Broome County Executive Barbara Fiala muses in today’s Press & Sun-Bulletin that her greatest accomplishment and frustration for 2007 was the George R. Harvey Justice Building. She fought to use Broome County’s slice of tobacco settlement money (money the states stole from legitimate businesses in a massive shakedown and later split amongst their counties) to rehabilitate the Harvey Building which was built in 1939. She wants to move several county departments to the building, including the District Attorney and Public Defender operations.

Broome County’s portion of the tobacco booty is $17 million. Some in the County Legislature wanted to spend the money in building a new communications building for Broome Community College to enhance the college’s budding communications program. I thought from the beginning building a new communications building was a much better use of the money–but no matter. The decision is now made.

The current holdup on renovations for the Harvey Building has to do with Ms. Fiala wanting to award 90% of the work to her labor union buddies. Political patronage is a great thing, eh? She no doubt has an eye on stocking her re-election campaign war chest. She’s being challenged in court by local contractors disputing the high union labor requirement.

Below was my response on the “story chat” for the P&SB article. I was feeling charitable, hence my complimentary tone.

I wouldn’t classify County Executive Barbara Fiala as a complete and utter disaster (like Binghamton Mayor Matt Ryan), but she’s certainly fiscally irresponsible. How about a commitment, Ms. Fiala, to freeze property tax increases for the next two years, as a starting place. Can you at least do that?

And how about showing leadership on the 800 pound gorilla of Medicaid spending? By my calculations, 80% of the property taxes we pay to the county fund the budget item called “Social Services”–the lion’s share of which is Medicaid ($34 million for Medicaid in the 2008 budget). THIS MUST STOP. How about suing New York State to allow Broome County to offer fewer Medicaid benefits instead of the “Cadillac version” offered now?

What we desperately need, Ms. Fiala, is leadership. Please stop attacking the Republican Sheriff and complaining that municipalities get to keep a full 50 percent of sales tax revenue, and start showing leadership on the issue of spending and taxes. If you do, both Republicans and Democrats will support you come re-election time.

http://rssbinghamton.com/analysis-of-proposed-2008-broome-county-budget/
http://rssbinghamton.com/the-high-cost-of-doing-business-in-new-york-and-medicaid/

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