Gov. Cuomo needs to stay on point

Governor needs to stay on point (suggested headline)

I want to like politicians. I really do.

Most election days, I’m disappointed, but hopeful that whoever it is we duly elected will do their job and save the world — or at least our small part of it.

Candidate Andrew Cuomo scared me. After all, he’s a Cuomo. He’s his father’s son. And truth be told, his father is one of the large reasons I went to school out of state — with no real plan to ever return.

Life’s funny that way and about 12 years ago, I moved back to New York. But that’s beside the point.

When Andy Cuomo was inaugurated as governor, I hoped that my earlier opinions on him were wrong. I hoped he would be a strong governor who would make good decisions and get us out from the fiscal mess that we were in and dysfunction that seemed prevalent in Albany.

Just over a year into the younger Cuomo’s first term, however, I’m beginning to think that either he doesn’t want to be governor or he has no idea what the job is supposed to entail.

Maybe I’m jaded, but from my perspective, the state of New York — with Andy Cuomo at the helm — accomplished only one thing in 2011. That accomplishment is the tax cap. And I say accomplishment in an ironic tone. The governor’s best idea of how to save us money in 2011 was to tell entities he didn’t control (school boards, towns, villages and cities) that they couldn’t raise taxes higher than 2 percent. That’s akin to petroleum companies holding a press conference to protest the price of milk and eggs. It would be laughable if it didn’t pass.

Last week in the governor’s State of the State address, Cuomo said he’s taking on a new job. He’s going to be an advocate for the kids. In fact, Cuomo went so far as to say that he’s going to be the only advocate that kids have.

According to the governor, school kids in New York state don’t have anyone looking out for their interest. Teachers are in it for teachers, he says. And school boards are in it for school boards. Thank goodness the kids have Andy to look out for them.

Understandably, this position was not favorably viewed by teachers and school administrators. In fact, many of them were rather irritated. And who could blame them?

A few years ago, county legislatures in the area jumped on this “schools cost too much money” bandwagon. It was much easier for them to complain about other taxing entities than to try to rein in their own. That talk seems to have quieted somewhat and they’re back to complaining about state mandates — now that the state is focused on them.

My position with them was the same as my position with Governor Cuomo. If you’re so interested in how school disticts operate, give up your elected position and run for school board.
I’m not saying that our school system is perfect. But that’s beside the point.

There are more than enough problems that Andrew Cuomo could be focusing on that are actually under his control. Instead he’s doing nothing more than finger pointing in order to shift the focus away from the heart of dysfunction in New York state — Albany.

Money problems? Cap your own spending!

As I write this, the state Assembly and Senate have been called back to Albany for a special session to try to trim $1 Billion from the state budget ... in an effort to bring our budget deficit down to $5 Billion.

Make sure you read that right. They're trying to bring our deficit down to $5 Billion ... not the budget itself. The budget itself will still be in the $120 Billion area.

And senators and assemblymen from Nassau to Niagara have been sending mailers to their constituents telling them how much they care about their pocket books. So much that they're proposing a tax cap. No, not on their own spending. They want to cap what your local school board spends.

So a group of politicians who are writing in red ink want to dictate what a duly elected school board they have no control over can spend. And they think they're doing you some favor.

No doubt, school districts spend too much money, hire too many people, and create too many new programs. But that's not for my state senator or assemblyman to decide. They've got their own budget snafus to worry about.

State government has a way of creating problems, then asking other people to fix them.

They did this with health care facilitiess, doling out handfuls of cash to every hospital in their district, then complaining that the state was spending too much on hospitals. So they created a committee (the Berger Commission) to then dictate to these privately-run hospitals whether they should remain as-is, close, or merge with a competing privately-run hospital. The simple truth is had they not given money to the hospitals in the first place, the market would have dictated which hospitals would remain open.

Now they're doing it with schools, passing rules and requirements for school aptitude, testing, building requirements, special education, etc. But at the same time, they're complaining that those schools spend too much money. Is there any possibility that the reason those schools spend soo much money is because the state GIVES them money ... with strings attached?

I've been to enough school board meeting to know that the answer is 'yes.' School districts apply for grants or are simply offered cash from Albany, but have to spend "X" amount of local dollars to get that money. And then the school board tells the local taxpayers, "We're only paying 'X.' Albany is paying the rest."

If Albany would stay out of everyone else's business and concentrate on their own problems (I remind you again, we're $6 Billion in the whole), maybe they could actually accomplish something.

Taxpayers, if you want to curtail spending at your school district, run for school board and do it yourself. If you want your state senator or assemblyman to curtail spending at your local school district, you've been duped into believing a) that (s)he cares ... b) that (s)he wasn't the problem in the first place and c) that the state doesn't have it's own problems to worry about.

If they're so good at handling money, how'd they get a $6 billion budget deficit in the first place?