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Greene challenged in State of the County address
Feb 17, 2011 7:12 am
[caption id="" align="alignright" width="200" caption="Wayne Speenburgh, Greene County Legislature Chairman"]
[/caption]Colin DeVries in The Daily Mail has a story about Greene County Legislature Chairman Wayne Speenburgh delivering his State of the County address Wednesday night, February 16. He defined 2010 as a “very challenging year” and predicted that 2011 could also be “challenging” even though “the worst may be over.” According to the story in The Daily Mail, Speenburgh, R-Coxsackie, announced that in the next 45 days, a program to further reduce spending will be introduced, noting the county faces a $5 million budget shortfall due to state aid reductions and the “increases in cost to maintain our workforce.” More importantly, the county head went after state mandates, which make up 75 percent of the county’s spending, but which also include a number of key civil service elements from standardized pay and insurance requirements to a variety of required social services. For 2010, according to DeVries, Speenburgh noted the completion of several significant infrastructure improvements, including the county courthouse, the seven-bay garage near the emergency control center in Cairo, the 911 computer-aided dispatch system, and the Greene County Visitor Center at the I-87 Thruway interchange in Catskill.
Continued...
He added that a new four-season destination campaign and family resorts has been implemented to bolster tourism in the county. Challenges for the year, Speenburgh said, included identifying savings in the county’s solid waste program, developing alternatives to incarceration in the county jail, and mitigating state mandate impacts. He further noted that the proposed 2 percent property tax cap would have “a disastrous impact on all counties” if it was not coupled with mandate relief.
[/caption]Colin DeVries in The Daily Mail has a story about Greene County Legislature Chairman Wayne Speenburgh delivering his State of the County address Wednesday night, February 16. He defined 2010 as a “very challenging year” and predicted that 2011 could also be “challenging” even though “the worst may be over.” According to the story in The Daily Mail, Speenburgh, R-Coxsackie, announced that in the next 45 days, a program to further reduce spending will be introduced, noting the county faces a $5 million budget shortfall due to state aid reductions and the “increases in cost to maintain our workforce.” More importantly, the county head went after state mandates, which make up 75 percent of the county’s spending, but which also include a number of key civil service elements from standardized pay and insurance requirements to a variety of required social services. For 2010, according to DeVries, Speenburgh noted the completion of several significant infrastructure improvements, including the county courthouse, the seven-bay garage near the emergency control center in Cairo, the 911 computer-aided dispatch system, and the Greene County Visitor Center at the I-87 Thruway interchange in Catskill.Continued...
He added that a new four-season destination campaign and family resorts has been implemented to bolster tourism in the county. Challenges for the year, Speenburgh said, included identifying savings in the county’s solid waste program, developing alternatives to incarceration in the county jail, and mitigating state mandate impacts. He further noted that the proposed 2 percent property tax cap would have “a disastrous impact on all counties” if it was not coupled with mandate relief.