Candidates Forum Speech - Paul DiGiovanni
I want to thank the League of Women Voters for sponsoring this forum and the Area Agency on the Aging for hosting it. I also want to express my regrets that my baseball buddy - and opponent in my legislative race - John Troy cannot be here tonight, as he is at work, teaching. John is a good man, and the citizens of the First Ward have two good candidates vying to represent them. I have corresponded with him, and he has agreed to us having a forum for First Ward voters. Details will be forthcoming as the arrangements are worked out.
I hope that when the voters, in the quiet of the voting booth, make their choice, that they will reflect on the record of achievement of this legislature. Two short years ago, as I was running for the office that I now hold, the local paper carried a headline that read "Cortland County Future Looks Bleak". The sub-head stated "Budget requests will put county over its tax limit; service and job cuts loom on horizon". The article noted that Moody's had just downgraded our bond rating and that a double-digit tax increase was likely. An entire division of the Health Department - Environmental Health - was considered a likely candidate to be cut to make ends meet. There was open discussion of raising the constitutional tax limit. I had to wonder why I wanted this job after reading that article, which read like an obituary.
Well...
What a difference two years has made!
The structural problems of unfunded mandates and ever-rising Medicaid costs still exist. Yet a new legislature took over and look where we are today! In 2004, we spent about 12% less than the prior legislature's budget allowed us to. We ran a surplus of $4.8 million. We bolstered reserves to nearly $9 million. And our first budget, in 2005, raised taxes only 2.9%, 2% of which covered the Medicaid increase alone. We have successfully lobbied to cap the growth in the local share of Medicaid - not a final solution, but a good first step.
We haven't cut services. On the contrary, we are funding things such as county road construction that we hadn't funded in the budget in years. We are working on a 20-year plan to address infrastructure so that long-neglected bridges, culverts, and highways will be maintained and replaced. We look forward to going back to Moody's when it is time to do so and saying: "Here's our financial status. We have more than 10% of annual operating expenses in reserve. We think you'll agree that you should raise our bond rating". And returning to that article, the prior Chairman of Budget & Finance, Mr. Van Dee, stated his hope that the budget would be out before the election. It wasn't. The administrator's 2006 budget will be out on October 20. We keep our promises.
Our success has been the result of hard work. Not wishful thinking, not a hope and a prayer, not dumb luck - but hard work. I have poured over documents, spreadsheets, web sites, and pamphlets. I have taken trips where my wife would drive and I would sit in the passenger seat so that I could read up on something of importance to the county. I have spent hours with the Administrator, the Auditor, the Clerk of the Legislature, and fellow legislators. Perhaps the most useful time is time spent with the department and division heads, who at first were quite frankly wary of us new guys, fearful, I think, that our approach to the fiscal crisis would be to slash and burn. It took some time to develop the trust that we now have, but I am confident that the strong bottom line is not a thin veneer hiding problems that are as bad as ever, but that our improved fiscal situation is, as our outside auditor put it, the results of operations being "much, much improved". Our department and division heads deserve their share of the kudos for improving operations.
I want the citizens of this county to reflect on the progress we have made and the team that has made it possible. It has taken dedicated leadership, diverse talents, and driven people who want what is best for the county. Changing horses in mid-stream when the path we have steered has led us out of the bleak future feared in 2003 to the bright future we now foresee is not something that I hope voters will want to do. I thank the First Ward for having given me the chance to work for them, and I hope that they will give me two more years to continue this record of success.
I hope that when the voters, in the quiet of the voting booth, make their choice, that they will reflect on the record of achievement of this legislature. Two short years ago, as I was running for the office that I now hold, the local paper carried a headline that read "Cortland County Future Looks Bleak". The sub-head stated "Budget requests will put county over its tax limit; service and job cuts loom on horizon". The article noted that Moody's had just downgraded our bond rating and that a double-digit tax increase was likely. An entire division of the Health Department - Environmental Health - was considered a likely candidate to be cut to make ends meet. There was open discussion of raising the constitutional tax limit. I had to wonder why I wanted this job after reading that article, which read like an obituary.
Well...
What a difference two years has made!
The structural problems of unfunded mandates and ever-rising Medicaid costs still exist. Yet a new legislature took over and look where we are today! In 2004, we spent about 12% less than the prior legislature's budget allowed us to. We ran a surplus of $4.8 million. We bolstered reserves to nearly $9 million. And our first budget, in 2005, raised taxes only 2.9%, 2% of which covered the Medicaid increase alone. We have successfully lobbied to cap the growth in the local share of Medicaid - not a final solution, but a good first step.
We haven't cut services. On the contrary, we are funding things such as county road construction that we hadn't funded in the budget in years. We are working on a 20-year plan to address infrastructure so that long-neglected bridges, culverts, and highways will be maintained and replaced. We look forward to going back to Moody's when it is time to do so and saying: "Here's our financial status. We have more than 10% of annual operating expenses in reserve. We think you'll agree that you should raise our bond rating". And returning to that article, the prior Chairman of Budget & Finance, Mr. Van Dee, stated his hope that the budget would be out before the election. It wasn't. The administrator's 2006 budget will be out on October 20. We keep our promises.
Our success has been the result of hard work. Not wishful thinking, not a hope and a prayer, not dumb luck - but hard work. I have poured over documents, spreadsheets, web sites, and pamphlets. I have taken trips where my wife would drive and I would sit in the passenger seat so that I could read up on something of importance to the county. I have spent hours with the Administrator, the Auditor, the Clerk of the Legislature, and fellow legislators. Perhaps the most useful time is time spent with the department and division heads, who at first were quite frankly wary of us new guys, fearful, I think, that our approach to the fiscal crisis would be to slash and burn. It took some time to develop the trust that we now have, but I am confident that the strong bottom line is not a thin veneer hiding problems that are as bad as ever, but that our improved fiscal situation is, as our outside auditor put it, the results of operations being "much, much improved". Our department and division heads deserve their share of the kudos for improving operations.
I want the citizens of this county to reflect on the progress we have made and the team that has made it possible. It has taken dedicated leadership, diverse talents, and driven people who want what is best for the county. Changing horses in mid-stream when the path we have steered has led us out of the bleak future feared in 2003 to the bright future we now foresee is not something that I hope voters will want to do. I thank the First Ward for having given me the chance to work for them, and I hope that they will give me two more years to continue this record of success.
posted by Doc Paul @ 11:53 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home