As Laura Incalcaterra and James O’Rourke report in today’s Journal News, the state Senate failed to vote on legislation yesterday that would have allowed Rockland County to borrow $80 million to reduce its $95 million deficit and charge a 4 percent residential energy tax to pay off the loan.
The bill passed 118-9 in the Assembly but died in the Senate yesterday, the last day of the Legislature’s regular session. In order to borrow the money, the county needed state home-rule approval from lawmakers.
“I believe the deficit bond proposal was a much better alternative than having to raise taxes on Rockland County’s working families. Unfortunately, the Senate majority has decided to refuse to do deficit financing anywhere throughout the state,” Sen. David Carlucci, D-New City, said in a statement issued last night.
Moody’s Investors Service downgraded the county’s credit rating last month to Baa3 with a negative outlook, one step above junk status and the lowest of any county in New York.
On Wednesday, Moody’s declined to downgrade the county’s rating to junk status because of work it has done in recent weeks to improve its finances. The company said this week a review that was a result of a negative watch it placed Rockland County on last month. A negative watch triggered a 30- to 60-day watch for an imminent downgrade.
It remains to be seen whether there are further actions as a result of the Senate’s inaction on the bill.
The Senate opposed requests from Rockland and several other counties this session to increase their sales taxes.
1 Comment
The NYS Senate would be prudent not to approve the bill, simply because it is like pouring gasoline on a fire you are trying to put out.
Simply stated, Rockland County’s Legislature are asking the Senate to loan them NYS Tax Payer ’s money because they actually ran out of the County’s Tax Payers money. Yes, they actually ran out of “other people’s money.”
Let that sink in a moment. The people elected to work for us, actually spent all of our money to the point where their credit is so bad, the agency in charge of warning lender’s, rated Rockland County as untrustworthy to repay a loan. Rockland County is rated just below; “Don’t even think about it”, and just above; “You can forget about it.”
I am among those who would like the Journal News to ask and get a few answers to these questions:
1. Call for a forensic audit. When did they know they were operating in a deficit and why did they not take action then?
2. We are operating in a deficit, another loan only puts us further in the red not in the black. Why did they not craft a solution, instead of compounding the problem?
3. Who was responsible for warning the Taxpayer of this impending calamity and why didn’t we know it before Moody told us?
Here is free advice: You cannot spend your way out of a deficit and cannot borrow your way out of debt.