Local governments have complained for years about unfunded mandates: laws from the Federal government or states that require local governments to do something in particular, without providing any money to pay for that action. State Senator James Seward (R/C/I – Oneonta), who represents Greene County in Albany, has a new reverse-unfunded mandate. Seward is circulating an on-line petition to shift Medicaid funding from local governments to the state. Seward says the property tax cap signed into law earlier this year is limiting local governments abilities to pay for Medicaid. So he wants the state to pay for it in Senate Bill 5889-B, which proposes an eight-year gradual state takeover of the local Medicaid costs. By 2019, the state would shoulder Medicaid costs, but Seward does not say how New York would pay for those new costs.