Spend money on priorities — Is the money tree really tapped out?
I want to make one point regarding the article in the D&C about daycare subsidies yesterday. As taxpayers we have a choice where we spend our money via our elected officials. These choices reflect our priorities.
So, there is a dispute over the amount of day care subsidies from the State and if County Executive Maggie Brooks or the State is correct in terms of how monies are calculated and distributed.
meaning (per Brooks)
The county and day care advocates say if state funding is not increased, subsidized care for 1,300 children of low-income families is in jeopardy.
In this particular case I don’t know if the State or Brooks are correct. Regular readers of this blog know that I’ve been critical of Ms Brooks’ overall fiscal prowess but I simply wanted to focus on funding and priorities independent of the Brooks / State pissing contest.
Bottom line - Apparently 1.8 million dollars is needed to provide day care and the County and State are tapped out. Or are they?
Has anyone looked at State earmarks? Follow that link to see earmarks that came into Monroe County. Remember the Law School at St John Fisher. $2 million dollars for a study to see if we need a law school when legal experts say we don’t?
How about State funding for Renaissance Square? PAETEC Park? Here are two huge construction projects ultimately going to private companies. Maybe they can kick in a little bit more.
Is the County really tapped out? How about reversing some COMIDA grants like those for retail businesses. Remember Mid-town athletic club? Look at the Medley Center. Look at Greece Ridge Mall. Remember that the County and State are dependent upon tax revenues. We know that COMIDA is a vehicle to exempt certain entities. In short, COMIDA reduces the tax rolls. The private and exclusive Harley School is able to fund expansion by refinancing debt via Tax free bonds . Mid-town Athletic club, for example, is getting affluent residents “fit” two hundred per time.
I suppose the daycare kids could join the health club then go shopping
It really is about priorities and these are just a couple of examples. The State doesn’t have any money. Sure it does - it is choosing how to spend it. Maggie Brooks needs funds to cover a budget shortfall. Sure she does but - her spending and revenue priorities, as implemented via local GOP practices, have reduced revenues and contributed to our county debt.
Maybe day care will be a priority someday after the kids get buffed, talk to a lawyer and buy stuff.
While the issues you raise are fair, the bigger problem is the basic inequity in the whole tax system. Corporate tax rates are exceedingly low by historical standards and the tax rates on higher income Americans is also quite low.
Thus the burden falls on the middle class and below.
This is part of a strategy to underfund public services and provoke crises where the only alternative seems to be to cut. This goes all the way back to the New York city crisis in the 1970’s and has been used many times. If we don’t address the bigger issues this problem will continue.
We were actually extremely successful at proving to NYS that day care subsidies are important in Monroe County, and we did a good job at managing that money, up through and including the Doyle administration, until Brooks re-organized Social Services into Human Services and slashed the number of administrators and messed around with the eligibility requirements, making it much more difficult for people to qualify for a day care subsidy.
So they made it tougher for people to qualify, underspent the allocation, then played budget games by rolling the “surpluses” into the next budget year. All this done on faith that the state gov’t wouldn’t dare actually reduce funding - despite knowing full well that the state block grant program uses a MOE formula that punishes counties that don’t use their allocation.
Now after gaming the system she has the nerve to bus in a bunch of kids for a pity party?
Look at these numbers (non-NYC):
Monroe: $30.56 mil
Suffolk: $28.8 mil
Nassau: $28 mil
Erie $22 mil
Westchester $18.5 mil
etc etc
Monroe was #1 for all non-NYC counties.
So I suggest that it’s not that we’re spending too much on COMIDA at the expense of day care (although I don’t care for COMIDA either…) but that we’re squandering the hard work and successfully built social service programs of previous administrations and playing freaking games with the money.
That’s all Brooks and her “crack budget team” do, really, is play games with the money, look for one-time hits, and push things into the next budget year. This time it came back to bite them in the a$$.
Nice summary and thanks. It filled in the details about the Daycare situation.
But the post wasn’t about Brooks’ day care performance - it was about a larger issue of allocating funds you do have. Earmarks and COMIDA play a role, a significant role, here.
And are conveniently forgotten when State and County say We have no money.
The reason we squander is we reduce tax revenue via COMIDA for example leading to redistribution. Supposedly created jobs over day care.
Quite frankly, I’m not real impressed. I read this statement on News10’s page:
Monroe County Executive Maggie Brooks traveled to Albany Monday trying to get that money restored. Before she left, Brooks led a daycare rally at the downtown Y.M.C.A. At the “Y”, there are some of the kids who may lose their daycare. Several mothers who receive subsidies attended the rally and told us what the program means to them. “They pay all my daycare fees,” said Diane Stokes. “I pay like a dollar a week for my children to attend the YMCA. So if they cut it, I wouldn’t be able to work. That means no income at my house at all.”
$1.00 a WEEK? I don’t know of ANYONE who works, single parent or not, that pays $1.00 a WEEK.
Perhaps if a reasonable and fair amount were collected from parents, the system wouldn’t be so stressed. This isn’t a subsidy, this is a giveaway, at taxpayer expense. OK - I know the mom needs to work - but $1.00 a week?!?
Now…what does the YMCA charge the County? How much does the County kick in?
What’s a reasonable and fair amount to a single mom making minimum wage with with a couple of day-care aged kids?
Day care is EXPENSIVE - easily more than a mortgage payment - and it often doesn’t make sense for the county to pay for day care so that a single mom can toil away in a dead-end job making less money than the county is paying for day care….
We could just pay her to stay home and build a loving family, instead.
But suggesting that is like a political taboo thanks to the success of the conservative welfare mythology.
I thought the county kicks in very little, other than administrative costs. It’s a block grant from the state.
I realize it’s unimaginable for many people, but by the time one $10 an hour, paying $650 for rent, with one child. She has no car, she walks to work and only takes a bus when really necessary. She never goes out to clubs or movies. She buys her clothes at thrift shops. She buys clothes for her child when the items are on sale. She is literally living week to week, and there are a lot of weeks the week outlasts the money, especially if that weeks includes something like an emergency dental appt. Her son needs truly professional day care - he’s autistic. Yesterday she got a letter saying that her child care funding was being cut off, not reduced, CUT OFF. She is one of those people who could afford $1 a week. Actually, she couldn’t afford that dollar usually. This is a responsible, decent, loving mother who has been doing all she can to raise a healthy child. She certainly does not choose to be a burden on the taxpayer. (No, they don’t use the YMCA day care) Well, thanks to Ms. Brooks shuffle and dodge tactics, she won’t have a choice 10 days from now. By the way, that’s how much notice she was given - 10 days - that her child care funding was cut off because “the State ran out of money”. Her options now? She won’t be able to work. She would be GROSSING $100 a week after paying daycare. She will now, rather than needing a child care subsidy, need FULL assistance. She will very likely also probably be evicted because given 10 days notice, she won’t be able to meet any of her obligations because she won’t be able to work in about a week and a half. Nice job Maggie.
FYI - this is not a theoretical case, it’s true, I’m very sad to say. Ms. Brooks never seems to understand that her politically motivated budget sleight of hand tactics are hurting real people.
[...] Speaking of subsidies - DayCare? Seems Maggie has her hand out for DayCare subsidies in this a dust-up between County and State Government. [...]
[...] In this post about the dust up over daycare subsidies between Maggie Brooks and the State over who had money or not. I questioned the priorities. I wrote: Has anyone looked at State earmarks? Follow that link to see earmarks that came into Monroe County. Remember the Law School at St John Fisher. $2 million dollars for a study to see if we need a law school when legal experts say we don’t? [...]
[...] The State budget is in trouble, Monies are cut. Does anyone know if the $2 million dollar St John Fisher law school earmark was affected? I’m assuming it is not affected. As I’ve said before, it is a matter of priorities. [...]