Why I Voted Against the Town of Ossining’s 2012 Budget

There are serious financial issues with the 2012 operating budget for the Town of Ossining, and there is also a larger “meta” concept of kicking the can down the road. 

The Town of Ossining has numerous accountability issues.  The first of these is the former tenant/theater company at Cedar Lane Park.  This tenant of the Town owes $17,000.00 for 2010 rental arrears to the taxpayers of the Town of Ossining.  I have been the only official that has demanded the Town sue and collect the money owed from this former tenant.  However, my colleagues have wavered on the issue of suing this tenant.  In fact, every time the issue is raised my colleagues claim “something” still needs to be worked out before we proceed.  But, as you can guess, we never do proceed.  In reality, that is an excuse for the lack of leadership in the Town of Ossining, which has forced the taxpayers to eat a $17,000.00 loss.  If this were not enough, earlier last year the former Supervisor unilaterally let the tenant that owes the money, come back to the Town’s property and retrieve their belongings! Some of these items included expensive theater lights and stage equipment - equipment that could have been taken and sold to pay taxpayers back for the money owed to them.

In addition to not making any real effort towards retrieving that money owed to the taxpayers of the Town of Ossining, there has also been a promised inventory of the Town’s assets.  This was in direct response to the loss of $5,000.00 of Town-owned scrap metal.  This metal and the money it could have generated have still not been recovered.  Safe to say the inventory has not been done either.

The Mid-Hudson Ambulance Tax District needs fine tuning before I will approve any budget for the district.  Serious personnel issues have been brought to the attention of Town officials numerous times yet the Town has never met with OVAC leadership to discuss these issues.  This again is a complete lack of leadership and ignoring of serious problems.  In addition, The Mid-Hudson Ambulance Tax District has repeatedly violated New York State’s Open Meeting Law Section 104- Public Notice of Meetings.  Even fellow elected officials are not notified of when or where they meet and these meetings are also not filmed.

Other irresponsible and blatant abuse of taxpayer funds is the following:  The Town-owned police station (which costs taxpayers roughly $350,000.00 annually) still remains Town owned and County police used.  The County pays nothing for the use of the facility while using it for countywide services.  In addition, Ossining taxpayers pay for electricity, copy machine costs, internet, phone service, bottled water, and numerous other services that the County utilizes for free.  Effectively, the 2012 budget continues the practice of using Ossining taxpayers to foot the bill for services all Westchester County residents benefit from.  This was an often-discussed campaign issue and the taxpayers were promised that something was going to be done. As yet there has been no move to do that, however, with a new board I do remain optimistic about this issue.

The Town of Ossining pays the Village of Ossining $359,000.00 for payroll, accounting, and data services.  The Town of Ossining has a roughly $13 million budget (this includes all budgets, funds, and tax districts). The Town of Ossining has approximately 50 employees.  The Village of Briarcliff Manor has a budget of roughly $19 million and employs about 70 employees.  The finance department of the Village of Briarcliff Manor performs the same services of payroll, accounting, data services, in addition to water and tax bill collection. The total spending of their treasurer’s department for these services is roughly $264,000.00.  This amount is far less than what the Town of Ossining pays the Village of Ossining for fewer services and for fewer employees.  Is that a fiscally responsible contract?

Court Consolidation is another area in which cost savings was touted but never realized.  In fact, a letter from the Deputy State Comptroller stated Court Consolidation was a $460,000.00 increase in new spending for the Town of Ossining.  The Village of Ossining’s tax cap limit was then lowered from 2% to 1.4% because of Court Consolidation.  In short, Court Consolidation cost the Town more money, the Village of Ossining was penalized, and no one saved any money.  But the nonsense we hear in our taxpayer funded mailers is quite the opposite and more accurately…wrong. 

To conclude, please don’t believe the political hyperbole.  We have constantly heard about how great the Town of Ossining’s finances are, but were you ever told Moody’s lowered the Town of Ossining’s bond rating in August 2010 from Aa2 to Aa3?  No one has ever mentioned this downgrade in any financial report or otherwise.  The Village of Briarcliff Manor, both Ossining and Briarcliff School Districts, and even surrounding municipalities such as Croton on Hudson and Cortlandt Manor have Aa2 bond ratings.  Even the Village of Ossining has a Aa2 bond rating, but the Town of Ossining was lowered because, “The downgrade reflects the town's limited financial flexibility following a trend of operating deficits, resulting in a narrow undesignated Operating Fund balance and limited financial flexibility.” (Moody’s, August 2010)