Putnam's Prospects Promising, Says Bondi

This reporter sat down with County Executive Robert Bondi at the county offices in Carmel for an in-depth conversation. We were joined by Deputy County Executive John Tully and Chief of Staff Lisa Denig.

Bondi, currently serving his fifth term in the county's top post, was elected to that position in 1991. As Putnam's chief budget officer, he administers the county's $200 million budget. Previously, he served six terms as a county legislature. A volunteer EMT with the Mahopac Fire Department, Bondi earned a Ph.D. in corporate finance and economics from New York University. He received an MBA and his bachelor's degree from Iona College. During the interview, Bondi perhaps became most animated while discussing the economics of the federal stimulus package, the principles of which he doesn't entirely agree with, though he says he will fight to secure funds for the county. The questions and responses have been edited for space and clarity.

How would you gauge the response to your State of the County address?

Robert Bondi: Very positive. I feel that the majority of the legislators were quite supportive of the speech, and I also feel from talking with various people in the community that the speech was well-received.

How confident are you that you can meet your goal of no layoffs and no tax increases?

RB: We have set a goal to achieve that. Of course it is going to require a cooperative effort on behalf of a large number of people. That includes the county legislature, the other elected officials, and John Q. Public. We all have to work together to achieve these goals.

Are you optimistic about the county's relationship with the three labor unions with which it works?

Lisa Denig: We settled all of our contracts this year. We have really good labor relations right now… and we expect that we'll work through this and far into the future to mitigate layoffs and to do consolidations in the best way for employees. I also get the sense that [the unions] are willing to cooperate because we have this really good feeling going now that we have settled contracts. … It really created a much better atmosphere here in the county.

Will there be pay freezes for county employees?

John Tully: We have had in Putnam County zero percent increases for our employees, certainly our managers. We have been very conservative in pay increases for our employees.

In your speech last Wednesday you spoke about how the foresight of county leaders buf fered the county from the wors t aspect s of the global financial situation. Explain.

RB: Well, we faced very difficult times several years ago, unlike other municipalities that have just started to face difficulties. … Three years ago we were facing a 40 percent tax increase. … We had a lack of revenues here in the county. We were pushing for changes in the way the county receives funds and one of the most significant issues we faced was sales taxes. Sales taxes were declining, and we needed more sales taxes.

We actually asked the legislature to support a sales tax increase, which they were not convinced we needed. In fact, there were a number of legislators that were opposed to a sales tax increase. Then, when we went to the state legislature after we got the county legislature on board that we did need a sales tax increase, the state legislature was not sure we needed it. And so we had quite a bit of difficulty getting our proposal through Albany. In fact, it took until the fall of the [2007] to approve our sales tax measure to get it approved. We've lost about nine months of sales tax revenues.

Where would the county government like to make further consolidations?

JT: We think that we can gain success in consolidating assessment services in some form at the county level to generate efficiencies at all levels of government. In addition to assessment, we think that the tax collection function that exists not only at the town level but at the school district level too can be consolidated. …

What are your plans for the county's home health agency?

JT: That's a different type of consolidation. … We look at that as a nondiscretionary government service. That service is provided by the private sector and if county government wasn't providing it, we believe that it would be picked up by the private sector--maybe not to the level of care and compassion that our nurses give … It certainly wouldn't have the bureaucracy involved, and that's why we are doing the request for proposals to take a look and see what options exist that will enable that service to continue at the level that our residents have come to expect.

What do you think of the MTA's proposed mobility tax?

RB: We are completely opposed to the mobility tax, and we don't even understand why it is being discussed by counties like Putnam County, because a lot of our residents do not use in any way, shape, or form … any service of the MTA. We have virtually no mass transit system. … This is a terrible thing, very unfair. [Proponents of the mobility tax] think that all of our residents work in New York City, or that New York City is the hub of the Hudson Valley. It's not any longer. Hudson Valley residents travel all over. They don't go only to New York City. We have a great many of our residents that go to Pennsylvania to work, New Jersey, Long Island, upstate New York, Connecticut. To say that we should we paying this type of a payroll tax for people who live and work in Putnam County is just off base.

What is the most unfair criticism your office has received in the past year?

Lisa Denig: That's a lot to think about.

[laughter, then a pause]

JT: I'll start have tried very hard over the last several years to put it, as the county executive once mentioned, to create a balance in Putnam County. In order to create that balance, we have been trying to advocate for a balance of open space, commercial development, and do things like that to help our tax roll. The next thing that we've tried to do is try to limit the amount of involvement that the taxpayers have to have to fund the things that they would like to see, particularly some recreational opportunities.

I think that we've had some unfair criticism over what we have done at Tilly Foster Farm and a golf course that we acquired earlier on. But the measures that we have taken have been, we believe, in the very best interests of our residents. They wanted to protect the open space that we ultimately protected in acquiring the farm and in acquiring the golf course. We took it a step further and have taken measures so that there is no taxpayer contribution for providing those services in the county. …

We have been pretty unsuccessful in the county in getting that commercial development through and creating projects that would generate revenue for the county that would further enable us to provide financial benefits to the residents of Putnam County, and potentially reduce their taxes. ...

Are you actively working to secure funds from the federal economic recovery act?

JT: We're sur receive assistance from … the federal Medicaid assistance program. Over a 27-month period we expect to receive $3.1 million in stimulus funding. We have applied for stimulus funding for another section of our bikeway. … We don't have an awful lot of shovel ready projects [beyond that].

At the end of your speech, you stressed the distincti ve Putnam County, even as compared to the neighboring counties. Elaborate.

RB: I think Putnam County is a fiercely independent county that likes to stand on its own two feet, whose people enjoy working. … We hear about the 6 percent unemployment rate … today which is up significantly from four percent, which was the lowest in the state of New York for many years. But you don't hear about the 94 percent of the people that are working in Putnam County, and that's a lot of people that are working.

People in Putnam County enjoy living here … a county that has a lot of open space, a lot of reservoirs, a lot of streams, a lot of mountains. An area where it is safe to raise a family, where you don't have to worry about your car being broken into, your apartment or your house being robbed in the middle of the night.

What could you have done differently during the past year?

RB: We're not a marketing-oriented administration. ... Perhaps we haven't sold ourselves as much as we should have.

And then Mr. Bondi asked me a question:

RB: You've asked us about the stimulus program. You've asked us about what projects we're getting about how much money we're getting, but you didn't ask us whether we agree with the philosophy behind the stimulus program, and I'm wondering why you didn't do that.

Given that you are working to secure funds from the stimulus program, do you agree with the philosophy behind that program?

RB: Not exact strongly that the principles behind the stimulus program as it was originally envisioned have a great deal of merit. For example, the [theory] behind Roosevelt's plan to mobilize massive unemployment is a very remarkable initiative of a government and one that could work even today. However, when it comes time to dole out the funds for stimulus you get into some very serious practical issues. … Even more important is the question of how [the economic recovery act] will stimulate the economy. [Key] questions have been forgotten. We should have studied the six percent of residents who are out of work.

So why not take a stand like Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina and turn down some funds?

RB: I applaud the governor of South Carolina [but] we're not at the point that we're refusing help.