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WPCNR COUNTY CLARION-LEDGER. From Westchester County Department of Communications. April 24, 2009: Westchester County government is strong and in a better position than any other county in the state to meet the challenges ahead, County Executive Andy Spano said Thursday night.

In his annual State of the County Address, Spano called his government “compassionate, yet fiscally conservative” and talked about the many and continuing steps the government has put in place in advance of the economic downturn to keep it financially stable.

“While our government continues on the right track, too many of our residents are facing the brunt of what this recession has wrought,” he said.

Spano detailed the many things his administration is doing to help residents suffering during the recession, including aggressive efforts to bring federal stimulus money to the county to create jobs; programs to prevent foreclosure; and ongoing efforts to cut county spending while maintaining services. The county has so far obtained about $80 million for a variety of projects including rebuilding roads and bridges, upgrading sewage treatment plants, energy efficiency projects, and encouraging green businesses. These projects will create thousands of jobs and stimulate the local economy.

 

An additional $2.7 million dollars will be used by the county’s One-Stop Employment Center to train the unemployed for jobs in new growth areas such as energy, green business and health care. Other expected stimulus funds include a $28.4 million dollar increase in Medicaid assistance this year (funds that will go solely for property tax relief); $2.3 million to keep renters from becoming homeless and $7.3 million to turn previously foreclosed homes into fair and affordable housing.

Spano stressed that while the nation is going through difficult times, the county has been able to weather the storm and keep tax increases at modest levels through prudent planning.

“Back in February when government after government announced dire news – layoffs, massive cuts in programs and services, high tax increases – we were not among them. And we are not among them now,” he told the Board of Legislators. “…We have always been fiscally conservative. We anticipated a decline in sales tax and mortgage fees so we budgeted accordingly. We continue to tighten our belts, actually spending less in 2009 than we spent in 2008, without eliminating needed services and programs.”

Specifically, the county eliminated $23 million from the budget over two years by cutting in every area, including personnel, overtime, travel, supplies, health benefits and equipment.

This has been done without cutting services “In times of trouble, more people rely on government to help them,” he said. “This is especially true when it comes to the most vulnerable: victims of domestic violence, the very poor and hungry, the frail elderly, children without parents to care for them, young people in trouble and those who need our attention to stay out of trouble.”

Alluding to people who argue that county government should be “rethought” or possibly eliminated, he said, ”We don’t need to rethink county government – we have been thinking all along. But more importantly we have been doing. During the past 12 years, we have taken county government from the equivalent of the Industrial Revolution to a Digital Evolution. We have reinvented county government for a new era. We’ve incorporated technology and green solutions in all our departments. We have reduced, we have modernized, and we have excelled.”

He stated further: “This government has been blamed for high taxes when, in fact, over the last five years, the county property tax has held the line at an average of 2.6 percent, far less than the consumer price index. And at the same time, we have served more people than ever. We created three new vital departments, Senior Programs and Services, Information Technology and Emergency Services; yet, we have 146 fewer employees than when I took office.”

He added, “Keeping our residents safe and protected is the first priority of county government. That means requiring sex offenders to wear GPS tracking bracelets to monitor their whereabouts, protecting women from domestic violence to help them start a new life and combating gang violence by getting illegal guns off the streets.”

“I don’t want to see one more child or young adult fall victim to gun violence. And, I am committed to putting initiatives in place that will make our neighborhoods safer,” Spano said. He noted the new gun shot — more — technology that, at his initiative, the county is buying for Yonkers and Mount Vernon.

In the hour-long speech, broadcast live on News 12, Spano highlighted several upcoming county government sponsored events and initiatives:

• May 12, a Financial Fitness free seminar designed to help people make wise financial choices. Experts will share information on credit cards, loans, household budgeting, planning for retirement and funding for college education. (Go to westchestergov.com/managing for details.)
  
  
• June 2, a Shared Services Conference for local governments, schools and special districts, so they can explore ways to further take advantage of the many county government services and experts. Offerings are varied and include public works, emergency services, IT, purchasing and more. So far this year, 88 school districts, local governments and special districts are saving millions of dollars by piggybacking on already existing county contracts. (westchestergov.com/sharedservices for more information.)
  
  
• June 19, a Volunteer conference to encourage volunteerism among people of all ages and match them to non-profit groups and governments in need of volunteers.

• To help local governments update their tax rolls – so that property taxes can be levied in a fair manner – the county government will hire a firm to take aerial and street level photographs of over 200,000 parcels county wide. These photographs will enable assessors to update their data, be better prepared to defend against legal challenges, and place their municipality in a position to minimize the costs of a reassessment. “

County government may seem big and amorphous,” Spano said, “Despite our efforts there still are plenty of people who are clueless about what we do. There will always be those who think there is too much government; that people should fend for themselves. Fewer laws. Less regulation. Of course, it takes just one look at this economy to see where that philosophy has brought us.”

Through visuals the county executive showed the hundreds of ways residents are protected and/or helped by county government programs. Here are some examples:

• Tracking bracelets are provided for Alzheimer’s patients and children with autism who may wander.
  
• Public health nurses travel into unsafe neighborhoods day and night to care for a sick adult or help a mother with a new infant.
  
• Health inspectors who ensure the safety of our food conducted nearly 10,000 unannounced inspections at the county’s 3,500 restaurants and others food establishments last year.
  
• The police officers get drunk drivers off our parkways (a record 588 people arrested in 2008 for driving under influence of alcohol or drugs).
  
• Emergency dispatchers provide immediate assistance to those who call 9-1-1. Round-the-clock dispatchers received and handled more than 90,000 calls for help in 2008.
  
• Probation officers monitor the whereabouts of sex offenders.
  
• The county trained 22,000 first responders, including firefighters, and marshaled a volunteer army of 200 health care professionals and another 200 emergency volunteers to respond in a natural or manmade disaster.
  
• Westchester County is one of the only places in the nation to have a seamless communications system among fire and police departments, emergency medical services, hospitals and the county’s Bee-Line bus system.
  
• The county’s Department of Consumer Protection makes sure residents are protected from fraud and from unscrupulous home improvement contractors, obtaining for consumers $833,000 in restitution last year. Inspectors also check for outdated food in supermarkets, among many other things.
  
• The Department of Community Mental Health restructured its department to save $1 million this year by developing, among other things, a model program to cut Medicaid costs.
  
• Spano’s Global Warming Task force and its successor, the County Climate Change Advisory Council, work to decrease carbon emissions in all sectors of the county: governments, residents, businesses and schools.
  
• Playland Amusement Park will now be self-sufficient, saving taxpayers $3.3 million.

Spano’s speech can be summed up this way: “I believe that county government is doing exactly what it should be doing…working for you… Working to improve your lives, working to protect your families, and yes, working to save you tax dollars.”

 

 

WPCNR QUILL & SCANNER. By John F. Bailey. April 23, 2009: Johnny Story missed it. NYPIRG missed it. Consumer Advocates missed it. Your mom missed it. But your grandmother would be hopping mad.

 

And, surprise,  the County Legislature isn’t telling you too much about it. No big press conferences.

 

On the eve of County Executive Andrew Spano’s “economics-oriented” State of the County speech, Item pricing – a landmark of the consumer protection movement,and money-saving tool,  will be done away with at complying supermarkets  accross the county, perhaps within weeks. Why? Because the supermarkets think it will help them and “help consumers.” The County Executive in his press release of January 29, said, and we quote, “My proposal would continue to protect consumers but at the same time reduce the costs to some businesses.”

 

The Westchester County Department of Communications disputed the New York Public Interest Research Group  that the county is eliminating item pricing “under the radar,” due to pressure from a supermarket lobbying group.  A spokesperson for the County Department of  Communications said a news release was sent out January 29 on the bill to be voted on Monday which would, if supermarkets passed a scanner inspection with 98% accuracy, allow those stores to eliminate individual item prices in their stores. The legislation has been sailing along from press release to vote (coming Monday) for11 weeks.

 

The spokesperson, Donna Greene told WPCNR that consumer-available scanners would be available in stores should the law be enacted Monday evening so persons could check individual prices of items, and they would also be able to check scanner price with the shelf prices. The county news release of January 29, 2009, said similar legislation had been enacted in Nassau, Suffolk, Rockland, Erie, Renssalear and St. Lawrence counties.

 

Asked if consumer scanners would be available in stories at each aisle so consumers could check to see if prices scanned matched the shelf prices or circulars, Ms. Greene said the number of scanners was provided for in the law.

 

In a copy of the proposed legislation, the following provisions are made for “consumer scanner availability”:

 

A store under 1,500 square feet – No Consumer Scanner necessary.

Under 3,000 square feet – 1 Consumer Scanner

Between 10,001 and 30,000 square feet – 3  Consumer Scanners

Over 30,001  sq feet –  Minimum of 3 Consumer Scanners and such additional scanners as the (County) Sealer may deem appropriate.

 

The law also states a shelf price for each stock keeping item should be visible to the consumer directly under the item displayed.

 

Asked, if once the establishment has passed a 98%scanner accuracy,  how often the county would reinspect to insure the supermarket accuracy standard was still being maintained, Greene said that depended on the Department of Consumer Affairs.

 

Tracy Shelton, spokesperson for NYPIRG said when NYPIRG testified before the County Board protesting the item pricing law, they called for a mandatory minimum number of reinspections. WPCNR asked Shelton if there was any way a consumer could check to see the price turning up on the scanner and on the shelf were correct, Shelton said the consumer had to rely on shopping circulars or the actual store “Audit List” which supermarket workers use to enter in prices into their scanners.  The law does not appear to require audit lists be conspicuously available in the supermarkets once the law is passed.

 

Shelton said the minimum number of  Consumer-access scanners required by the law  was “ridiculous,” predicting that in a supermarket, consumers would not bother taking one item across a store to one scanner  and waiting in line to scan it. She also pointed out that without item pricing, it becomes harder to total up the amount of money you were about to spend – if you did not have access to a credit card for overruns. “What are you supposed to do, bring “Post-IT” notes?” she sarcastically suggested.

 

Shelton said NYPIRG had no information on how the law was affecting consumers in the counties mentioned in the county news release.

 

Ms. Shelton told WPCNR she was hopeful legislators would table the law so more safeguards and stricter reinspection standards could be built into the law.

 

Shelton said NYPIRG had only become aware of this law about a month ago, and the county legislators NYPIRG had addressed with their concerns were angry that NYPIRG opposed the law, and reversed their original support of some of NYPIRG’s suggestions.

 

Shelton said the county was kowtowing to the suggestion of a spokesperson for the supermarkets, whose name she could not recall.

 

NYPIRG in its “Opposition Sheet” writes,”The law would essentially give supermarkets and other retailers the green light to overprice up to 2% of all store items with impunity. This would enshrine in law that it is acceptable and lawful for retailers to overcharge consumers — potentially tens of thousands of consumers on any given item — so long as no more than two per cent of the store’s items are not incorrectly priced.”

 

Gary Brown, the County Director of Consumer Protection, is quoted in the release as saying, “Our commitment to protecting consumers — and making sure they have full pricing information — remains the same.”

 

In the county overseeing of gasoline prices, the Department of Consumer Protection monitors gasoline prices  in the county, but does not check to see if changes in the gasoline wholesale price are accurately reflected in the price at the pumps the county inspects.