RyeCity REVIEW THE
July 13, 2018 | Vol. 6, Number 27 | www.ryecityreview.com
As the battle over immigration rages on in Washington D.C., lawmakers and advocates in Westchester County held two recent rallies in White Plains to demand the federal government reunite children separated from their families while attempting to enter the U.S. For more, see page 6.
State devotes millions to greener public transit New York State will send down $5 million to incentivize greener public transit systems through the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority. The grants will be available to transit projects around the state who submit proposals to NYSERDA that effectively reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve operations, striving towards a benchmark set by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, to decrease greenhouse gas emissions 40 percent by 2030.
“These projects are a critical component for advancing solutions to some of our most pressing transportation efficiency and operations challenges while improving ridership experiences for New Yorkers,” said Alicia Barton, president of NYSERDA. Grant money will be pulled from a $5 billion Clean Energy Fund started by Cuomo in 2016 to fund clean energy initiatives across the state over the next 10 years. More than $18 million of funding will be made available by 2020, according to NYSERDA.
In addition to the grants, the state also recently rolled out a rebate program dubbed “Drive Clean” that gives New York residents rebates on a new or leased electric car up to $2,000. According to NYSERDA, more than $7.5 million has already been doled out to residents taking advantage of the subsidies. In Westchester County, renewable energy has become more prevalent, namely through initiatives like Westchester Power—the state’s first community choice aggregation program—
which offer consumers the option to derive 100 percent of their energy from renewable sources. Within the county, municipalities like the town of Mamaroneck have made strides in introducing clean energy standards and initiatives. In 2016, the town was awarded an official climate smart designation for using software to track and control emissions of municipal buildings, replacing all of its lighting with energy efficient LEDs and using biofuel to power its sanitation trucks. -Reporting by James Pero
Financial report warns of growing county deficit By JAMES PERO Staff Writer Westchester County’s financial woes are the highlight of a report conducted by the Finance Department released late last month detailing a more than $32 million budget deficit for 2018.Due to the deficit, the county’s Democratic Caucus is pointing to the fiscal practices of former County Executive Rob Astorino, a Republican. “This is an issue that the Board of Legislators and the county executive inherited,” said Board of Legislators Chairman Ben Boykin, a White Plains Democrat. “It is going to take time to work through and stabilize the financial situation of the county.” Specifically, county lawmakers point to several years of no property tax increases under Astorino, calling the results a “structural problem” within the county budget. When Astorino took office in 2010, he pledged to not raise county taxes—a commitment he met in each of his eight years in office, before being ousted by Democrat George Latimer in the 2017 election. Also looming is an outstanding contract with the county’s largest union, the Civil Service Employees Association, CSEA, which has been expired for seven years. And lawmakers have pumped the brakes on a plan to privatize the Westchester County Airport, an agreement that Astorino had used to inject an additional $15 million in revenue into the 2018 budget. It is unclear if the county will now proceed with such a proposal under the
new administration. In May, a financial review of county debt projections for the 2018 fiscal year, forecasted by new Budget Director Lawrence Soule put this year’s budget shortfall at $28.7 million. That number, however, also does not factor in contract negotiations with the CSEA. Soule forecasted that the contract could end up totaling upwards of $40 million. As a result of the deficit— which stems from the county spending more money than it generates in revenue—lawmakers will likely be forced to look at the prospect of increases property taxes. Meanwhile, the county will be forced to draw on its fund balance to offset budget gaps. For the fiscal years of 2017 and 2018, lawmakers are looking at a 61 percent reduction of fund balance if used to fill in those shortfalls—a reduction that could directly affect the county’s AAA credit rating from Moody’s, a financial service and credit rating agency. That rating affects the county’s ability to borrow and issue bonds at preferential interest rates and could prove increasingly important as the Federal Reserve continues to increase borrowing rates. In the county’s favor, however, has been better than expected sales tax revenue which compared to 2017 revenue is up 6.4 percent so far this year, and can be attributed to increasing gas prices of which the county takes a share through taxes. CONTACT: james@hometwn.com
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