Archive: News

Budget Chair Warns of a Tough Budget Year in 2009
Reporting on preliminary preparations for the 2009 budget process, Budget and Capital Committee Chair Nathan Shinagawa predicted that 2009 will be a difficult budget year and cautioned that development of a 2009 County Budget will produce challenges for lawmakers, especially because of the expected impact of state aid reductions, included in the just-passed 2008-09 state budget.

Mr. Shinagawa reported that the State Legislature cut county state aid across the board by 2 percent, effective April 1, 2008, with an additional 2 percent cut in fiscal years 2009 and possibly 2010.  The 2 percent reduction will negatively impact Tompkins County’s fund balance in 2008 by nearly $400,000, with an additional 2 percent reduction in 2009 projected to increase the county tax levy by 2 percent, or $700,000.  All of this is dependent upon how each state agency chooses to handle this cut, he added.  It is always possible that the state agency could retain funds for its own internal operations and pass on a greater percentage reduction to the counties.  Added to this, he said, is a projected $840,000 increase in mandates, with interest earnings projected to decrease by about $400,000.  “This will be an incredibly difficult budget year, said Shinagawa, “and we have a difficult challenge before us.”

	The Village of Lansing election is scheduled for April 22 at the Oakcrest Road Firehouse.  Two seats are open: John O'Neill is running for a third term as Village trustee, and Julia Ann Kilgore Baker is running to fill the seat to be vacated by Trustee Frank Moore.  This week the Lansing Star spoke to O'Neill about his candadacy, and next week we'll feature an interview with Baker.

On April 22 John O'Neill will almost certainly be reelected for a third term as Village of Lansing Trustee.  He is running unopposed for his seat, which he has held for two thirds of the six years he has lived with his wife Germaine in the Village of Lansing.  He has two sons, one in San Francisco, and another in this area, and a step daughter in New York City.  O'Neill works from his home as a consultant for the Federal Highway Administration's technology exchange program.  He coordinates the international visits for transportation engineers from all over the state, and his job involves a good deal of travel, which he says he enjoys.

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Village of Lansing Trustees passed the 2008-2009 budget Monday in a unanimous vote that will keep the tax rate the same as it was for this year's budget.  $494,858 of the $2.1 million budget will be payed for in taxes, which Mayor Donald Hartill says will be at or below the rise in the cost of living.  "I take very seriously how much it costs people," Hartill says.  "With good management and not expanding ourselves beyond our means we can probably do that.  It really does take good management."

The Legislature’s Health and Human Services Committee last week began to consider a proposal that would discontinue County Health Department sponsorship of the Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, more commonly known as the WIC program.  But after extensive discussion today, the committee postponed any action, concluding more information is needed on cost and other factors before it can decide whether to move a recommendation forward.

The Health Department has submitted to the Legislature a resolution indicating that it will complete its current program grant commitment, but will not reapply to serve as the WIC program sponsor for the next five-year grant cycle, once a Request for Application (RFA) is issued by the state, as is expected later this month.  The County Health Department has sponsored the nutrition program, supported primarily through federal and state funds, since 1980.  Depending on response to the RFA and action by the state, sponsorship could be shifted to another community agency.  The Health Department would continue to support the WIC program until the new sponsor was selected and fully prepared to provide client services.

Albany – New York State Senator Michael F. Nozzolio today announced that the 2008-2009 State Budget contains $1 million for the continued development of the former Seneca Army Depot.  The funding will be used by the Seneca County Industrial Development Agency for infrastructure improvements at the Army Depot.  The funding was approved in this year’s State budget.

“This funding will help continue the revitalization of the Seneca Army Depot and the transformation of the Army Depot into an economic engine for Seneca County and the Finger Lakes region,” said Senator Nozzolio.  “Since the Army base closed, we have made great strides to revitalize the Depot and today there are more jobs there than at the height of the Army’s employment.  This funding will allow us to create more good paying jobs for local residents and continue the development and economic growth of the Seneca Army Depot.”

It's official.  On March 18 the New York State Board of Regents granted the Lansing library its charter.  That started the clock ticking for the library board of directors to meet all the requirements of a chartered library.  "(Library volunteer) Deb Harper said we're like the Velveteen Rabbit," says Library Board Vice President Marlaine Darfler.  "We're real, we're real!'  I love that!"

Darfler says the board now has a year to meet state requirements including hiring a professional librarian, installing and training volunteers on the Polaris (library management) system, and mounds of paperwork.  Even though voters agreed to pay a tax to support the library, the first installment of that money won't come until October.  Originally library officials thought they were obligated to have everything in place as soon as the charter was granted, but they have learned they have a year before all the requirements must be met.  That takes the pressure off the board, and allows them to proceed without taking out a loan to bridge the gap between being chartered and getting their funding.

With the $2.5 million Warren Road sewer project likely to be completed only two years after it was first proposed it seems surprising in hindsight that the overall Lansing sewer project took more than three times that length of time to reach its eventual demise.  But that larger project had something the Warren Road project didn't have: politics.  And even with $5 million of bond act grant money, the eventual cost did it in.  Lansing Town Supervisor Scott Pinney says that if the Town of Lansing is ever completely sewered, it will be a very long time in coming.  "I'm sure, maybe 100, 200 years down the road it probably will be," he laughs.  "Certainly not in my lifetime!"

But Pinney, Town Councilman Bud Shattuck, and others around town do see a possibility of some of the town getting sewer sooner than that.  "There is talk about a standalone plant near Cargill Salt company," Pinney says.  "Today's cost for that would be about $3.5 million.  We actually have approximately $5 million of bond act money with the DEC right now that was earmarked for the large sewer project.  So that would completely cover a sewage plant and some of the trunk line to maybe come up through the B1 and B2 commercial district, or to the Lansing schools, which is in dire need of sewer."

County to Extend County Administrator Search
Administrator Whicher to Remain Through November
Tompkins County will continue its search for a new County Administrator.  At tonight’s meeting of the County Legislature, Chair Michael Koplinka-Loehr reported that a successful candidate has not yet been found to meet the needs of County government.

At the request of the Legislature, Administrator Steve Whicher has agreed to remain as County Administrator for the next several months.  The Legislature without dissent voted to extend Administrator Whicher’s appointment through November 30, 2008.

Albany – New York State Senator Michael Nozzolio was joined by over 800 New York State correctional officers at a rally at the State Capitol today to oppose the proposed closure of four upstate prisons.  At the rally, Senator Nozzolio announced that this year’s State budget will include funding to keep all four prisons open.