- By Dan Veaner
- News
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| On Whether Taxpayers Vote on Large Tax Increases on the Local Level Nozzolio: "I want to lead by example at the State level. I don't think I can say yes we should be, unless we do it at the State level first. I believe my job is to get it on the State level, because I believe that's what's necessary at the State level. I don't think the State should say 'you should do it, but we shouldn't.'" (Farkas pointed out that sewer district formation is subject to permissive referendum, so taxpayers within the district will vote by current local law. Nozzolio's reply answered the more general question about general local tax increases.) |
| On the State Help Property Taxpayers by Controlling Local (County, Town, Village, School) Taxes? Can the State come up with a monthly payment plan instead of paying the whole property tax within 30 days? "It is my objective as your representative in Albany to achieve more accountability, more management of our State system. "The property tax was never meant to fund the two largest expenditures of our State taxpayers: health care and education. The already over-burdened taxpayer is now asked because of property tax to fund health care. We all know where health care has gone in terms of cost over this last decade. It's sky rocketed. "The entire local Medicaid share, which is about 25% of the total Medicare bill, which is about a bill that is $40 billion a year. 40 billion. That is borne by the property taxes, primarily. That is inappropriate. It puts too great a burden on the property taxpayer's back. That's got to stop. "We've taken baby steps in achieving that last year, to put a cap on Medicaid expenditures for the County in terms of the burden that the County is going to have to bear. But we've got to watch the County, because as more and more Medicare is picked up by the State taxpayers generally, that means that as long as the County doesn't raise other costs the taxpayer won't be burdened. If they say, 'oh it's a windfall, we're going to start spending in other areas,' we're going to be in trouble. So accountability, first at the State level and second at the County level is going to have to be focussed on. I'm certainly putting my energies there this year and in the future. "Health insurance benefits for public employees are negotiated. I believe there are certain mandated costs the counties and school districts have had to bear. Some are appropriate, some of them not so appropriate, some of them inappropriate. Personnel costs are totally within the control of the county and school districts. That's something that we as policy makers have to focus on, too. We're all in this boat together. We all have to be accountable." At this point Nozzolio recalled a conversation with the questioner, Dan Pace, from 18 months ago in which Pace had told him about not for profit organizations that don't pay property taxes engaging in for-profit businesses, competing with those that are paying property taxes unfairly. Nozzolio: "To me that is a growing problem, too. Now I believe that churches should not pay property taxes. But when churches own McDonalds hamburger stands, which may be the extreme -- but churches tend to own apartment houses in other areas of the state -- I think that's the line that you were asking to be drawn." He directed residents to his web site where the details of a plan Senate republicans are working on to level this playing field. |
| On Citizen Participation in Government "I believe that citizens should have more participation in their government. More than less, and we don't have a couch potato democracy. Particularly with technology the way it is today we should have more direct citizen participation. That's why I introduced legislation this week. I've studied some other states. They are requiring that whenever there is a state tax increase that the voters have the right to vote on it up or down. Now you might say we send you to Albany, why don't you do that? Frankly, that's what happens. People go to Albany and they do it too much. We see major tax increases. We also see burdens shifted. We put in our bill that when the increase is greater than 2% it would have to go to the voters. I believe accountability, responsibility, fiscal planning and better management could be the result." |
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| On Insurance Fraud in New York "In New York City particularly the dispensing and stealing of prescription medicines and fraud... the system is 90% good, but the 10% that is fraudulent use has a $4 billion price tag. We're not necessarily focussing on the recipients of those benefits. That's not as great as the providers in the City of New York. And it's not exclusively in the City of New York. We found a $10 million problem right in the north country in a community smaller than the size of Lansing. $10 million of your money wasted by fraudulent Medicaid mills. "Part of our problem in New York is that Eliot Spitzer has not done enough on fraud abuse. Maybe he hasn't had enough of the tools to do it in terms of legislation. So all of us bear responsibility for that for not proving the right laws. But frankly, we have to change that and the way to change that is to get additional ownership of the Medicaid fraud issue. Right now the Health Department has a little bit, the Attorney General has a little bit, and the taxpayers are paying a lot for that." |
| On Air Quality: Tompkins County has three times worse air than the average county in the US. Do you agree it is unacceptable and is there anything the State can do about it? "I read the study. I'm very concerned about it. It was troublesome to say the least, and downright dangerous as we are confronted with this. This is not a smokestack area by any stretch. I believe the Northwest point has a lot to do with this. I believe as we have industrialized centers in Michigan, Ohio and Buffalo and Rochester, that we're paying for that. As a politician I look at where these areas are, and say 'we don't have the smoke stacks here, so where are they? You don't need to be a rocket scientist to see that they can be contributing to this issue. "In Rochester the worst example of that study was Eastman Kodak. It is now becoming an electronics company, but it's been a chemical company since George Eastman founded it. I think that may be a contributor. "What I hear is that standards are being met. Maybe we need to look at those standards. There are four inspectors that are full time on Eastman Kodak's property. Maybe their standards are too low. Let's look at it together." |
| On Consolidating Local Government: Former prosecutor Richard Thayler asked if it is time to get rid of County government, saying "I really think it's time to put government next to the people. That's what towns are doing, that's what villages are doing. But that's not what the County's doing." He asked for a study of how local government could be consolidated. Nozzolio said he could support that, saying, "Taxpayers demand efficiency. "The irony is that when de Tocqueville came to the United States and talked about democracy in America, he praise the county system, the tri-level system of government that existed at the local level. He said that what separated Europe from the United States was the fact that there were strong units of local government. I think what you are probably most frustrated with, as I am, is the duplication of services that we see all to often." |
| On Election Machines: I'm not going to finger point, but I am worried about this proposal. It's got to be worked out soon. The machines have got to be ready by September. How do we educate the citizens I represent? Would we have a prototype in community centers to see what they're like? People have to be educated on how to use these machines." Tompkins County Election Commissioner Elizabeth Cree added, "One of the problems is -- the other day they had a big show in Monroe County and none of the vendors have a machine that is totally ready to be certified. The vendors knew a year ago that they were going to have to have a paper trail. Neither of the commissioners is going to come out and say 'this is the machine we want' until we at least have a prototype to look at. "If push comes to shove, we of course want to meet the mandate, but we don't want to have new machines come out in August and put them in the September primary. That is just not feasible. We're going to take the old machines apart and make sure they're in working order." |
| On Libraries "I'm using my energies to make sure that libraries are supported. That's my priority. I believe in fighting for the priorities you are sent to Albany to fight for, and libraries are one of those." He thanked the Library board and Alice Farkas for all they have done and are doing on the Lansing Library. |
| On Tax Relief Priorities "First and foremost is to return a major portion of that money to the property taxpayer. I believe that money is the taxpayer's money. We have done well in this State in making us more competitive with other states at the income tax level. When Governor Pataki first took office we were first in taxes of all the states. We are now 24th in state level taxes. But we're still first in the combined tax burden. My priority would be to establish major property tax relief. "We have a surplus this year, about two and a half billion dollars more than was allocated. I think that entire $2.5 billion should be returned to the property taxpayer. Not returned to local government. Not returned to the school districts. But to the local property taxpayer. To me that is how we could make New York more competitive . "The biggest part of my job is to try to protect the jobs that are here and bring more jobs to the region. My biggest challenge in doing that is the fact that our property taxes are too high. I'd love to see more science commercialized from the great science being done at Cornell university. A lot of it is, a lot of it pure academic research that is taken by others and commercialized in other places of the country and in the world. Ezra Cornell is turning over in his grave because of this. He believed, as I strongly believe, that you need to have the academic focus on scientific development and that scientific development leads to productive activity including new jobs for our area. "This engine could be chugging along a lot better with a more competitive tax environment. We have so many other good thing being done in this state, but so many things that are stifled because of it. Our growth level is not as high as it should be in large part because of taxation. "I underscore that to a commitment to education. If I could take that $4 billion of fraud and abuse out of the Medicaid system I'd earmark that for education and give schools resources they need to do what they need to do and make us more competitive." |
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