Will Bondi Budget Keep Taxes Stable?

The Courier received the only invitation to Sunday’s precedent-setting meeting when County Executive Robert Bondi handed over a copy of the 2011 budget to the Putnam Legislature Chairman Vincent Tamagna. Joining in the get-together were Commissioner of Finance William Carlin, Commissioner of Social Services Mike Piazza, Personnel Director Paul Eldridge, Deputy County Clerk John Tully, and legislature clerk Chris Marrone. Eric Gross Putnam County Executive Robert Bondi, who leaves office December 31 after serving for 20 years as the county’s chief elected official, will be remembered, in part, for his fiscal restraint and tight purse strings.

The 2011 county budget delivered Sunday to the Putnam Legislature highlights Bondi’s long history of keeping property taxes down. This was the earliest in the week that the budget has been delivered; it will be officially unveiled at the legislator’s meeting Tuesday night.

The fiscal spending plan totals $135.7 million, reducing spending by $1.1 million from the current budget and freezing property taxes at current levels. An average homeowner with property assessed at $298,000 will pay the same county tax bill January 1, 2011 of $972 that he or she paid this year.

Bondi said the budget marked the 12th time in 20 years that he and his cabinet had presented a budget to the legislature with a zero or declining property tax rate.

Bondi admitted that much soul-searching went into the new budget: “We were able to refrain from impacting quality of life programs while keeping matters in check.”

Bondi cited the abolishment of the Putnam Certified Home agency, whose certificate has been sold to the Visiting Nurses of Westchester and “reduced the county’s workforce by 10 percent, or 75 full-time-equivalent positions … By taking these actions we have removed the fiscal burden from our taxpayers while providing the public with needed services.”

Bondi recalled the “tremendous division that occurred when the proposal to eliminate the home health nurses was made several years ago but the process of disclosure and making the issues transparent resulted in a request by the nurses employed by our Department of Health to make the change which has saved numerous positions.”

The budget contains no new positions, no layoffs, no furloughs, no raises for elected officials, no new autos except for the Sheriff’s Department, and level funding to outside agencies.

In his budget address delivered before the legislature Tuesday evening, Bondi said the county was honoring its negotiated contracts: “We have included a 4.5 percent across-the-board raise for rank and file management and confidential personnel, who have gone without a raise for two of the last four years.”

Bondi said the raise was “equivalent to the raise for 2011 contained in our three union contracts.”

The budget contains a $27,000 appropriation requested by Sheriff Don Smith to sustain the recently enacted Sheriff’s Bike Patrol. Bondi said with the completion of additional sections of the Putnam Rail Trail System and the “growing popularity and usage of the trail, an increased need exists for a police presence to keep citizens safe as well as to deter crime on the trails.”

The 2011 budget uses $5.7 million of surplus in all funds with the county’s general fund surplus remaining at $11 million that Bondi said “preserved our bond rating. The county has even lowered its projected sales tax revenue to $47.5 million for 2010, which gives us a cushion should the final quarter of the year not meet expectations.”

Bondi also encouraged the legislature to proceed with plans for the construction of the Drew Lake Senior Center in Kent.

Bondi said during the next 20 years, “Putnam’s aged 60-plus population will increase by 132 percent. Every 7.5 seconds a baby boomer turns 60 and research has shown that by attending a social model adult day care program, recipients will remain in their communities on an average of two years longer thus increasing quality of life and saving taxpayers Medicaid money for nursing homes.”

Bondi said the underlying question relating to the Kent center was: “How can we afford not to build it? We must seize the opportunity now to plan for the future.”

Bondi also believes that the time is right for consolidation of governmental services: “Current unprecedented times require unprecedented actions. The public mood is such that everything from school consolidation to local government consolidation is on the table and merits serious consideration and implementation. Consolidation is the only way to provide the meaningful real property tax relief sought by our taxpayers in this down economic period.”

When asked if the current budget was the most difficult during his two decade reign, Bondi replied: “It’s certainly the most satisfying one because it reflected a little bit of all the experiences we have endured over the 20 years.”

In a precedent setting move at exactly 11am Sunday, Bondi and several of the key players in the administration presented the budget document to Legislature Chairman Vincent Tamagna and Chris Marrone, the legislature clerk.

Tamagna called the cooperation between the executive and legislative branches of government this year “precedent setting. “We are being left on a firm bedrock—strong finances for today as well as a great plan for the future ... I forecast this will be one of the easiest budgets to review,” Tamagna said.