Local leaders discuss mandate relief at NYSAC conference

Mandate relief was once again the hot topic at last week’s New York State Association of Counties conference in Albany.

“That was the biggest thing on the agenda — how we’re going to get the public riled up and get state legislators to support mandate relief,” said Lewis County Legislature Vice Chairman Michael A. Tabolt, R-Croghan, who participated in a panel discussion on the topic Wednesday.

“Throughout the whole conference, there was a lot of discussion on mandate relief,” St. Lawrence County Administrator Karen M. St. Hilaire said. “Mandates are really the cost drivers.”

Some counties have hosted public community meetings, as St. Lawrence and Lewis did last year as they were preparing their budgets, to make it easier for people to understand what counties are up against.

Lewis County legislators also passed a resolution recently calling on the NYSAC board of directors to devise a mandate relief action plan, and Mr. Tabolt and County Manager David H. Pendergast were invited to address the board about that resolution at the three-day conference.

“They had honored our request and found there was wisdom in that,” Mr. Pendergast said, adding he came away hopeful a strategy will be devised to guide counties in their lobbying efforts.

He also was pleased with comments made by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo at the conference concerning mandate relief in his budget proposal.

Proposed reforms included in the governor’s budget plan are projected to offer five-year savings of $6.2 million to St. Lawrence County, $4.1 million to Jefferson County and $1.1 million to Lewis County in Medicaid, early intervention and preschool program costs.

Jefferson County Legislature Chairwoman Carolyn D. Fitzpatrick, R-Watertown, said she reminded fellow roundtable speakers that this is an election year for state representatives. That will give county officials leverage when they ask that the legislators deliver on promises to save county taxpayers’ money.

“One of the things I said was, ‘Go back and look at your newspapers in 2010, look at the newspapers back then in the summer and the fall when the elections were coming up for our state reps,’” Mrs. Fitzpatrick said. “I guarantee if you can find those articles, many of them were promises. See what your state reps said, and then hold them accountable to it if they want to be re-elected.”

Mrs. Fitzpatrick said the same thing would happen in Jefferson County.

“We have some very good reps here,” she said. “They need to know. I don’t want them to lose sight what’s happening in grass roots, in their old home towns.”

Mrs. Fitzpatrick said that the promises of mandate relief made in the 2010 election have not been delivered upon.

“I’m not trying to be a rabble-rouser,” she said. “I’m just trying to save our taxpayers money and give back to them what’s rightfully theirs.”

While encouraged by the conference, Mr. Tabolt said, he was disappointed to learn that the majority of counties have yet to get involved in the lobbying effort and to hear first-hand about how difficult it is to evoke change in Albany.

“It’s not the place to go if you expect something to happen in a hurry,” he said.

A nonpartisan group has established a website devoted to mandate relief that offers information and tips on how to get people involved in the cause.