THE WORLD READS WHITE PLAINS CITIZENETREPORTER — 8,324,077 VISITS IN ONE YEAR

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WPCNR Quill & Eyeshade. By John F. Bailey March 27, 2008: The  White Plains Commissioner of Finance reported to WPNCR Wednesday that the city 2008-2009 Budget will be delivered to the Common Council April 7. However, the budget has not been prepared with any input from the Budget & Management Committee, the group of citizens and councilpersons who in previous years used to suggest areas of concern and constructive criticism and warnings on city spending. That committee is chaired by  Councilman Benjamin Boykin. Mr. Boykin told WPCNR yesterday:

In previous years,  Boykin recalled, prior to the departure of former Budget Director Eileen Earl, the Budget & Management Committee received detailed forecasts of the budget, making the Budget committee aware of the changing complexion of the city finances. This year the Budget committee did not receive any information on wage increases which they had requested, but were told could not be put together before mid-February. Boykin said he was given no reasons why the Budget Committee could not be convened.

 Capital spending for 08-09 was gone over with Common Council observers, and the Council was informed of certain spending plans that were postponed and those that were kept in the capital plan.

The 2007-2008 budget stands at $154.5 Million with the city tax rate at $141.93 per $1,000 of assessed value.

Last year the city raised the budget 5.1%, resulting in a 7% property tax increase. The median White Plains home valued at $700,000 on the market, paid $2,622 in city property taxes in 2007-2008.

The city expects a quarter per cent increase in the sales tax expected to bring in approximately $5.5 Million. The quarter per cent is expected to be approved by the State Legislature.  On the strength of the quarter per cent tax increase alone the city can fund most likely a 4% to 5% increase in the police, fire, teamsters, and CSEA contracts. A raise of 4% across the board was granted three years ago, and to solidify union happiness with elected officials, and to make union leaders look very good, a 5% increase (in a time of approximately 3% plus inflation), is attractive to a politically sensitive labor-appreciative Common Council. But, you never can tell perhaps the union heads will be conservative, show restraint and in the best interest of the city, accept a 4% raise.

Escalating electric rates will raise the budget. Rising health benefits of 5%, possible further demands from the state in pension fund contributions, and pay back of previous pension fund bonds, and pension fund shortfalls  due to Wall Street woes, and a steady but not overwhelming increase in the present sales tax would seem to indicate budget pressures not present last year.

What could the budget be? According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics the inflation rate from February of 2007 to February of 2008 was 3.5%. That would take the budget increase automatically to $159 Million. Add to that a 5% increase in salaries ($3.5 Millon added to current $70.7 Million) and a 5% increase in health care benefits (the increase projected by the White Plains Schools) $1.7 Million added to $33,312,043  and that takes the budget to $167 Million.  If the city grants 4%-ters across the board, it will be about $166 Million.

The present Sales Tax surplus should deliver a $3 Million surplus to feed into the budget, and add this to the $6 Million quarter per cent tax increase, and the city will have an additional $9 Million in revenue to defray effects of inflation and the salary increases. There is the mortgage tax that could put the city over the top to a balanced budget, barring substantial softening of the condominium market, allowing the possibility that White Plains could keep the property tax where it is – if it were not for certiorari settlements that continue to plague the city to the tune of $200,000 to $500,000 a month in tax refunds.

A third payment from LCOR for the Bank Street property  could be set aside for the certiorari refunds –  and the city keep the property tax increase to only a few pennies.

But this is contingent on the city’s commitments coming up for infrastructure, capital improvements, and open space acquisition.

Last year the city increased the property tax 7%  ($9.28 – to $141.93) without any wage increases or the inflationary pressures now affecting the area.  

Will the city keep property tax increase flat – no increase, which seems possible – based on just rough numbers? Or will they raise it as insurance – against more certiorari refunds?

If Mayor Joseph Delfino can persuade Assemblyman Adam Bradley to increase the sales tax another quarter per cent, bringing in another $6 Million, as Delfino had originally requested this would deliver insurance against more city budget surprises. The $10 Million a full ½% sales tax increase would have brought in would have easily stopped any need for a property tax increase this year.

White Plains remembered and grieved the loss of Sonny Katz this morning at the revered City Marshal’s funeral at the Hebrew Institute that drew over three hundred persons paying their final respects. Judges, lawyers, former city officials, and many who knew him gathered to absorb and contemplate just how much they – and White Plains had lost with Mr. Katz’s passing.

City Hall flew its flag at half-mast today in respect for Sonny Katz, its City Marshal forever.

His family of four children, his grandchildren shared remembrances and sense of loss – which you could feel — recounting personal memories, his gentle mentoring, his support of their endeavors, and humor, and how much they loved him. The sense of loss was so eloquent.

The Rabbi officiating the service compared Mr. Katz to Mordecai, the hero of the Old Testament Book of Esther as  “popular with the multitude of his brethren, for he sought the welfare of his people and spoke peace to all his people.”

Good Times: The beloved Mr. Katz,  far right, helped so many people in his life in White Plains,  is shown on the eve of his 86^th birthday one year ago in one of his last public appearances, presentation of the first WESTCO Sonny Katz Scholarships to Helen Hess and Kirsten Smayda. A big band singer and entertainer in the 30s, and an actor himself,  he reminisced about his own days on the stage and encouraged the audience “to get the autographs of these young ladies today (Helen Hess and Kirsten Smayda) because they’re going to go far.”  

Mr. Katz had a way of making all around him feel good. It was the way he was — always with just the right words — a natural raconteur.  

 Mr. Katz is shown at the podium with his daughter, Susan Katz, who reminisced this morning that she used to introduce herself when she was a child as, “I’m the daughter of the City Marshal.” In recent years, she said, her father touchingly returned the favor,  in a very special way introducing himself as “I’m the father of Susan Katz of Westco Productions.”

The Rabbi described Mr. Katz as standing for the good like Mordecai, (who, the scriptures recount,  took in Esther and raised her as his own daughter).

Whether it was Mr. Katz easing the pain of persons being evicted from their apartment;seeing that those at the ends of hope got a few extra weeks to pay their rents, and the services they needed or Mr. Katz doing that little something extra that turned life’s most stressful moments into a positive outcome in the long run,  Mr. Katz did not just do his duty. He went beyond the call of duty to see that in doing his duty, he did not do harm.

The good that Sonny Katz had done all through his life was celebrated in tears and admiration, and warmth.  Silent tears and sniffs were prevalent through the ceremony which lasted over an hour.

What came through was Mr. Katz’s ablity to make everyone feel they mattered. He genuinely cared about them, and his willingness to take a personal interest far beyond your typical bureaucrat or official.

In the business of law and court decisions, often impersonal and brusque,  where procedures  are served on persons because it is ordered and it is the law, Mr. Katz was the exception.

He put a human constructive touch into the harshness of law.  In his hundreds of eviction proceedings over 37 years as City Marshal, Mr. Katz carried out his duties with compassion, creativity, poise and common sense. Going into countless situations involving all walks of life, Mr. Katz handled personalities at the end of their ropes with a tact and constructive approach that never resulted in violence, but positive outcomes. 

Mayor Alfred  Del Vecchio, next to last to speak, delivered a glowing and uplifting portrait of Mr. Katz, who spent many Sundays with the Mayor over the years over bagels. The Mayor’s description of Mr. Katz’s genuine liking for people, his sense of wisdom, and sound advice – echoed previously by his daughter Susan Katz, his granddaughter Melanie, his grandson, an uncle –  what the Mayor recalled as Mr. Katz’s  appreciation for life lifted the melancholy and sent all out into the sunshine with Sonny Katz in their hearts and minds.

Perhaps no public servant ever touched and helped more persons more effectively, more warmly, and without guile than Sonny Katz.

The “Mordecai of White Plains”  is an appropriate epitaph:

 “popular with the multitude of his brethren, for he sought the welfare of his people and spoke peace to all his people.”