Legislators in all of our towns and our three counties are sweating and sputtering over their budgets to try to present something that their taxpayers can live with. The state must do the same.
While legislators in Clinton, Essex and Franklin counties have all recorded gains against the tax levy, we get the impression that the state is not applying the same elbow grease.
In fact, not everybody seems to want that elbow grease applied. We received a Letter to the Editor the other day from a representative of an agency relying on state funding scolding us for decrying the lack of vigor on the state's part in trying to pare costs. Those costs are necessary for the continued functioning of agencies to provide services important to their clientele, the writer argued. Cutting costs would be imprudent — maybe even inhumane.
A great divergence of opinion has emerged on that point, with the interests of taxpayers weighed against the interests of service recipients. No magic exists, in Plattsburgh or Albany, to preserve all the services now offered while producing a budget that can be afforded. Gov. Paterson has been saying for months that pain would be involved in fashioning a palatable budget, and the time to confront that pain is now.
In times of lost jobs and wage freezes, the last thing the public can abide is an increase in taxes.
Clinton County is proposing an increase in the tax levy of less than 1 percent and a tax rate that would actually decrease by 10 cents per $1,000 of assessed value. If the assessment on a homeowner's property didn't increase, the tax bill would be less than this year's.
Franklin County has imposed a spending freeze in getting the tax levy down from an 18.1-percent increase to 4.3 percent. One of the contributors is tapping the county's fund balance, which is a trick that can't be used often. Depending on how much is taken, it could be a one-time source.
Essex County, too, has applied a large portion of its fund balance to help manage its tax levy. County Manager Daniel Palmer has warned supervisors that this is not a sustainable practice.
In all three counties, there is a sincere, almost desperate effort to give taxpayers a budget that won't add to their burden. Revenues from sales tax are diminished because the economy is keeping people from spending. Without those sales-tax revenues, the counties are in a negative cash-flow situation.
The state is similarly contending with a loss of revenue but seems more focused on finding more revenue than cutting expenses, which is not sound budgeting at this point in our history.
We are not in a period in which the status quo on spending is acceptable. The economy cannot recover if too much of each citizen's money is usurped by taxes.
We simply cannot afford government at its current rate of spending.
