Inaccurately forecasting that property tax would only need to be raised a little over one percent (and insisting then that there was no way the County budget could be further cut), Westchester County Government officials now face nearly $10 million dollars less revenue from sales tax in the last fiscal quarter.
It's a loss in sales tax receipts that County lawmakers apparently didn't see coming but this is an over-estimate of holiday retail sales that comes in defiance to a recessionary spiral that would have been hard for most people to miss after Wall Street's mid-September drop.
Reported by The Journal News, Westchester County Government will be faced with the prospect of raising property taxes to recoup a loss in revenues that they assumed would be in their hands before the end of the fiscal year.
"Counties across the state suffered a 5.5 percent decline in sales-tax revenue during the last three months of 2008, prompting county officials across New York to warn that property taxes could be raised or services cut if conditions persist."
In the article, County officials incorrectly characterized a $9.8 million drop for the last three months of 2008 as "flat" -- and offer no details on what precisely will be cut by the Westchester County Board of Legislators to cover that loss in revenue.
Westchester County Executive Andrew Spano had a "deputy" deliver the bad news -- claiming no need to "panic" -- and further spinning that Westchester might be "in better shape" than other counties.
The "highest taxed county in the United States" is in better shape than other counties?
Andrew Spano's office described themselves as "now working on a savings plan that mandates department heads to cut costs in 2009" -- but there were absolutely no details on where they had cut costs to compensate directly for the loss of sales tax revenue nor was there a breakdown of where additional positions would be left unfilled to hold off increased property tax.
The fact that County bureaucrats are scurrying around "now" to cut costs-- rather than doing so before the budget process last December (before Election Day) -- demonstrates how much probably could have been cut in 2008.
Additionally, it's hard to fathom why Andrew Spano's fiscal wrecking crew dared lobby for more raises late last year.
That anyone would trust a tax revenue projection of any sort from Westchester County bureaucrats is a little hard to comprehend. This collection of under-employed lawyers, over-promoted sanitation department schedulers and social-welfare agency wannabes has never displayed a single aptitude for business, business planning or marketing.
Never mind the sophisticated high-wire arena of financial management and economic projections.
Take the entire Board of Legislators. Add to it the menagerie of party-machine hacks, over-compensated bureaucrats, refugees from the municipal buildings and town halls of the various town, villages and cities populating the county now residing in the County Executive's office. Throw in the back-benchers and state and county legislators-in-waiting overflowing from the County Clerk's office. Can you identify a single entrepreneur, small business owner, anybody at all in fact with any experience whatsoever in commerce, distribution or manufacturing?
And we are expected to trust the projections emanating from the computers and writing instruments of the professional office-holders now and forever occupying the many floors of offices in the Michaelian Office Building? Why? What experiential background or useful business training can any of the women or men involved in the current lineup of Westchester County plutocrats claim in the critical area of economic planning or forecasting?
Do not trust their numbers, their promises or their tax revenue forecasts. Not now. Not ever.
Stephen Mayo is a board member of Rethinking Westchester. His comments reflect his own thinking and not those of the Rethinking board or organization in general.
Posted by: Stephen Mayo | Thursday, January 29, 2009 at 12:43 AM