[vote for Diane, David-- http://www.Diane-Jablonski.com ; http://www.SteinbergforSupremeCourt.com !]
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Don't forget...(note-- first Dem majority in our County Legislature in 30 years is on line today!!!)...
"Only about 42 percent of registered voters in the county went to the polls in the last local election year of 2007, according to Democratic Elections Commissioner Fran Knapp"(!). [Oct. 25th Pok. Journal]
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20091025/NEWS01/910250355/GOP-seeks-to-regain-majority--Dems-confident-of-control
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"Setting the Record Straight on Dutchess County Issues"
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20091016/OPINION/910160349/Setting-the-record-straight-on-Dutchess-County-issues
[Sandy Goldberg is the Dutchess County majority leader and legislator for District 14.]
POUGHKEEPSIE JOURNAL OCTOBER 16, 2009
Misinformation abounds on many different topics in Dutchess County government. It's time to set the record straight. I would like to address five areas:
2009 county budget: The Democratic majority was not responsible for a 10.9 percent tax rate increase. The budget approved by the Legislature had a 2.6 percent increase. It was the county executive's vetoes and the Republican legislators' refusal to consider overrides that set the 2009 budget. The budget passed by the Democratic majority had an $87.3 million property tax levy and the vetoed budget has a $94.6 million tax levy. For towns that are at 100 percent assessment, adjustments were made to assessed value to reflect the changing marketplace. For many, the tax rate applied to the lower assessment resulted in smaller increases than the rhetoric would indicate.
Project Labor Agreement legislation: A PLA only would come into play on projects in excess of $3.5 million and only after a due diligence report showed that a cost savings would occur. A due diligence report ignored by our Public Works Department showed that two Dutchess County projects - the Emergency Response Center and the highway facility - would have saved the county $775,000. The agreement for each project would establish parameters for that specific project, including the proportion of union and nonunion-workers to be employed; the Wicks Law and the costs associated with it would be eliminated; most important, the agreement can specify that local labor be utilized.
PLAs are the only way to guarantee that tax dollars get spent locally.
County's water well testing: The headline in the Poughkeepsie Journal in early September said "Water quality OK in 125 local well tests." The results actually showed that of the 125 wells tested, 46 had total coliform of which four tested positive for the presence of E. coli bacteria, 68 wells had sodium content at greater than recommended levels and 10 had turbidity levels equal to or above state drinking water standards. This does not say OK to me. With the current program, we now have tested 250 wells over two years out of more than 30,000 private wells in our county. We know from experience that an individual well does not necessarily mean that others in the area will reflect similar results. We need to implement more comprehensive private well testing.
Budget requests for the 2010 budget: In an effort to pave the way for a smooth budget process this fall, the Budget and Finance chair and co-chair, Diane Nash and Dan Kuffner, requested information from the county executive's budget office on what programs and services receive reimbursable money from state and federal governments and what the percentage for each is. Other county budgets, such as Orange County, show this in their budget; Dutchess does not. Also requested was information on numbers of people hired during 2009 and the status of vacant positions. Because of the limited time that the Legislature has to review the budget, this information would help the committee prepare for its task. The response received from the county executive did not address the information sought, but rather was used as an opportunity for inflammatory rhetoric. It was our intent to have the information that would be needed to do a fair and thorough budget review. In these difficult economic times, it would have made sense, as other counties have done, to have had dialogue about the upcoming budget.
Dutchess Community College contract and taxpayer Cost: There was a great uproar when the Legislature approved the contract between the faculty and the college, a contract approved and agreed to by the DCC Board and the Dutchess United Educators. The fact is that this contract did not increase the county's contribution to the college. In the summer we passed the community college budget with no increase in the county contribution for the coming year! Change in the health plan saves DCC approximately $700,000 over three years and opens the door for like savings with other unions on campus. Early retirement reduces expenses; since 1997, early retirement incentives and sick pay cost the college $776,426 while the salary savings from the time of retirement until age 65 was $4,686,616 through 2008-2009.
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