Rochester leaders recently announced that for a second year in a row they will make a major push for more state aid to the city, the “Fair Share” campaign.

The name comes from the campaign’s central concept: that Rochester should be helped on an equitable basis to the two cities that are most like it, Buffalo and Syracuse.

As it stands, Rochester is not. This year, Rochester received about $339 in state aid for every resident, compared to $446 for Syracuse and $509 for Buffalo, by my calculations using 2005 population estimates from the Census.

You might wonder how it got so out of whack. The conventional wisdom is that in years past Rochester was not as aggressive in going after state funding as were its neighbors. The theory around here used to be, with international corporations like Eastman Kodak, Xerox and Bausch & Lomb in our midst, we could take care of ourselves pretty well and didn’t need to beg and scrape for state dollars. Also, Buffalo got big increases over the last 10 years as its local economy tanked. Read the rest of this entry »

What’s the most effective way to change a dysfunctional Legislature?

Former state Sen. Seymour Lachman visited the Center for Governmental Research last week as part of a visit to Rochester to promote his book “Three Men in a Room” about Albany gridlock and corruption. Lachman’s view is that any governor hoping to make any substantive change has to be willing to fight lawmakers relentlessly and on every front.

Gov. Eliot Spitzer appears to agree. He has been forcefully criticizing lawmakers for defying his wishes, not sticking to a deal they made with him and naming one of their own as the state’s next comptroller.

He accused legislators of a “stunning lack of integrity” and “gross legislative self-indulgence.” He referred to the next comptroller, a man he’ll have to work with for the next four years (count ‘em) as “thoroughly and totally unqualified for the job.” Read the rest of this entry »

Last fall I wrote two columns on the mechanics of the state’s property tax system—how assessments are established, why we have this process of “equalization,” and how uneven is the administration of the system. Boring stuff, no? Worse, I can’t claim that fixing the problem would actually cut property taxes, just shift the burden around. Oh, a perfect reform would cut back the amount of money spent by the state on the equalization process, but better administration would probably cost more in the beginning (think “deferred maintenance”) and not save any in the long run.

Is there a constituency out there for fairness and transparency? Probably not, but Assemblywoman Sandy Galef (from Westchester, the epicenter of bad property tax administration) is trying. She chairs the NYS Assembly Committee on Real Property Taxation and has sponsored or co-sponsored a number of bills aimed at fixing the mess.

Read the rest of this entry »

Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s proposed state budget contains something for everyone.

Something to dislike, that is.

So, if you don’t like the way things have been done recently in Albany, maybe you’ll like this budget. It reminds me of my days as a newspaper reporter, when we would say that if you angered all your sources equally, you’d probably done a pretty good job on the article.

The health-care industry disagrees with the $1.3 billion Spitzer proposed in spending cuts. Businesses don’t like the $450 million in closing tax loopholes that will mean paying more to the state. Fiscal conservatives are sure to dislike the 6 percent overall spending increase the budget calls for – especially since they know the Legislature will fight hard to spend even more. Read the rest of this entry »