TAKE A CLOSER LOOK —PEF President Ken Brynien with staff members Brian Curran and Tom Cetrino, above, points legislators to new budget information on wasteful contracting. — Photos by Sherry Halbrook

Union spotlights budget highs, lows for lawmakers

By SHERRY HALBROOK
While PEF hailed the governor’s Executive Budget proposal for 2007 as the best for state workers and services in many years, the union moved quickly to help state legislators identify some areas that need fine tuning and others that simply need support.

With the state’s new “fast-track” budget process in place, PEF wasted no time in delivering budget testimony, developing coalitions around budget issues, running ads and meeting with lawmakers individually in their Albany and district offices.

PEF President Ken Brynien gave an overview of the union’s position on a variety of budget issues to a joint hearing of the state Assembly Ways and Means and Senate Finance Committees in late February.

At right, PEF Reg. 6 Coordinator Bob Varano tells Mary Theresa-Harris, legislative director for state Sen. Eric Adams, why a state commission on prisons should only be advisory.

Bad bargains
His testimony highlighted the disturbing information provided for the first time in this budget on how much the state spends for private contract services and how many consultants New York gets for that investment. (See the March issue of The Communicator for more information.)

“The figures are alarming,” Brynien told the lawmakers. “State agencies employed more than 7,500 employees under consultant contracts last fiscal year at an estimated cost to taxpayers of $910.9 million or an average cost of $120,718 per consultant contract employee.”

Many of the legislators — who had been trying without success to get that and other factual data from state representatives who testified — thanked PEF for its analysis and asked the union to work with them in securing and reviewing other budget and workforce data.

“PEF supports the governor’s proposal to save the taxpayers millions of dollars by reducing the use of costly consultants and, instead, relying on qualified state employees to do the work,” Brynien said, “but we would like to see the state go a step further.”

He urged the lawmakers to pass the Cost-Benefit Analysis bill, supported by PEF as part of its Go Public campaign. It would require the state to comparison shop for the best bargain, just as businesses do, to determine whether private consultants or state employees are the better deal for providing public services.

Good deals
Brynien expressed support for many of the governor’s budget initiatives such as adding state staff for environmental protection, engineering, auditing, education, youth and other services.
And the union applauded proposals to boost revenues by closing corporate tax loopholes, and expanding the state bottle bill.

At right, state Sen. Catherine Young talks with PEF Reg. 1 Coordinator Kevin Hintz about how to keep state youth facilities open. Also shown are member Phil Williams, and Wendy Borner and member Melissa Foster from Great Valley Youth Facility in Young’s district.

Buyer beware
PEF opposes the proposal to close the Great Valley youth facility in Cattaraugus County, as well as three state group homes for youths in Gloversville, Mount Vernon, and Brooklyn.

“The Legislature must keep the law requiring at least 12 months notice before closing a youth facility — and it should require the state to develop a plan for its youth facilities before considering any changes to them,” Brynien said.
Don't leave them  out in the cold. Lawmakers; Stop the closures of three youth facilities.
The PEF leader also urged the legislators to restore funding for 30 staff positions at the state Department of Civil Service that would be eliminated under the budget proposal.

PEF believes these employees are needed to help the state process the testing and hiring of approximately 2,500 new state employees proposed in the budget.

PEF also opposed two budget proposals that could further undermine public accountability: the creation of the Commission on Prison Capacity and the creation of a new public benefit corporation to administer the proposed Stem Cell and Innovation Fund.
The prison commission’s proposals for closing or downsizing of correctional facilities would become law unless rejected by a vote of both houses of the Legislature.

“If restructuring of (state correctional) operations is needed, a plan should be submitted to the Legislature by the governor, and decisions should be made in the open by a democratic process, not by an unaccountable commission,” Brynien said.

PEF recommended that if voters approve creation of a Stem Cell and Innovation Fund, it should be administered by a state agency such as the Health Department or the Department of Economic Development.

“We also have some concerns about the proposed Pollution Prevention Institute that would be funded out of the Environmental Protection Fund,” Brynien said, because employees of the state Department of Environmental Conservation already do that work.

A budget recipe good for all New Yorkers

Above ads appeared in March editions of the Albany Legislative Gazette and the Olean Times Herald.

The Communicator April 2007

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