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Sandy Galef is the Democratic Candidate for 90th Assembly District
The following is her Position Statement:
"As Representative for the 90th Assembly district in Putnam and Westchester Counties, I have worked hard for my constituents. Now, more than ever, my experience will serve the public well. We are facing extremely challenging economic times and the financial burden this places on all of us calls for making tough decisions, prioritizing, and keeping the focus on what is most important to allow our counties to thrive.
"My priorities are:
#1-Lowering the tax burden - I will continue to work to streamline services, consolidate government departments, cap property taxes, implement the tax "circuit breaker." I authored which supports people who pay a disproportionate amount of their income to property taxes, and I will work to reduce or eliminate mandates placed on schools and municipalities which do not come with funding from the state.
Already in this year's budget, I fought for an 11.5% increase in state aid for schools in my district, which followed a 9% increase last year. These record increases were just one way I worked at the state level to keep school taxes down locally. We need to go even farther. My goal for next term is to continue to bring schools, municipalities and residents together to find the most prudent ways to share and consolidate services and cut expenses while maintaining a top-notch education system and quality of life.
I will work to have the state take over the health care costs of school employees, saving local taxpayers 15.25% off of their school bills. By adding to the pool of employees on the state health plan, we can realize savings on premiums paid to insurers, lowering overall costs. Finally, I am exploring legislation to allow BOCES to coordinate and provide services to municipalities as well as schools in order to reduce overlap and cut costs.
#2-Protecting our children and seniors—I will continue to make sure children have adequate health coverage, maintain the expanded Elderly Pharmaceutical Insurance Coverage Program (EPIC), keep tuition assistance programs for college students, press for healthier food in our schools, protect children from on-line sex offenders, increase teen driving regulations, and make sure everyone can afford to heat their homes over the winter.
I will continue my efforts to allocate additional state funds to help people pay their heating bills as well as work to capture the windfall profits from big oil companies. I will enhance efforts to promote the state's Child Health Plus, Family Health Plus, and Healthy New York health insurance programs in order to help more residents who need this important safeguard.
#3-Reforming Albany—I have worked to reform the way government works, to make it more responsible, transparent, accountable and accessible to New Yorkers. We are getting better. I consider myself a citizen-legislator. Many of you have seen me at town meetings, senior forums, chambers of commerce meetings and more. I led the on-time budget battle in Albany and helped take the process out of the back room, resulting in three timely New York budgets in a row. I will work hard this year with the Governor and my colleagues in the legislature to make tough choices about where to make additional cuts to this year's state budget as well as the 2009-2010 budget. I will continue to press for reforms that make Albany a government by and for the people.
"We are truly facing some daunting challenges in the coming years. There will be no easy solutions on either the national or state level. But as your full time representative—your voice—in Albany, you can count on me to seek opportunity in the challenges, to improve controls on state spending, lessen the burden on local taxpayers, and raise the great ship of New York State back to the prominence all hard-working New Yorkers deserve."
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