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November 7, 2009

Lawmaker looks to push deadline

By DENISE A. RAYMO

MALONE — One Franklin County lawmaker wants to rescind a 13-year-old local law that established Oct. 1 as the filing deadline for a tentative county budget.

Timothy Burpoe (D-Saranac Lake) said the artificial date leaves too many unanswered questions and not enough solid reimbursement and revenue numbers to formulate a wise spending package.

He did not formally ask that a new deadline be set, but he did tell legislators Thursday that an early- or mid-November date would give them better year-ending numbers to review and a clearer spending picture to work from as they budget for the coming year.

"We have to file a budget Oct. 1 without knowing what's happening in the fourth quarter and have to make an estimate," Burpoe said.

"We create this document and cut from there," he said. "People don't know what we're cutting, and there is a lack of communication to department heads.

"Hopefully, we can change the filing date for the tentative budget so it's within the fourth quarter," he said.

The change would be one way for legislators to avoid drastic slashes like the ones made in the last two weeks that chopped more than $1.5 million out of the tentative budget.

The work could be done slower and more deliberately to allow them to consider all factors before final recommendations are made and placed in the tentative spending package.

The local law, offered by current Legislator Raymond Susice (D-St. Regis Falls) and former legislators Andrew Barney of North Bangor and Mark Flack Wells of Fort Covington, was unanimously adopted May 16, 1996, by a Republican-majority-held legislature.

According to meeting minutes from that date, Wells said the four main goals of the Oct. 1 deadline would give legislators "adequate time to prepare the budget; give the public "more time to review the budget and make their feelings known; 'eliminate unforeseen problems' of data entry into the computer system; and show good faith that the Legislature 'is an open government and open for changes, improvement and progress.'"

During the same 1996 discussions, current Legislator Paul Maroun (R-Tupper Lake) said budget work begins in August and that 42 to 45 percent of the county budget comes from state and federal sources "and they are never on time.

"He didn't feel (moving the date) would give us a clear picture or that it was fair to the taxpayer because we are guessing," the minutes state.

E-mail Denise A. Raymo at: draymo@pressrepublican.com

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