Molinaro says mandate relief team a work in progress

AMENIA — After an evening as guest speaker for the Amenia Lions Club, state Assemblyman Marc Molinaro stopped by the Amenia Town Board meeting on Thursday, March 10, to give an update on his work on Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Mandate Relief Redesign Team.Molinaro is one of 23 members of the team, which includes representatives from private industry, education, labor and government. Molinaro is one of two assemblymen on the team and was recommended by the minority leader of the Assembly, Brian Kolb.The team’s task is to look for ways to reduce the costs of mandated programs, identify mandates that are ineffective and outdated and determine how school districts and local governments can have greater ability to control expenses, according to a press release announcing the formation of the team released by Cuomo’s office. Since the team’s establishment at the beginning of the year, Molinaro was quick to describe the group’s output as “at best, lackluster,” as the team has yet to produce a substantive report.Molinaro gave a brief update on the team’s progress, and many of the suggestions taken from the Town Board and fielded from the audience at the board meeting were already being looked at by the mandate relief team, including those stipulating prevailing wages as well as the MTA tax (“probably the most onerous” of all the mandates, Molinaro said).Prevailing wages played a significant role during the Town Board’s push to bring its new Town Hall up to code this past fall, and Molinaro said the team was looking into a system with a ceiling for enacting the mandate that would exclude similar smaller projects by municipalities.Also discussed was the proposed property tax cap bill, which has been passed in the Senate but is being held by the Assembly’s speaker, Sheldon Silver, in what Molinaro presumed was an attempt to leverage political favors with the governor down the road.“It’s probably not the best way,” Molinaro said of the tax cap, “but after so many missed opportunities [including the STAR school tax rebate program], it may be the only way.” The assemblyman also pointed out that a tax cap would only be the starting point of addressing the state’s budget issues, saying that “a tax cap doesn’t cut taxes, it just slows the rate of growth.”What the team was working toward, Molinaro said, was a system in which municipalities could seek relief from mandates through a checks and balances system, including a third-party review.As he described it, “If a town can meet the spirit of certain mandates, why impose it on them?”The state Senate has already passed a freeze on enacting new mandates, Molinaro added, but additional mandate relief is sorely needed.“Capping taxes is good, but not good enough,” he said. “We need to cut spending, figure out what is the best way to most effectively and efficiently provide services and then cut spending growth.”