his representative to "come to this Legislature [in April and every month thereafter during budget deliberations] and tell us the ideas you have in mind to reduce the budget. The resolution is worthless. Come to us; let's start working together to get these big ticket items on the table…so we can start discussing it so we have a good idea where we're going to go…"
The April meeting of the Audit Committee will be posted on the PCN&R's website as soon as it becomes available.
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