Mandate Relief

     She's got it right and it's not political grandstanding.
     Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner, in an op-ed piece in the N.Y. Times yesterday, fired a broadside at Albany and Governor Cuomo's proposed budget for 2013-14. Mayor Miner argued correctly that Governor Cuomo's proposed budget does not provide actual mandate relief to local governments or school districts. Governor Cuomo's "proposed state budget avoids them," she wrote.
     "The plan, put forward last month, would not increase state aid to cities or do much to reform tax, pension or labor laws. Instead, it would let municipalities push payment of today's ballooning pension costs into the future*, in what amounts to an accounting gimmick.
     "First, our labor costs are too high--less because of salaries, more because of the rising costs of pensions and health care...."
      New Yorkers can read the entire op-ed piece at the New York Times.
     Cortland County's elected leaders should stand shoulder to shoulder with the outspoken Syracuse mayor on the issue of mandate relief.

*State government amortising $778 million this year, and $858 million next year. Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.
  
  Mayor Miner will keep her job as co-chair of Democratic Party
 Syracuse Post Standard.