Katie Kocijanski is reporting in The Daily Mail the Catskill Village Board has approved its $4.5 million 2016-17 budget following an appropriations hearing at Catskill High School. Under the village charter the public is allowed to examine the annual spending plan in detail, and to vote on selected budget line items. Under the budget, there are no raises on the horizon for Catskill village trustees and other elected officials. Annual salaries will remain at $5,000 for village trustee, and $14,318 for village justice. Department of Public Works and non-union village employees will see an increase of 2.5 percent in their paychecks, however. Contract negotiations are currently underway with the Catskill Police Department. Read the full story in The Daily Mail.

The Ghent Community Action Network announced Wed., May 18, the formation of a community broadband task force for Columbia County. According to the group's Facebook Page and a statement released by Ghent Town Board member Patti Matheney, Connect Columbia intends to play a role in bringing affordable broadband to the county through advocacy with local, county, state and federal officials. Members of the Connect Columbia Steering Committee include Matheney, Matthew Nelson, Ichabod Crane school board member, and regional representative to the Capital Region Regional Economic Development Council; Alexandre Petraglia, a member of the Hudson Development Corporation board; and, representatives from the Ancram, Ghent and New Lebanon broadband committees. According to July 2014 data from the New York State Broadband Program Office, 74 percent of county’s population is unserved by broadband of 6 megabits or more per second, which makes Columbia, and neighboring Greene County, the two worst served counties in the state.

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Andrea Sears reports that the U.S. Labor Department's expansion of overtime protections for salaried employees will have a broad impact on other workers as well. Employers can require salaried workers paid $455 a week or more to work well over 40 hours without any extra pay. The regulations released Wednesday double that. In 1975, more than 60 percent of all salaried employees were entitled to overtime protection, but today it's only eight percent.

According to Michael Wasser, senior policy analyst with Jobs with Justice, when the regulation goes into effect in December, employers will have three options.

"They're either going to have to give them their time back by limiting their work to 40 hours in a week, or they will be bumped up to the new threshold," he said. "Alternatively, the employer can choose to pay them overtime."

Part-time workers are likely to see their hours and their paychecks increase as well as employers shift hours away from managers who often work fifty or more hours a week.

Governor Andrew Cuomo praised the new regulation, saying it will help ensure fairness and equality in the workplace. And Wasser points out the overtime protections supplement the governor's successful efforts to raise the minimum wage in New York.

"It's hard to encourage employers to lift the pay of people who are several bands above the minimum wage," he added. "This will do that and will bring back overtime protections for many people who've seen it slip."

Some Republicans in Congress have threatened to take action to block the new overtime protections.

Congress has 60 legislative days to review new regulations and can pass a bill to stop the change from taking effect. But Wasser says as long as President Obama is in the White House, that's not likely to succeed.

"Either the president has to sign this bill, which won't happen, or the Congress needs to have the votes to override the veto, which it currently probably does not have," he said.

The Economic Policy Institute estimates that the new regulation will benefit 12.5 million workers nationwide.

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Andrea Sears reports that voters across the state of New York approved almost 99 percent of school budgets on Tuesday. The State School Board Association reports that budgets in only 10 of almost 700 districts in the state were rejected, an approval rating almost identical to last year.

Matt Smith, spokesperson for New York State United Teachers, called the vote a resounding endorsement of the direction of New York's public education system.

"Voters in every region of the state came out and showed that they have confidence in their public school system, their teachers and the other professionals," he said.

An increase in state aid to education in the budget for the coming year will help districts maintain or even expand programs for students without increasing local property taxes.

Eight of the 10 districts where voters rejected the budget had sought to raise property taxes above the state imposed cap that this year stands at less than one-eighth of one percent. Smith points out that overriding the tax cap requires a super majority of 60 percent of the votes.

"That tax cap continues to limit the ability of school districts to raise revenues on the local level that they determine to be necessary to fund critical programs," he added.

Voters in 28 school districts did approve overriding the tax cap. But Smith believes the property tax cap, which is tied to inflation, still robs communities of local control of their school budgets.

"So we would like to see that super-majority component done away with so that we return to a more democratic system of one person, one vote," he said.

Those districts that failed to pass a budget on Tuesday can hold a second vote next month.

Marie J. French reports in the Albany Business Review that northeastern New York lost 12 percent of its doctors in 2015, with a shortage of medical help. According to a 2015 survey of hospitals and health systems by the Hospital Association of New York State, 27 percent of hospitals are looking to fill positions. A shortage of primary care physicians may make it harder for the state's Medicaid program to reduce avoidable emergency room visits and hospitalizations, according to the HANYS physician shortage report. Read the full story in the Albany Business Review.