County rebels against state plan

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July 9, 2009

Staff Reports The Journal-Register Thu Jul 09, 2009, 10:41 AM EDT

In part of his efforts to close the increasing gap in the state budget, Gov. David Paterson has made some unpopular decisions — one of which was hotly debated Wednesday.

Lyndonville Mayor Marc Scarr came before the Orleans County Legislature to express his frustration with the supplemental Covered Lives Assessment. The assessment, created as part of the state deficit reduction plan, called for an increase to Covered Lives Assessment, retroactive to October 2008. The effect would be that businesses and private citizens would see an increase in their health insurance premiums, creating more tax burdens for state residents.

“I’ve spoken to a couple legislators about this. ... Recently, I got a letter from my insurance company saying I’m going to get a charge to pay for county health insurance,” Scarr said. He said with the number of county employees, it will cost Orleans County residents anywhere from $100 to $400 per employee, depending on the size of their family.

“I’ve come in to say, ‘Come on guys, give us a break — this has got to stop,’ ” Scarr said. “I have problems in my little village, and I have only five employees; you have 400. You know it will be trickled down, and the guy on the bottom will pay for it.”

The Legislature then passed a resolution “respectfully requesting that state leaders focus on tax relief and programmatic reform including the reversal of the supplemental covered lives assessment included in the 2009-10 state budget.”

In other news, the Legislature took a moment to react to Thom Jennings column last Thursday, in which Jennings suggested lowering sales tax rate by 1 percent to attract more consumers to the area and use it as a “promotional tool.” Jennings also went on to say in the past few years, “County government’s sales tax revenue has exceeded the budget’s projections.”

According to Chief Administrative Officer Chuck Nesbitt, for the past five years, the county has been within an average of 3.8 percent for their budgets, saying Jennings’ accusation regarding the budget projections was untrue.

“To make up for the revenue lost in that 1 percent of taxes, we’d have to see $117 million in new purchases,” Nesbitt explained.

Legislator Lynne Johnson said that the 1 percent would be equivalent to $2.33 per thousand of assessed value.

“If we weren’t going to pass that onto the taxpayer, we couldn’t even make up for it by cutting out all of our road patrol,” Johnson said. “We’re hopeful the Senate will address that.”

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