Next time a city school closes, critics will be harder pressed to cry foul. At least that’s what RochesterCitySchool District officials are hoping. In an effort to diminish the affect of politics on school operation — especially as the school closing process gets underway — district officials are cooking up a strategic plan. Or, to […]
budget
Posted inNews & Opinion
Table scraps: odds and ends from the Monroe County budget talks
The 2004 Monroe County budget may or may not include big social service cuts. It may also include putting welfare on a charge-back system. Safety Net is a state program for people not eligible for the federal welfare program. The cost is split between the state and the county. One proposal floating around in the […]
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Top secret: Monroe County budget
I’d say the county budget process this year reads like a dime-store novel, but that wouldn’t be fair. It has more literary merit than that. And there is so much more at stake. There’s pathos aplenty, to be sure. See the throngs of desperate people who’ve been turning up at lej meetings, alternately begging […]
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To our readers
It is City Newspaper‘s practice to refrain from campaign commentary the week prior to an election, to help insure that candidates have the opportunity to respond to our views. We are breaking from that practice, reluctantly, this week, to analyze and comment on the proposed 2004 county budget. The county’s fiscal condition is the […]
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Follies 2004: hard sell for the sales tax
With his 2004 budget announcement, County Executive Jack Doyle showed even a lame duck can spin like a top. Consider his proposal to increase the sales tax in Monroe County by 0.6 percent, making the full rate rise from 8.25 percent to 8.85 percent. Doyle characterized this increase, designed to erase almost $42 million […]
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Going bust
Monroe County is in deep trouble — Marianus Trench deep. Staggering deficits, crushing taxes, youth flight, jobs vacuum, partisan bickering, and a stagnant economy spell a bleak future unless we start turning things around, and quick. How bad is bad? Business leader Tom Richards goes so far as to say that the city of […]
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The tobacco trick
It’s interesting to note which political events attract television news coverage. When Monroe County Executive Jack Doyle held a press conference last August to announce sweeping spending cuts in the face of a massive budget deficit, the carefully coifed, heavily make-upped TV news reporters swarmed the Public Safety Building on Fitzhugh Street. That evening, […]
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Gantt vs. ‘shenanigans’
Democratic State Assemblyman David Gantt has introduced legislation that would redefine the relationship between the city school board and its superintendent, giving the super much more power and authority than the position now has, relative to the board. His bill would also rename the superintendency: The person holding the job would heretofore be known as […]
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Two men in a room
It’s been tough enough for state lawmakers to agree on their budgets through closed-door negotiations between three men in a room. Now imagine two men arguing in a room and a third sitting in his executive chamber, moistening his veto stamp in anticipation of nixing whatever compromise the two finally come up with. That […]
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Aftermathematics
Certainly, one of the terrorists’ motivations in planning the attacks of 9/11 was to cripple our economy. In addition to destroying its most prominent symbol, and all the people inside it, they hoped to deal a crushing blow to our finances as a nation. According to no less an authority than New York Governor […]
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Peacemaking: pick your role
The worldwide peace movement is on a roll, in national capitals and communities like Rochester. Geopolitical matters dominate — witness the transoceanic court battle, Bush v. Europe, et al. But people are becoming peacemakers for visceral and moral reasons. They’re confronting things like the “shock and awe” strategy propounded by Harlan K. Ullman of […]
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Pataki’s choice
Among the half-truths, distortions, and misleading politic-speak Governor George Pataki spewed forth in his January 29 address announcing his 2003-2004 state budget was this whopper: “The last thing I want to do is reduce spending on education. However, the crisis is that bad. We have no choice.” If the guv had been hooked up […]
