Hard choices
Let the dithering begin.
The St. Lawrence County Legislature is starting its difficult budget deliberations by foreclosing on one proposal that had some promise to close much of the looming budget gap, and by discovering another plan that had been offered wouldn't have had much positive fiscal impact. Based on early returns, this could get ugly.
In a straw poll of its members, the Legislature voted 10-4 Monday evening against an increase in the local share of the sales tax. St. Lawrence County's 3 percent local share is the lowest in the north country, three quarters of a percent lower than in Jefferson and Lewis counties and a full percent lower than Franklin County. In fact, St. Lawrence is one of only five counties in the state still at a 7 percent combined state and local sales tax rate.
While raising the sales tax appears to be too big a political weight for legislators to heft, the alternative should be even less palatable. The only ways to close a budget gap for a county government are to lower expenses, raise revenues or find some magical combination of the two. The only place the county can raise revenues is through fees and taxes, and there are insufficient county fee sources to begin to make a dent in this problem.
If the Legislature won't raise the sales tax, to avoid a property tax hike of frightening proportions it is going to have to cut costs. That means eliminating positions and cutting programs. You have to wonder where the legislators think there is $7 million in budget cuts – it isn't going to come from human services or health or probation or courts or any of the mandated programs, which leaves highway and law enforcement as the juiciest targets. But the Highway Department has been the budget whipping boy in St. Lawrence County for so long that there isn't anything to pare there, and there isn't enough money in the law enforcement budget to bridge this gap.
Likewise, closing the gap by eliminating positions would require that the county work force be slashed, an act that it's pretty clear this group does not have the will to do. The Legislature was informed Monday that a proposed retirement buyout not only wouldn't save much money, in some cases it was cost the county money because it would be forced to dip into its cash for incentive money for positions fully funded by outside sources. That leaves laying people off as the only option.
This budget is going to take political fortitude, an asset that seems to be in short supply on the Legislature. Legislators can spew all they want about not raising taxes, but the reality is, they have no choice. Their only real choice is deciding where the pain will be the smallest. With minirevolts going on in several towns over revaluations, legislators should probably consider just how sensitive a subject spiraling property taxes are. The least painful solution is going to be an increase in the sales tax, because the alternative – a whopping hike in property taxes – would be crippling.
Straw polls are pretty little things that might look good to gullible constituents. But the Legislature was elected to do the right thing, make the hard choices. This budget is going to offer little else, and the sooner the Legislature stiffens its backbone and starts seriously considering its hard choices, the better it will be for county taxpayers.
