Deficits Push Municipalities to Desperation By DANNY HAKIM Published: March 10, 2012 Recommend Twitter Linkedin
comments Sign In to E-Mail Print Single Page Reprints Share CloseDiggRedditTumblrPermalink ALBANY — It was not a good week for New York’s cities and counties. Enlarge This Image Ángel Franco/The New York Times Richard Ravitch, who is helping Yonkers with its financial woes. Follow @NYTMetro Connect with us on Twitter for breaking news and headlines in New York. Enlarge This Image Newsday Photo/Karen Wiles Stabile Steve Bellone, the Suffolk County executive. Readers’ Comments Share your thoughts. Post a Comment » On Monday, Rockland County sent a delegation to Albany to ask for the authority to close its widening budget deficit by issuing bonds backed by a sales tax increase. On Tuesday, Suffolk County, one of the largest counties outside New York City, projected a $530 million deficit over a three-year period and declared a financial emergency. Its Long Island neighbor, Nassau County, is already so troubled that a state oversight board seized control of its finances last year. And the city of Yonkers said its finances were in such dire straits that it had drafted Richard Ravitch, the former lieutenant governor, to help chart a way out. Even as there are glimmers of a national economic recovery, cities and counties increasingly find themselves in the middle of a financial crisis. The problems are spreading as municipalities face a toxic mix of stresses that has been brewing for years, including soaring pension, Medicaid and retiree health care costs. And many have exhausted creative accounting maneuvers and one-time spending cuts or revenue-raisers to bail themselves out. “We really are up against it,” Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said during a recent trip to Albany, urging the state to reduce pension benefits for future public employees. New York City’s annual pension contributions have increased to $8 billion from $1.5 billion over the past decade. In a radio interview on Friday, Mr. Bloomberg noted the spreading financial woes of local governments, saying, “Towns and counties across the state are starting to have to make the real choices — fewer cops, fewer firefighters, slower ambulance response, less teachers in front of the classroom.” And Thomas S. Richards, the mayor of Rochester, recently described a grim situation facing New York’s cities in testimony to the State Legislature, saying, “I fear that Rochester and other upstate cities are approaching the point of financial failure and an inevitable financial control board — as is the case in Buffalo — unless something is done now.” The problem has national echoes: Stockton, Calif., a city of almost 300,000, is teetering on the verge of bankruptcy. Jefferson County, Ala., made the biggest Chapter 9 bankruptcy filing in history in November and stopped paying its bondholders. In Rhode Island, the city of Central Falls declared bankruptcy last year, and the mayor of Providence, the state capital, has said his own city is at risk as its money runs out. The concerns of municipal officials are validated by the ratings agency Moody’s, which downgraded the debt of Rockland County and Utica last month, and Yonkers and Long Beach last year. New York is hardly alone, and certainly not the worst; for four straight years, Moody’s has had a negative outlook for the country’s local governments . And the problems are likely to persist. “We expect that the pressure from fixed expenditures, and pensions in particular, will continue to be a strain,” said Geordie Thompson, a Moody’s analyst. “This is where the budgetary tradeoffs will continue to be difficult. There will have to be tradeoffs that will have to be made to make those payments.” Pension costs are a particular problem. The stock market collapse of 2008 decimated public pension fund investments, and municipalities are now being asked for greater contributions to make up for the losses. The impact has been drastic: Three percent of New York property tax collections were used to pay pension costs in 2001; by 2015, pension costs are expected to eat up 35 percent of property tax collections. Falling property values have also affected cities and towns because lower assessments hurt property tax collections. The state is taking some steps to ease municipal burdens, but they come with risks. A relatively new plan allows municipalities to borrow from the state pension fund, with interest, a portion of their required contributions to the pension system. “It’s the worst thing that you can do financially,” said Steve Bellone, the Suffolk County executive. “But when you are up against the wall and you have a county that has used every one-shot revenue that it can possibly use already, and you’re facing a deficit of huge proportions, suddenly that becomes not such a bad option.” Suffolk and Nassau are borrowing a combined $85 million this year to pay their required contribution into the state pension system. “That’s where we’re at today,” Mr. Bellone said. “We are in a financial crisis.” More Here: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/11/nyregion/deficits-push-municipalities-to-desperation.html -- Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time. Have a great day, Tommy -- Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time. 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