Knickerbocker Blog

Craig Wolf of the Poughkeepsie Journal reports that IBM is moving some production jobs from the Hudson Valley to Quebec, but that no New Yorkers will lose their jobs.

‘The boldest choice may be to stay:’ In this letter in the Elmira Star-Gazette, an Elmira native and ex-New Yorker reflects on her life in Philadelphia and the still-insistent tug of the charms of Upstate living.

. . . I must admit that Elmira pulls on my heartstrings more and more, and I cherish our visits.

This Thanksgiving, my son took in his first hockey game (Go Jackals!) and sledded on the banks of the Chemung River. Strangers in malls and restaurants stopped me to coo over my baby daughter. I don't know whether we will ever make the Twin Tiers our actual home, but it is most certainly home in my heart.

So many of us think we make a bold choice in leaving Elmira, but I hope your series entices young readers to consider that the boldest choice may be to stay.

More on the charms of life Upstate: Here.

It only took a drive from New York City to Utica to remind Anthony Colon why he loves the Mohawk Valley.

"We just forget that what we have is a great area, and sometimes a well-kept secret," Colon said.

"One that I'd like to keep that way," he said with a laugh. Advertisement

Minimal traffic, a beautiful landscape and caring people are just some of what the Mohawk Valley has to offer, said Colon, a Latino community leader.

Factory output and hiring rose in November for manufacturers in the Buffalo Niagara region this story from the Buffalo News reports.

The moderate improvement in growth among the region's manufacturers was the second straight monthly gain, following a late summer slowdown, for the National Association of Purchasing Management - Buffalo's business activity index.

The index, which continued to rebound after hitting its lowest point since June 2003 in September, showed modest growth at the region's factories, although the rate of expansion remains slower than it has been for most of the last two years.

The group's business activity index improved by 3.9 points last month to 55.9 from 52 in October. Any reading above 50 indicates improvement, and since the index has been above that benchmark since July 2003, the survey shows that the region's manufacturing sector has expanded for 28 straight months - the longest streak of consecutive improvement in more than six years.

Production at local factories grew for the first time in two months. The group's production index bounced back into growth territory at 52.1 after sliding to 47.9, which indicates declining output, during October.

The group's new order index rebounded to 52.1 last month from 47.9 in October.

There was also signs of hiring at factories. The group's employment index moved back into growth territory for the first time since August at 58.3, up sharply from the 11-month low of 47.9 it hit during October as nearly 30 percent of the firms surveyed added workers in November, up from 20 percent the month before.

See this oped in Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.

Canal redevelopment, and in particular the proposal to re-water the original downtown canal bed, can do far more for our region, and faster, than any other recovery plan on the table.

Most thriving, "destination" cities in the world have vibrant waterfronts as a key feature, and they are not limited to major coastal cities or warm climates. Indianapolis; San Antonio; Cleveland; Providence, R.I.; and other Rochester-like communities have exploited their water resources with resounding success.

In one of the most notable and inspiring efforts, Oklahoma City built the 1-mile long Bricktown Canal specifically to spur downtown development. When it opened in 1999 there was one restaurant on its banks; four years later there were around 20 restaurants, shops and clubs on the canal, and exploding development in the surrounding area. By 2003 its water taxi company (which was profitable within three months of launching) had carried more than half-a-million passengers.

All of the current and proposed high-visibility projects —high-speed ferry, casino, High Falls — would have a shot at success if they were part of a unified, bigger-picture plan to draw people here — and our world-famous canal is the ticket.

But sadly, the current plan for the existing, historic downtown canal bed is to spend $20 million to fill the former subway tunnel portion of it with dirt. The lack of vision and imagination is astonishing. If all the time, money and energy spent on disparate projects and divergent interests had been funneled into the treasure already in our back yard, we would be well on the road to prosperity already. Rochester exists because of the canal and can be revived by it. Google "Grasso/Zimmer" and "Bricktown Canal" to see how Rochester can become an American dream city, and start a public discussion that will make this our top priority.

And: This story in Syracuse Post-Standard describes a new report on ideas for Erie Canal development.

A new plan for the Erie Canal that cost $874,000 and took three years to finish contains few ideas for specific development projects along the 524-mile state waterway.

But the plan's architects think it can bring in $30 million for canalside communities over the next 10 years.

The Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor Commission announced in Baldwinsville Wednesday that its inch-thick report is finally complete.

"This is very big picture," said Eric Mower, chairman of the commission.

Mower, owner of a Syracuse advertising agency, said the plan is a road map that will help the 234 communities along the canal bring in more money while preserving and promoting the canal's history.

That map provides few concrete suggestions for development, instead offering ideas for how to marry historic preservation and economic development. Mower and Frank Dean, the commission's executive director, said the goal is to help communities with their own plans.

The commission joins several groups including the state Canal Corp. and private nonprofits whose missions are to develop and market the canal. Its plan tops a pile of others that came before it.

Residents in some Buffalo suburbs could see their property tax assessments rise anywhere from $10,000 to $240,000, according to this story in the Buffalo News.

More than 10,400 properties - nearly 11 percent of the city's housing stock - would see some assessment changes.

A few thousand homeowners would see assessed values go up by at least $10,000, while hundreds of people in more affluent neighborhoods would be hit by assessment increases ranging from $30,000 to more than $240,000. Based on current tax rates, every $10,000 increase in assessed value would increase city property tax bills by $210. Even Mayor Anthony M. Masiello wasn't spared. The assessment on his home on Penhurst Park would increase to $370,000, up $30,100.

. . . .

Some homes in upscale neighborhoods on the West Side and in North Buffalo would see assessments skyrocket by 25 to 40 percent. On streets like Chapin Parkway, Nottingham Terrace, Middlesex Road and Lincoln Parkway, a number of property owners are facing assessment increases of 50 to 70 percent.

This letter in Ithaca Journal makes the case that property-tax abatements for businesses.

Here's how [a property-tax abatement] works. In year one, 10 percent of the fully assessed value of the completed property (or all of the previous owner's assessment, if higher) is taxed at regular tax rates. Over nine succeeding years, 10 percent increments are added until the fully assessed value (including annual re-assessment increases) of the property becomes taxed.

From the first year of a newly completed development, tax abatements generate wholly new revenues from the property on which they are built. Tax abatements are not exemptions. They are not subsidies directly or indirectly. They do not impact any other property owners' tax bills. And they build substantial new tax revenues for public budgets.

An argument has been made that such projects in downtown Ithaca would be built anyway without abatements. That is highly unlikely. The difficulties of financing unique and unconventional urban real estate projects are substantial for both investors and lenders. Neither one will not risk potential losses if there is insufficient cash flow to meet all expenses (including property taxes) and mortgage payments.

. . . .

Abatements have been created to help make desirable and eligible development projects financially workable and to target healthy growth that complements downtown's multi-faceted attraction to businesses, merchants, residents and visitors.

When a project makes a worthy contribution to the downtown and is deemed eligible, an abatement is fair for all.

More on local taxes and spending: The Plattsburgh Press-Republican reports that the tax levy will go up nearly 10 percent (just over three times the rate of inflation) in Clinton County. The paper also reports that the tax levy will not increase at all, for the second straight year, in neighboring Essex County. And: This editorial in Poughkeepsie Journal urges approval of the proposed budget in Dutchess County. The piece does not say how much spending would increase under the plan. The editorial argues (as the paper did a few weeks ago, in this editorial) that the county still must do more to rein in spending on health insurance and workers’ compensation costs.

In this story in Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin, newspaper readers in the Southern Tier learn that budget increases that dwarf the rate of inflation are not a recent invention. We don’t recall what the inflation rate was in 1949, but we doubt it was 18 percent.

This piece in Utica Observer-Dispatch quotes several leaders from the Mohawk Valley saying the region’s top need is more jobs.

Area leaders understand the need to create a welcoming environment that promotes large and small business alike. People don't want their children to leave the area, but understand they will to find suitable work.

Oneida County Executive Joseph Griffo said he's "not overly satisfied" with the county's marketing approach, and said small businesses can have successful growth opportunities.

"We need to nurture small businesses," Griffo said.

The future of retail in the Mohawk Valley: This story in Utica Observer-Dispatch offers thoughts on the future of the retail sector in the Mohawk Valley. The piece quotes Utica Mayor Timothy Julian and business leaders from the region.

This story in Syracuse Post-Standard notes that Greyhound has discontinued service between Syracuse and some North County destination, hinting that there are just too few customers.

The cuts affect transportation from Syracuse to Pulaski, Watertown, Gouverneur, Potsdam, Canton and Massena, said Anna Folmnsbee, speaking for Greyhound. The decision will cut service to the region from Syracuse in half. Also, passengers will no longer be able to pick up Greyhound buses from Hancock International Airport, she said.

The routes are being eliminated either because their operating costs exceed revenue or customer demand is not large enough, Folmnsbee said.

"We are working to make Greyhound more profitable and create a network that benefits customers," said Folmnsbee, who noted Greyhound has been restructuring its nationwide route network.

Greyhound runs two daily routes from Syracuse to northern New York and stops at several colleges, including Clarkson University, State University College at Potsdam and St. Lawrence University.

Adirondack Trailways has two daily routes that provide transportation from Syracuse to the destinations Greyhound will no longer serve.

New York’s rate of population growth, last we looked, was one of the nation’s slowest.

This story in Syracuse Post-Standard reports that 500 local manufacturing jobs will be saved by a planned investment of $47 million to upgrade an Onondaga County factory.

In a move that will save at least 500 local manufacturing jobs, Magna International Inc. has agreed to invest $47 million into its New Process Gear plant in DeWitt to make a new generation of transfer cases for sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks, state officials said Wednesday.

Magna, an independent auto parts maker based in Canada that bought the New Process Gear plant from Chrysler a year ago, will spend $37.5 million on machinery to make the new transfer cases, $6.5 million on site work and $3 million to train workers to operate the equipment, the officials said.

The plant employs 3,500 people.

The state will give the company an incentive package worth nearly $7 million. It consists of a $2.2 million loan, $4.4 million in Empire Zone investment tax credits and a $300,000 training grant.

. . . .

The story notes that New York State apparently won a competition with Indiana for the investment and the jobs.

Magna considered building the new line of transfer cases in a brand-new factory it built in Muncie, Ind., but was persuaded to make the product in DeWitt, the officials said.

And the story notes that the union at the plant agreed to work-rule changes that helped make the success possible.

Doug Havens, president of United Auto Workers Local 624, said the new product is the GMT 900 transfer case and will be made for General Motors. It will replace the GMT 800, which has been made for years at New Process Gear.

He said the union had been expecting Magna to make the product in DeWitt after the union's membership in April overwhelmingly approved work rule changes designed to improve plant efficiency. Already, parts of the plant are being prepared for the new product, and the new machinery is expected to arrive after Jan. 1, he said.

"We've convinced them that we could be competitive," said Havens.

Earlier this week, Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney had second thoughts about a multi-state environmental initiative that experts agree would drive up energy costs while producing little or no environmental benefits in the states that participate. Governor Pataki had already signed on to the initiative, the so-called Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), so it was no particular surprise when a group of advocates summoned the press Thursday and tried to make the case that this would actually cause energy costs to go down. From what we can tell at first glance, only one major newspaper, the Albany Times Union, took the bait. Its story notes that the reliably left-of-center advocates are relying on data from an economic consulting group called the Economic Development Research Group. The advocates maintain that these numbers show that, by 2021, RGGI would save the typical household about $50 a year—if the household has the time, the know-how, and the inclination to also tap into existing state energy programs. But what if they don’t use those programs?

Without those energy-efficiency programs used as part of the calculation, the average household would see an increase of $5.45 a year in their electric bill.

So what are those “energy-efficiency programs?” One of the environmentalists quoted in the story shares our hunch that they probably include programs funded by the New York Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA). And how are those programs funded? By a tax on energy called the systems benefit charge (SBC). (Learn more about it here. In other words, you are already paying this tax, and it’s already helping keep energy costs high in New York. So the core idea is this: We’ll rely on high taxes to fund programs that some—a handful?—of New Yorkers will benefit from, and then argue that a tax that inflates costs actually keeps costs down. That, of course, is an illusion. With this $150 million tax already increasing everyone's burden of energy costs, and the NYSERDA programs already in place, New Yorkers’ costs of electricity are still among the nation’s highest. See the chilling data here. We’re not alone in our doubts. The Times Union story quotes an official representing the energy industry expressing doubts about the savings.

. . . New York’s power plant operators are not sold on the numbers. Gavin Donohue, chief executive of the Independent Power Producers of New York, says the data are misleading because they do not explicitly show which energy-efficiency programs are part of the calculations. The Albany-based group, known as IPPNY, represents power plant owners around the state.

"It's an oversimplification," Donohue said. "The modeling that needs to be done needs to be done responsibly."

The likely effect of the RGGI on costs: If you’re wondering why Gov. Romney appears to be reconsidering the wisdom of RGGI, remember that business organizations from all nine states set to join RGGI wrote a letter to their nine governors laying out the compelling case against this notion. The letter made a strong case that the policy change would inevitably drive energy costs higher . From our summary of that letter:

Significant changes must be made to the proposed Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) to minimize impacts on the economy of the Northeast. . . .

In the September 22 letter to Governor George Pataki and his counterparts in Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Vermont, the organizations criticized the plan as likely to drive electric prices higher for businesses and residents.

“For the private sector businesses we represent, the costs of electric power, and the reliability of our power grids, are priority issues,” the letter said. “Obviously, recent developments have made energy prices a significant issue for the average citizen as well.”

. . . .

In New York, the RGGI proposal would be the latest in a series of actions by the Public Service commission and Department of Environmental Conservation that are inflating electric prices by hundreds of millions of dollars. The state Energy Plan calls for policies that would reduce New York’s high energy costs.

“The RGGI region already has the highest average electric prices in the continental United States, with New England region at 52 percent above the national average, and mid-Atlantic region at 31 percent [above the national average],” the letter said. “For many businesses, these high energy costs are already having an adverse impact on their competitiveness.”

The proposal poses a “significant risk” of increasing electric power prices in the region by driving generators toward natural gas, imposing additional costs for the acquisition of carbon dioxide allowances or offsets, and requiring upgrading of combustion units, the letter said.

One final question: This story neglects to address one question that we find interesting: Who actually hired the Economic Development Research Group to do this analysis? This is a consulting group; we doubt they did this on their own initiative, and we doubt they did it for free. We’d be interested to know who the client is.

This editorial in the New York Sun argues, persuasively, that the Republican party should choose a candidate for governor in a manner that encourages a serious intra-party debate about policy issues. The piece rejects the idea that the party coronate a candidate Dec. 12, saying the party should instead create time and opportunities for rank-and-file party members to contribute to the dialogue before the state convention in May.

The fear seems to be that holding primaries would be costly and divisive, leaving the candidate financially drained and scarred from attacks. And that candidates would be forced to appeal to the party extremes, diminishing their appeal to the general electorate. Therefore, [Republican state chairman Stephen] Minarik and his fellow primary bashers argue, the only way to stop Mr. Spitzer, presuming he's the nominee, is to choose a candidate now and let him build up strength.

Well, if it were possible to run hogwash through some kind of superannuated refinery, you couldn't come up with a purer distillation than Mr. Minarik's thinking. A primary would achieve precisely the opposite of that against which Mr. Minarik warns. It could ignite a serious policy debate that energizes the party. The party could emerge from the primary excited about new ideas and a candidate who embodies them. What are said to be extremes - those who, say, advocate cutting taxes or permitting giving poorer parents the same right to school choice as wealthy parents - could comprise more New Yorkers than Mr. Minarik fears. If it's a question of time for the challenger to prepare for the election, Mr. Minarik could simply push to move the primary to an earlier date.

. . . .

Above all, it tells the voters something when the party of the invisible hand and the free market fails to ensure that these principles are applicable to elections. New York's GOP badly needs a primary. Out-of-control spending in the state has helped make it one of the most highly taxed in the country, despite having a Republican governor since 1995. Maybe it would have helped had Mr. Pataki had a primary. For New Yorkers have yet to see Republican ideas - serious tax-cutting, school choice, reducing the size of government - fought for from the governor's mansion. The GOP has a strong potential field, with the likes of Mr. Weld, Randy Daniels, John Faso, Thomas Golisano, Patrick Manning. They would benefit from honing their policies in a primary, while rank-and-file members would feel energized and excited again. The party needs a chairman who recognizes this.

Related thoughts: See this column by Jim Franco of the Troy Record on the scramble for power within the Republican party.

World AIDS Day is an appropriate time to note the life-saving work of the folks at the world's leading pharmaceutical companies, including those who work right here in New York. We have a college chum who was diagnosed as HIV-positive more than 20 years ago but, we're very happy to say, is still with us and doing fine. He's the subject of our weekly public-radio commentary, available here.

...like millions of other Americans, Barry is probably alive today mainly because he's been able to make use of wonder drugs developed by researchers at companies such as Pfizer, Eli Lilly, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Merck and GlaxoSmithKline. According to the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, those companies and others are now working on 82 potential new medicines, including 18 vaccines, for HIV and related infections. The medicines now in the pipeline will almost double the number approved since the AIDS virus was first identified more than 20 years ago.

Much of that research, by the way, takes place at pharmaceutical laboratories in New York. The industry accounts for nearly 100,000 good jobs in the state. Our above-average concentration of bio-tech and pharmaceutical firms gives us an edge in an increasingly important (and growing) industry. How can the Empire State capitalize on that edge? Continued investment in biotech R&D is one key step. Our 2002 report on that subject, with additional recommendations, is available here.

In this column in the Buffalo News, Donn Esmonde speaks admiringly of unionized workers from Delphi Corporation who staged a rally this week—but also suggests that they are advocating policy changes that amount to organized tilting at windmills.

. . . it seemed less like a show of force than a last gasp. It felt less like a rally than a last stand.

Workers want to erase free-trade agreements passed years ago that are ancient history to most Americans. They want good pay and full pensions from once-muscular manufacturers - whether auto parts maker Delphi or mothership General Motors - weakened to anorexia by years of bad moves and heavy commitments to workers past and present.

They came in GM pickups and Chevy SUVs and booed when a TV news crew pulled up in a Subaru. It all was like a throwback to the days when America’s Big Three automakers ruled the globe and Toyota was a bug on a Corvette’s windshield.

America still is the land of the free, but it is less and less the home of high-wage factory work. That is what Delphi workers try to hold onto, even as it slips away. Delphi went bankrupt, GM is teetering on the brink. Pension promises were made and good wages paid even as corporate complacency let Japan eat at the Big Three’s worldwide monopoly. America doesn’t even make the best minivan anymore.

The case for job-creating tax incentives is summarized efficiently in this letter in the Ithaca Journal:

At its Dec. 2 meeting the Tompkins County Industrial Development Agency board is faced with a simple decision, really. They can choose to grant a tax abatement to the Cayuga Green project and create over $4 million in new tax revenue over the next 10 years, housing for over 50 new residents, office space for over 100 workers and expansion of our entertainment and retail district — all of which will generate additional economic activity and sales tax in our downtown, or they can choose to do nothing and leave the public to pick up the cost of the revenue that won't be collected.

But: This writer disagrees. So does this one.

Jeff Platsky of the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin reports that Lockheed Martin has decided not to partner with an Arizona firm in bidding on a third federal helicopter contract. The company still plans to compete for an $8 billion contract to build search and rescue choppers for the U.S. Air Force.

David Tyler of the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle reports that the University of Rochester has secured more than $72 million in federal money for a research center devoted to laser research.

The lab, which conducts nuclear fusion research, will use the money to help complete an expansion that will house the Omega EP laser, which will be the world's most powerful laser when it begins operating in 2007.

It will better the power of the previous record holder, also housed at UR, by a factor of 50. When complete, the Omega EP will produce a "petawatt" of energy, or 1 million billion watts of power.

The lab employs 425 people and has a local economic impact of $61 million annually, McCrory said.

And: A high-tech firm in Rochester has received $1.34 million in venture-capital funds, the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle reports.

Lumetrics Inc. received $1.34 million from a consortium of venture capital firms Thursday, a boost that officials said would help the company grow quickly.

The money includes $200,000 from a state program and $300,000 from Stonehenge Capital Co., a New York City firm. Other investors include members of the Rochester Angel Network, a group aimed at promoting investment in growing companies.

The money will help the five-person Lumetrics add 11 employees in the next 12 months, said Chief Executive John Hart.

Lumetrics, with space in the Lennox Tech Enterprise Center, is a three-year-old company that designs and manufactures a high-tech measuring device based on licensed patents from Eastman Kodak Co.

This story in the Albany Business Review shows how local businesses in the Albany-area town of Colonie flexed in muscle last month and got local lawmakers to re-think a new tax.

Howard Carr said business leaders in Colonie want to bring a better sense of proportion to the town's taxing policies now that they have gotten a new platform to be heard from.

The commercial real estate developer was among prominent businesspeople whose complaints got the town board to reduce a proposed tax increase on commercial property for 2006 from $4.67 per $1,000 assessed value to $3.44 per $1,000.

The reductions came through the town's cutting of a proposed highway fund tax on commercial property from $1.88 to 66 cents per $1,000 assessed value. Supervisor Mary Brizzell said town agencies scraped together $500,000 in savings through such things as delayed purchases and curtailing travel and applied all of it to lowering business taxes in the $76.7 million budget.

"I don't want to sound like I am thrilled by a 23 percent increase in taxes, but it is a hell of a lot better than a 68 percent increase," said Peter A. Gray, interim director of the Colonie Chamber of Commerce and owner of TriData Telecom in Colonie.

Carr and Brizzell agreed that the bigger issues are not going away. Brizzell said the costs of running local governments are only increasing, with health care costs for its employees being especially troublesome. Carr said the business community cannot be saddled with an unreasonable proportion of those costs.

"We need to take a harder look at the overall tax burden that the commercial property owners are asked to bear, especially on something that everybody uses, such as the highways," he said. "Everybody has to pick up a share of this."

This story from Business First of Buffalo is a great profile on New York high-tech entrepreneurs and the federal program that helps many of them get started.

When Darold Wobschall founded his electronic sensor development company in 2000, he was reluctant to seek outside investors for fear of losing control.

But the fact remained that Esensors Inc. desperately needed more capital to continue the development process.

Wobschall found that capital in the form of grant funding through the federal Small Business Innovation Research program. Esensors, an Amherst company with 10 employees and revenues of about $200,000, has since received several SBIR awards to develop smart sensor systems.

. . . .

A growing awareness about SBIR programs has helped boost the volume of grant awards in Western New York and in the state as a whole. High-tech businesses in New York received nearly $100 million in funding through the federal Small Business Innovation Research program in 2004, beating the previous record of $79 million set in 2003.

. . . .

Between 2001 and 2004, New York's ranking, based on total SBIR dollars awarded, rose from ninth to fifth place. During the same period, the dollar value of awards nearly tripled, the largest percentage increase among the top five SBIR recipient states.

Companies in the state received 251 SBIR awards last year, up 53 percent from 163 awards in 2001.

A workforce training expert in Western New York suggests closer monitoring of how taxpayer dollars are spent to train workers in this story from Business First of Buffalo.

James Finamore, the executive director of the Buffalo & Erie County Workforce Investment Board Inc., was correct in a Nov. 7 Business First article when he said the region's population will look dramatically different in the coming years, and that we need to be proactive in training potential and existing employees to fill jobs.

What's the best way to accomplish this?

As a first step, the Buffalo Niagara Partnership believes strongly that the WIB's three-year strategic plan must include tracking how public dollars are being spent so success can be measured and areas for improvement can be identified.

. . . .

As the region's economic development agencies focus on bringing in businesses (and therefore creating new jobs) in targeted industry clusters, it only makes sense to have the area workforce training agency also aligned with these sectors.

After all, the goal of having a well-trained workforce will only be met when individuals are gainfully employed and when our region's employers have the high-quality workers they need.

Here.

David Robinson of the Buffalo News reports that an Erie County manufacturer plans to invest $75 million in an expansion that will produce 75 new jobs.

Steuben Foods is planning an $18 million expansion at its Elma food and beverage manufacturing plant to increase its capacity to process organic milk and soy products, company officials said Thursday.

The expansion, which is intended to be the first part of a two-phase project that ultimately will add about 75 jobs to the 300-worker facility, will make the Elma plant one of the nation's biggest that handles ultrapasteurized and extended-shelf-life food and dairy products.

The investment is the latest in a series of improvements at the 1150 Maple Road plant that have topped $100 million over the last 20 years.

The Buffalo News reports that Chinese officials were in the region Thursday seeking new economic ties.

The businessmen and women represented companies that manufacture a wide range of products, from auto parts to textiles, in the rich Shandong Province, which has a population of 91 million and major seaports on the east coast of China, southeast of Beijing.

The executives held a day-long meeting with business heads and economic development officials from the Buffalo Niagara region in the Vantage Industrial Center in Sanborn.

The international get-together was much more than PowerPoint presentations, back-and-forth conversation - mostly through an interpreter - and the exchange of business cards.

“We expect this visit will lead to actual business deals,” said Jinshui Zhang,international director with the state’s Small Business Development Center in Albany. “There are potentially millions of dollars of investment represented in this room today.”

The Chinese executives reeled off many areas of interest, from establishing a biotechnology research lab to building a factory that would make concrete mixers.

This story in the Buffalo News recounts ideas for the future of Erie County’s government that were outlined at a hearing Thursday of the Erie County Charter Review Commission. The story focuses to a significant extent on the suggestions of a business leader from the region.

Reducing the powers of the county executive and County Legislature - and even dismantling county government - were among suggestions made Thursday evening to members of the revived Erie County Charter Review Commission.

Sixty people attended the commission’s first public hearing at Erie Community College’s City Campus in downtown Buffalo.

“We’re in a fact-finding mode,” Chairman George K. Arthur said. “The County Legislature has just extended the commission’s life for another 90 days, to July 15. Our final report will go to the Legislature, and they will have 90 days to act on it. Then charter changes can go on the ballot next November.”

Robert Gioia of the Buffalo Niagara Partnership said the charter must be revised before many of his group’s 128 recommendations for streamlining county government can be adopted.

“Many of these recommendations,” he said, “would remove or alter powers now explicitly granted to the county executive in the charter. Our recommendations include limiting the county executive’s appointment authority to commissioner-level positions.”

In addition to consolidation of services, the Partnership’s “Plan for Moving On” proposes changes in the County Legislature “to bring that body back in line with its chartered mission,” Gioia said. One proposal calls for cutting the legislators’ salaries to $22,000 from $40,000 “to encourage citizen legislators, rather than career politicians.”

Amherst Councilman William L. Kindel suggested “the elimination of the current form of county government.” He said basic services such as police, fire, roads, tax collection, senior services and youth recreation should be provided by town, village and city governments.

The story also quotes a prominent reform advocate in the region saying his taxpayer group would advance ideas of its own in the weeks ahead.

James Ostrowski, an attorney who heads the 800-member taxpayer group Free Buffalo, said his organization will explore “different forms of government” at a public forum planned for late next month.

This editorial in the Buffalo News argues that a lobbyist with an Albany firm whose clients include powerful spending interests, should resign from Erie County’s fiscal control board because of possible conflicts of interest.

Janet Penska could finesse some of the conflicts between her new lobbyist job and her position on the Erie County Fiscal Stability Authority, but the risk is too great. There is also a real appearance of conflict, which can be just as harmful. As competent as she is on the board, she should resign.

Penska, an associate vice president at the University at Buffalo and its top lobbyist, took a new job with an influential Albany law firm that lobbies on behalf of clients that include Local 1199 of the Service Employees International Union, which represents health care workers. These include those in Kaleida Health, which accounts for the vast majority of the county's Medicaid expenses. Others include adult homes, health insurers and hospitals, all of whom can influence the county budget.

That client list forms a troubling nexus of interests for someone whose control board obligations prominently include improving the county's financial prospects. For example, control board Chairman Edward V. Regan has said he agrees that the state's Medicaid system puts an undue burden on counties. Yet, under pressure from Local 1199, Albany vastly expanded the Medicaid program in 1999, raising its costs and contributing to large property and sales tax increases around the state.

The Medicaid issue is a huge one and, with her new position, Penska can't avoid the appearance of having feet in both camps. That is an untenable situation. As a county resident and Albany insider, Penska brings real strengths to the board, but those qualities don't outweigh the conflicts.

State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for governor in 2006, made some fund-raising appearances in Buffalo Thursday. As the story by Bob McCarthy of the Buffalo News notes, he again sounded some themes about the need for policy changes to ease the burden that high costs place on the state’s economy.

Though never mentioning retiring Gov. George E. Pataki, he said leadership in Albany "wanders aimlessly, issues an occasional press release and shows up at ribbon cuttings, but nothing happens."

He homed in on the state's failure to build a new Peace Bridge or develop the Buffalo waterfront while noting the state also incurred the nation's second highest energy rates even though "we have this little waterfall right nearby."

He said the great governors in the state's history invested in big projects like the Erie Canal, the Thruway, and the New York City and state university systems that in past years built the state into an economic powerhouse.

"I do not concede anything. We will not give any other city an advantage," he said. "But government has to do its part, and for government to do its part, we have to change the status quo."

An editorial in the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin praises efforts by Governor Pataki and state Senator Thomas Libous to invest in a SUNY community development center in downtown Binghamton .

Hey, the more programs and classes the better. The busier the center the better. The more people downtown the better — not just for the city but also for the county and for the region.

Listening to radio coverage of the Bills' attempt to squish the Fish* Sunday, we were pleased to hear a Civil Service Employees Association commercial attacking the Buffalo-Niagara Partnership. Pleased, because the Partnership has obviously made an impact with its repeated, well-argued calls on local leaders to control spending and taxes. The CSEA commercial demanded that the business group acquiesce to higher spending for the Erie County Medical Center, county nursing home and other operations. Fortunately, there's no sign the Partnership will listen. Its efforts are a good model for other local and regional business groups; while reforming state mandates is one key step toward lower local taxes, so is influencing local decisions about hiring, spending and taxing. Not surprisingly, CSEA applauds the Erie County Legislature's recent decision to raise property and sales taxes. See this posting on the CSEA website (scroll to the November 17 item). * "Squish the Fish!" is the favorite cheer of Bills fans when the Miami Dolphins are in town. Unfortunately, on this Sunday, the Fish refused to be squished.

A story in the Syracuse Post-Standard notes that a central New York manufacturer is planning some temporary layoffs.

The New Process Gear plant, which just received state money to keep people working, will lay off hundreds of employees in rotating temporary layoffs through December and early January.

The layoffs will affect union and management alike as the automotive-parts supplier cuts production to match slowing demand from automakers.

It's difficult to say exactly how many workers will be affected by the temporary layoffs because some departments are slated for more than one shutdown, according to a company memo. Some 1,825 positions will be affected, most by temporary layoffs.

A general slowdown in the automotive industry is to blame. The plant laid off 60 workers Monday as part of an earlier announcement.

In an oped in the Syracuse Post-Standard, an official from National Grid shares the company’s perspective on rising costs of natural gas and explains what the company is trying to do to mitigate the effects of these increases on its customers.

At the regional level, National Grid takes steps to reduce the impact of higher natural gas costs. Half the gas National Grid sells to customers in the winter is bought and stored during lower-price summer months, or secured with futures contracts. These measures, however, can only moderate surges in national market prices; they can't reverse them. National Grid does not mark up the gas we sell or profit from our gas sales.

While commodity costs have risen sharply, other components of the customer's bill remain stable. The cost of transporting gas from the wellhead to Upstate New York will decline slightly this year, and National Grid's charge for delivering the gas is essentially unchanged since 1996.

National Grid has launched an extensive outreach campaign to help customers save energy and money. With state support, the company also is providing $5 million to fund New York State Energy Research and Development Authority programs that benefit low-income customers. Detailed examples of how to save money are available at our Web site.

In an oped in the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin, a town supervisor from Broome County argues that it’s not all that rare to see local governments consolidating services.

A complete list of the current shared service agreements between municipalities is on the "goBroomeCounty" Web site, and I might add that these lists were also handed out at the first shared service summit, so to say that we only trade equipment back and forth tells me that some are not looking at the correct information.

Are there still areas that we can and should look at sharing services, or consolidating? Yes, and the biggest is health care costs, which is what the municipal leaders currently are looking at.

And: An editorial in Elmira Star-Gazette argues that Chemung County officials should continue their quest for opportunities to share services, especially in policing.

There is no question that police consolidation worries some officials. It is a vast unknown. But officials and community leaders should always be on the lookout for ways to deliver government services as cost efficiently as possible. So with further study, incremental steps such as the one between the city and county and with a commitment to keep the issue active, Chemung County can give consolidation fair consideration.

Still more on consolidating government services: An editorial in the Glens Falls Post-Star argues that "The problem with government consolidation is that every elected official thinks it's a good idea -- that is, until it comes time to give up something in return.". The piece notes that some local volunteer fire departments are apparently warming up to the idea of consolidating.

The devil in consolidation is, as they say, in the details.

Maybe it's the mood of the taxpayers or fallout from the political campaigns. Or maybe people are just starting to get used to it. But Queensbury Town Supervisor Dan Stec, a longtime advocate of consolidation, is suddenly finding a friendly ear for the concept from a very unlikely source -- the town's independent-minded fire companies and emergency squads.

And that bodes well for other opportunities for consolidation.

Consolidation, for the most part, is designed to create long-term benefits, not short-term rewards. The actual dollar savings from most consolidation efforts are initially modest. But by combining services, governments will learn to operate more efficiently, which saves taxpayers money over time. Through consolidation, governments are able to share equipment and manpower that otherwise would be underused. And by consolidating equipment purchases, governments can take advantage of bulk discounts, with the savings spread out over years.

Since most taxpayers, and therefore most politicians, tend to think in the present, the pleas of consolidation supporters tend not to generate large outpourings of support. What seems to account for Mr. Stec's success this time around in getting sides to the table on consolidation is the one thing that's held back past consolidation efforts.

There’s more, but the link is for paid subscribers only.

A story by Marc Johnson of the the Associated Press highlights economic revitalization efforts built around the Erie and Champlain canals.

"People are turning to the canal as a key to revitalization efforts," Canal Director Carmella Mantello said. "So many folks are recognizing that investing in cultural resources and open space translates into economic development."

A 2002 study found canal tourism contributed $380 million a year to the state's economy. The state plans to update that study within the next two years, she said. Travelers spent about $34.4 billion in New York in 2002, according to the Travel Industry Association of America.

Canal system use by recreational vessels from May through August rose 6.7 percent from the same period a year earlier. A total of 93,026 recreational lockings _ trips through a lock _ have been recorded at the canal system's 57 locks and 16 lift bridges through the end of August, compared to 87,178 in 2004. Full numbers for the year were not available yet.

. . . .

Baldwinsville Mayor Dan O'Hara said his village near Syracuse has benefited from state and local efforts to promote the canal as a tourist destination. In late 1995, taxable property in the village was about $128 million. Now that number is about $227 million, mainly because of downtown development catering to boating traffic, he said.

"Baldwinsville is a wonderful example how these efforts can create an economic spark," said O'Hara, a Democrat. "Manufacturing is not driving the economy in upstate New York anymore. It's tourism, tourism, tourism. You have to look positively at the natural resources, see what you have in your community and go after that."

Efforts to rebuild communities by concentrating on existing infrastructure and natural elements are always a good idea. And we hope the efforts bring back songs like this. "I've got a mule, her name is Sal. . . . "

In a letter in the Buffalo News, a student from western New York who goes to college out of state wishes that western New York had a better record of moving confident towards economic progress.

I love this area - its spirit, its attitude, its people and the Bills. I have always been confident that after college, I will return to the area to pursue my career and raise a family.

Last week, I picked up The News for the first time in three months. Seeing the front-page headline, "Moving toward certainty on Bass Pro," nearly crushed my spirit. It is as if I had never left - nothing had changed, no progress whatsoever. The region is still working "toward certainty" on this project? How long is it going to take? It certainly is an important and worthwhile venture, but the city's inability to follow through on plans to better the region tears me apart.

Young adults constantly hear comments like "there are no jobs in Buffalo" and "find a future outside of the area." While I remain undeterred from my plan to return to my beloved hometown despite the negative outlooks, it would be nice if the region could provide younger generations with dreams of a better tomorrow for this great but struggling city.

A story in Rochester Democrat and Chronicle says residents in communities targeted for development of wind power have raised serious questions about the process.

Richard Foringer gives an ironic little laugh when he talks about being accused of "NIMBYism" — shorthand for "not in my back yard," or a selfish aversion to development.

Sitting at his kitchen table in Cazenovia, Madison County, he glances out the window to watch a 326-foot-high wind turbine's blades spin through the season's first snow. The behemoth, though not literally in Foringer's back yard, looms over his deck, just 1,000 feet from his house, on a neighbor's property. A slow, droning swish-thump is just barely audible through the walls and windows.

"You hear the whipping when a blade arcs. Sometimes it's like an engine running. You hear the gears creaking ... it's terrible," Foringer said.

"I'd sell the house immediately, but I don't think I could sell it now," he said. "As far as I'm concerned, they took away everything I had here ... it's all gone now."

Foringer's story is what many residents in rural western New York fear when they hear that a wind developer is targeting their town.

There’s much more. And: There’s a sidebar, too, under the compelling headline: ’Turbines' giant footprints generate wariness’.

In a letter in the Elmira Star-Gazette, an Elmira native living in California reflects on the Empire State tax burden.

After 40 years of living in California, I really look forward to moving back.

My only gripe is the very high property taxes in Elmira. I live in Riverside, Calif. We only pay 1 percent of property value for property tax. It seems that the high rates in Elmira could cause business and working people to hurt and depress the area.

But: This overheated letter in the Elmira Star-Gazette suggests that New York’s local taxes, in Chemung County at least, cannot be sustain even a modest tax cut, one that’s below the rate of inflation, without apocalyptic consequences. (Those are our words, but that’s the writer’s tone.)

Are we such fools? A 2.9 percent county property tax reduction is insulting to every soul in Chemung County.

The funding for all our cultural institutions has been severely reduced or eliminated. The Chamber of Commerce's funding has been reduced to the point that tourism promotion is minimal. With our history and natural beauty, tourism could be a huge source of income. Our leaders fail to understand this.

. . . .

The point isn't not to invest; it's to invest wisely. Residents do not live by tax cuts alone, only politicians do. Let the county know you are not going to be fooled. Until all cultural and tourism budgets are adequately funded and until we have a community college, any tax cut is politics of the very worst kind.

Well, the author’s support for tourism and its promotion, culture institutions, and community colleges deserves nothing but admiration. Beyond that, the letter is silly. The fact is that New York’s property taxes are among the nation’s highest, 44 percent above the national average. And countless other communities across the country support tourism, cultural institutions, and community colleges without New York’s crushing tax burden. Even Ohio has museums and community colleges. And yet, as our 2004 study showed, Upstate New Yorkers pay up to $6 billion a year more in taxes than residents of Ohio.

Republicans should pick Weld: An editorial in the Daily News argues that New York State Republicans should nominate Bill Weld for governor.

One week from today, New York's Republican leaders are scheduled to meet for the purpose of endorsing a favored candidate for next year's gubernatorial contest. They've been hemming and hawing and squabbling and bickering over the choice, and for no good reason. The class of their field is former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld, a native and returned New Yorker.

Weld's superiority is obvious to almost everyone in GOP circles except Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno, who hopes an even more powerful King Kong of a candidate will emerge to take on Eliot Spitzer, the Democrats' putative Godzilla. What is Bruno smoking?

Gov. Pataki and state GOP chairman Stephen Minarik want party chiefs to line up behind Weld next week rather than dawdle into the spring before making a pick. They're right to move quickly because their standard-bearer will need all the time and resources the party can muster to battle Attorney General Spitzer or any other Democrat.

And: A story in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle examines the implications of a possible run for the Republican nomination for governor by Rochester billionaire Thomas Golisano.

Tom Golisano spent a decade being a thorn in the side of state Republicans. Now he's their X factor.

Is he running or isn't he?

. . . .

Most political leaders figure Golisano will run, but for a Republican Party fearful of losing the governor's mansion next year, waiting for Golisano is a game some don't like playing.

Not only that, but Golisano isn't working Republican circles in an attempt to endear himself to his past political foes. So some are cautioning that Golisano shouldn't expect to swoop in with a big checkbook and quickly win over party loyalists.

There’s much more. ‘RINOs should move to the right.’ A letter in Albany Times Union argues that Republicans must move to their right to compete for governor in 2006.

The New York GOP is in trouble because its leadership has forgotten what a Republican is supposed to be. George Pataki has steadily steered the party to the left to the point where it is now Democrat Light.

. . . .

William Weld is Pataki all over again, and Jeanine Pirro has been labeled a Hillary "carbon copy." The Republican Party leadership is courting Democrat voters with these two leftists, but what makes them think Democrats will vote for light versions of Spitzer and Clinton when they can have the real thing?

Republican and Conservative voters want candidates who reflect their values. Until the leadership realizes that, the Republican Party will continue to decline and will eventually be an afterthought in New York.

Meanwhile, in the Assembly minority: Marc Humbert of the Associated Press considers the future of the Assembly Republican Minority under its new leader, Assemblyman Jim Tedisco (R-Schenectady County). The short of it: Assemblyman Tedisco faces an uphill journey. Still more politics: Joe Mahoney of the Daily News reports that pressure on Jeanine Pirro to abandon her race for U.S. Senate and instead seek the state Attorney General job reflect a new assertion of power by Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno. The piece suggests that Senator Bruno is exerting influence as part of his efforts to retain the Senate Majority for Republicans. It’s an interesting piece. And on the year ahead: There's an in-depth analysis on the political lay of the land for the year ahead in the New York Times. And: Assemblyman Pat Manning (R-Dutchess County), a long-shot candidate for the Republican nomination for governor, is taking his message to small-town New York. See this story in the Herkimer Telegram.

An editorial in the Albany Times Union suggests that the case for a raise for lawmakers in Albany is weak.

. . . A New York legislator currently [makes] a base salary of $79,500 a year for what is defined as part-time work. And certainly not for those earning lulus, or leadership stipends, that boost the average legislators salary to $92,000. All 62 senators get a lulu, and so do three-quarters of the 150 members of the Assembly.

That's a lot of money for a Legislature that doesn't seem to get much done each year. To the contrary, it has become infamous for gridlock. Legislation can take a decade or more before finally clearing both houses. Sometimes it takes much longer. So the question is, a raise for what?

Abolishing lulus would be an improvement, although legislative leaders like to use them as leverage to keep the rank-and-file in line. Still, the key issue is legislative performance. True, the Legislature showed it could meet a budget deadline this year, and there were some important reforms enacted. But so much remains to be done. So if a raise does become an issue next year, New Yorkers can rightly ask the lawmakers what they have done to deserve one. That should end the matter then and there.

Another suggestion: A letter in the Utica Observer-Dispatch also suggests that lawmakers’ job performance does not merit a raise.

I have no objection to pay raises for state lawmakers, however, you have to earn it first by fulfilling your obligations as legislators. No on-time budget, no raise. In industry you would be demoted or fired without an on-time budget.

I suggest Gannett News Service compile a list of all state legislators, their salaries, a description of the responsibilities that entitle them to lulus (extra pay), and the amount of lulus. Staff salaries, travel and office expenses also seem vague. Maybe then some light could be shed on their responsibilities and their true reimbursement.

If lawmakers can’t have a raise. . . : Judges shouldn’t hold their breath waiting for their pay hike, Jay Gallagher of the Gannett News Service reports.

Fat chance, Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno essentially said to the idea of throwing almost $70 million into next year's budget for the pay hikes.

"We expect it is going to be a lean budget year," Bruno said. "Right now the Senate is focused on improving our economy, creating jobs, providing tax relief and living within the state's means."

That sounds like the judges shouldn't count on those fatter paychecks just yet, even though Gov. George Pataki is in their corner.

The tenor of Bruno's remarks makes it likely he'll butt heads with the state's chief judge, Judith Kaye, who last week said "fair compensation for all state judges is my highest priority."

. . . .

. . . By tradition judges have gotten a raise only when members of the Legislature do (just as the pay of federal judges is tied to what members of Congress make.) The reality has been that the clamor for judges to get more money has been a tool New York lawmakers have used to justify their own increases.

That's something New York lawmakers are generally reluctant to do, since voters, who for the most part don't have the option of voting to raise their own pay, tend to react negatively.

More on legislative pay raises: Liz Benjamin of the Albany Times Union has an overview on legislative pay raises. It notes that Pennsylvania legislators recently voted themselves a pay raise in the middle of the night and then had to repeal their own raise as voters objected.

In Pennsylvania, widespread public outcry caused chastened state lawmakers to repeal 16 to 54 percent raises four months after they approved the boosts for themselves, judges, the governor and his cabinet in a 2 a.m. vote with no official notice or debate. The legislators hadn't addressed the pay issue for 10 years.

Jay Gallagher of the Gannett News Service writes in his column that state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for governor in 2006, says he is committed to reforming Albany, but passed up a chance to prove it when the issue of workers' comp reform came up.

He wants to make government more accountable, efficient and transparent.

“Just as we freed the markets from cronyism and special interests, so can we free government from the grips of special interests and return it to its proper, historic role of creating opportunity for all New Yorkers,” he said.

“To do this, we cannot be timid,” he continued. “If we want to shake our government from its torpor, we need to be bold and unyielding when it comes to our goals.”

However, Gallagher writes, the attorney general declined one opportunity to affirm his commitment earlier this month on the issue of workers' comp reform.

Earlier this month Gov. George Pataki proposed to limit the time injured workers can collect workers' compensation payments to 10 years and raise the maximum benefit from $400 a week to $500 a week. Pataki estimates it would cut workers'-compensation insurance rates by 15 percent. Business leaders say it would help get the cost of doing business in New York more in line with the rest of the country.

But union leaders, while not rejecting Pataki's plan out of hand, have in the past opposed limiting the payments.

Does Spitzer support or oppose the idea?

“I'm not going to give you an up or down answer” on Pataki's plan, he said this week, adding that he will have his own workers' comp plan at some point.

That may be prudent, but it's hard to imagine that his hero Teddy Roosevelt wouldn't have broken a few pieces of china if he were asked a similar question.

An editorial in the New York Post argues that New York can and should emulate New Jersey in moving to reform its public pensions.

[New Jersey's] proposed reforms, made public last week, are mostly common sense and would bring the system more in line with the private sector:

* Raise the retirement age to 60 from 55 — still below those generally found in the private sector, as well as that set by Social Security.

* Have employees contribute to their plans (a common practice in the private sector), perhaps upward of 5 percent of the plan's total cost.

* Bar employees who only work part-time and make less than $5,000 a year from gaming the system as they do now to (unfathomably) get retirement benefits.

* Calculate pension payouts by averaging an employee's five highest-grossing years' salary — as opposed to the current three-year average.

If enacted, the reforms could trim more than a billion from what the state expects to pay next year.

Predictably, New Jersey's public employee unions are threatening war.

And implementing the fixes will be up to Gov.-elect Jon Corzine — whose campaign was strongly back by those very same unions. So the chances for actual reform seem problematic.

The editorial argues that New York is, if anything, an even better candidate than New Jersey for pension reform.

Back in 2000, pensions for New York state public employees cost $970 million a year.

In only four years, that number skyrocketed to more than $4 billion (largely as a result of truckling to the public-employee-union vote by Gov. Pataki and the Legislature).

An eye-popping 312 percent rise in just four years?

This gives the word "unsustainable" an entirely new dimension.

There's more.

An interesting investigation by the New York Sun confirms that New Yorkers have known for years: that rent-control laws in New York City help some city residents buy homes in other parts of the world, including Upstate,

Thousands of New Yorkers, taking advantage of rent-stabilization laws designed to keep middle-class New Yorkers in the city, are using the money they are saving on rent to buy weekend or vacation homes outside New York in places such as Florida, Connecticut, and even Switzerland.

. . . .

Rent regulation in New York began in 1947, in part to relieve a historic housing shortage and to maintain diversity in New York City's neighborhoods. There are now 867,697 rent-stabilized apartments and 59,324 rent controlled apartments in the five boroughs, roughly half the city's total rental housing stock, according to the state Department of Housing and Community Renewal. Rent increases for those apartments are set annually by a government board. Living in a rent-controlled or rent-stabilized apartment and owning a second home is legal, and there is no database of people who fall into that category.

It is illegal for a tenant to occupy a rent-stabilized or -controlled apartment if it is not their primary residence. Because the city and state do not monitor these occurrences, a cottage industry of attorneys, brokers, private investigators, and buyout specialists has grown to fill the niche. Most of the evidence of rent-regulated tenants who own second homes is unearthed in the recurring effort of owners to oust tenants who live elsewhere and sublet their rent-regulated apartments or rent them out as short-term hotel rooms.

The story identifies one couple that takes advantage of the rent-control game with a second home in Upstate New York.

An editor, Kenneth Magill, and his spouse, Ludmila, who works in advertising, reside during the week in a rent stabilized two-bedroom apartment in northern Manhattan, and on the weekends drive up to their converted three bedroom house in upstate New York. The couple decided to purchase their upstate home and stay in their rent-stabilized apartment rather than buy another Manhattan apartment.

They bought the house for $115,000 in 2003, and have since spent an additional $50,000 on landscaping, an added bedroom, and a hot tub. Mr. Magill is a former employee of the Sun. Now they pay about $1,000 a month in rent for their city apartment and about $900 a month on the mortgage for their upstate home.

"For the cost of keeping the elevators running in a Midtown co-op, I have a house upstate," Mr. Magill said. "I'm personally opposed to rent-control and -stabilization, but I didn't make the rules, and I have to do what's best for me and my family."

There's much more in this fascinating story. And: An editorial in the New York Sun criticizes the concept of rent control.

. . . it's important to lay the blame at the right address. We don't fault the tenants. . . for taking advantage of the opportunities New York's rent laws create. The problem is rent stabilization itself. As a Manhattan Institute scholar, Peter Salins, wrote in a 2004 report on rent regulation, the law "makes housing for all but its already vested beneficiaries scarcer and more expensive, mainly to the detriment of the same New Yorkers - immigrants and moderate-income households - who are also disadvantaged by the other regulatory contributors to the housing gap."

The solution is almost certainly not more "affordable housing" of the type Mayor Bloomberg has been touting. It would be far better to eliminate market distorting price controls while also increasing the supply. That will be hard; our editorial of November 11, "New York's Home Front," described some of the many obstacles to building new units in the city. But Mr. Lombino's article hammers home the point that the current system is dysfunctional. More of the same won't be any better.

A letter in the Buffalo News questions the merits of the Erie County clerk’s suggestion that it should be easier to increase taxes in Erie County.

I read with interest in the Nov. 23 News that County Clerk David J. Swarts wants to return to the days when only a simple majority of county legislators would be required to raise the county sales tax, as opposed to the two-thirds majority that is required now. The article went on to explain that Erie County's 8.75 percent sales tax will be the second highest in the state, behind Oneida County's 9.5 percent.

Apparently, Swarts is not satisfied with the number two spot. His eyes are squarely fixed on Oneida County's coveted prize. It is reaching the point where the only people in Erie County who are able to give thanks in this holiday season are the political patronage appointees and the handful of county officials whose jobs seem to be intact forever.

A letter in the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin advances the argument that New York needs a living wage, but not higher taxes .

The living wage is a necessary element in this state, and more so in the Southern Tier.

. . . .

Workers will be more satisfied about going to work and much better able to afford to get there with current fuel prices. They will also be motivated to work better. They will be able to fulfill their basic needs better and spend more in retail outlets. Therefore, all business will be better off.

One thing that must not rise is taxes.

Well, we’re unpersuaded by arguments in favor of living wage laws. In fact, our own study on this issue concluded that living-wage laws can actually harm low-income workers by reducing the number of available jobs at the same time they drive up costs for taxpayers. That’s right, drive up taxes. That’s because, if municipalities have to pay the living wage, they have to find money somewhere to pay for higher wages for their own employees and workers for their contractors. It’s hard to imagine a living-wage law that wouldn’t drive up taxes.

An editorial in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle argues that employers' continuing and worsening problems finding affordable health insurance suggest that it's time to look beyond "community rating" in health insurance policy.

In the face of ever-growing health costs, increases to premiums far above the inflation and wage growth rates, and the decline of community rating, the state and Congress simply must do more on this issue for small business.

The insurance affordability problem is getting way ahead of the answers. The fact that it's showing up in Rochester, long known for its stable health care environment, is signal enough to policymakers that what's being done is not sufficient.

The community-rating pool, which for generations defined the way insurance costs were set here, for the first time covers fewer than half of those purchasing private coverage from Excellus BlueCross and BlueShield Rochester Region. The tipping point has been reached.

What can be done at this point? Saving community rating as it has existed for so long is unrealistic. But it isn't unrealistic to do more to help firms who want to provide coverage for their workers but can't get over the cost mountain.

The state Legislature should pare the list of coverage mandates that raise the cost of insurance and leave small companies on the outside. The state has a good program for small businesses called Healthy NY, but to qualify, businesses cannot have offered a plan to their workers for at least 12 months. That's an impediment to coverage when government should be facilitating it.

The editorial also encourages U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-New York) to rekindle her proposal for national health care.

A letter in Buffalo News argues that critics of high local taxes should focus not on government employees but on state mandates. It’s true that state mandates are a big problem. Our Bob Ward’s 1999 book on the issue, The $163 Lightbulb, showed that sweeping mandate reform in New York State could save taxpayers as much as $6 billion a year. That figure has surely increased significantly since then. Of course, it’s important to remember that many of those mandates, notably the state’s Taylor Law and the Triborough Amendment to the Taylor Law (see, for example, page 72 of Bob’s book), are problematic precisely because they drive up the costs of government employees’ pay and benefits. And as we showed in a separate study last year, the Upstate tax burden is up to $6 billion more than it would be in a state like Ohio, with a merely average tax burden—with up to $4 billion of that difference attributable to high costs of local government payrolls. More on local property taxes: Another letter in the Buffalo News criticizes a column by former Buffalo News editor Murray Light, who apparently suggested that those who own properties worth more than $100,000 can afford a property-tax hike.

A liberal elitist attitude was never better shown than in Murray Light's Nov. 20 column. There he decided that anyone whose home was assessed at $100,000 could well afford to pay an extra $70 a year in property tax. He then stated the number of properties that fit that category is unknown.

First we must realize the assessed value of a residence bears little relation to one's real-life capability to pay. Also, assessments have historically been overstatements of real market value.

The real unknown, which Light ought to determine, is how many widows or elderly families today remain in their longtime residences only because they now rely on a reverse mortgage? The greater the tax burden, the sooner all their years of accumulated equity will be gone.

And: An oped in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle argues that New York’s Medicaid system should place more emphasis on personal responsibility and less on any sense of entitlement.

Long-term care services for low- and moderate-income seniors need to be based on a similar model of choice and personal responsibility. If public dollars could be used in combination with personal resources to buy needed services, perhaps spend-down and dependency on Medicaid can be minimized.

As a start, we must create pressure to change the entitlement mindset to one of personal responsibility and work to:

Expand tax incentives for buying long-term care insurance. Consider creating a tax incentive for adult children to help their parents buy such policies.

. . . .

In the next 25 years, baby boomers will put tremendous stress on our government programs. We need incentives now for them to take responsibility and to make sure that government funding is a true safety net for those in need.

’Calling all taxpayers:’ A letter in the Ithaca Journal implores residents of the Tompkins County region to name even one part of the country in which property taxes are as high as they are in New York.

As a property owner in Tompkins and Seneca Counties I must ask a simple question. Do any of your readers know of a community anywhere in the United States that pays $8,000 taxes on a $200,000 house? Or $20,000 on a $500,000 house? I have asked friends in various places. They report: Boston $6,000 on a $800,000 house, Washington. D.C. $3,000 on $600,000, Carmel Valley, Calif. $3,000 on $800,000, Queens $200 on $400,000, Lewisburg, Pa. $2,500 on $145,000, and Bowie, Md. $3,800 on $300,000.

I think we have the highest property taxes in the nation. What will happen in 20 years with persistent increase beyond inflation, old folks leaving, young folks hesitant to stay or come and fewer people carrying the tax load?

Please readers, call your friends across the nation and ask what property tax they pay on the current market value of their properties. Report your findings to the editor for community consideration

The letter comes with this interesting editor’s note:

Readers are welcome to send their tax bill findings in as letters to the editor, ith-letters@ithaca.gannett.com, or contact Metro Editor Roger DuPuis by e-mail at www.rdupuis@ithacajournal.com.

So what spending should be cut? Another letter in the Ithaca Journal argues that calls for tax cuts should come with ideas for spending cuts. Fair enough. We’d start with the suggestions implied by the study we mentioned above, which noted that excess spending on local government payrolls accounts for nearly $4 billion a year in extra taxes for Upstate New Yorkers compared to a state with a merely average tax burden, and that Medicaid spending accounts for another $1 billion a year. Those two areas alone, these compelling data suggest, would be good places to start looking for opportunities for spending reductions.

Jonathan Epstein of the Buffalo News reports that one financial group is planning to begin offering health savings accounts (HSAs) and that demand for HSAs is expected to grow.

First Niagara Financial Group has become the first local bank to offer health savings accounts (HSAs), entering a market that is expected to grow significantly as employers and workers try to lower insurance costs.

At the same time, HealthNow New York's Blue Cross Blue Shield of Western New York is joining with 30 other Blue Cross and Blue Shield companies nationwide to form their own bank that will also offer the accounts through the insurers, including in the Buffalo Niagara region.

Health savings accounts are special bank accounts set up in conjunction with so-called high-deductible health plans. Money can be set aside in the accounts by both employees and employers before taxes, and remains tax-free if it is used to pay medical expenses.

Unlike a flexible spending account or health reimbursement account, the money can be rolled over from year to year and can be carried to a new job and into retirement.

The new tax-exempt accounts are part of the movement toward consumer-driven health care, in which employees are expected to absorb more of their health care expenses in exchange for a sharply lower premium on catastrophic coverage. The expectation is that workers and their families will become better health care consumers and shoppers if they know the true cost of medical care.

In such plans, consumers must first meet a deductible of $1,050 for individuals or $2,100 for families in 2006, before the insurance and co-pays kick in. You can squirrel away up to your deductible each year - or $2,700 for individuals and $5,450 for families, if that's lower than your deductible - and use that money to meet the deductible and other expenses.

There's more. But for now, self-insurance is growing: A new survey of employers suggests that rising health-insurance costs means that more employers are relying on self-insurance .

Self-funding of health insurance increased dramatically, from 38 percent of respondents last year to 53 percent this year. Self-funding of disability coverage was also up. Self-funding, where companies pay all health care costs of their employees, is recommended only for companies larger than 250 employees, because of the risk of being hit with massive health costs for long-term problems.

Companies often protect themselves by buying "stop-loss" insurance, which provides coverage after they've spent a certain amount.

Plans involving high deductibles and HSAs, or health savings accounts, make up only about 5 percent of all local health insurance policies. The plans require workers to pay several thousand dollars of health costs out of pocket before the deductible is paid. Employees can have pre-tax contributions put into a savings account, into which some employers contribute matching funds.

While such approaches attract employers because they are 25 to 50 percent cheaper than traditional plans, only a small class of workers prefers such plans because of the cost.

. . . .

[David] Bauer, owner of Capital Bauer, an insurance broker in Albany, said insurance companies have been disappointed with the lack of interest in such plans. But it is a new concept -- most have only been introduced in the past few months.

Murray Light of the Buffalo News admits that he was wrong for many years on Medicaid spending in New York —but then embraces a narrow view of the problem that shows he’s still wrong. Light recalls when he lived across the street from then-County Executive Edward "Ned" Regan, who was prescient in his warnings that New York’s Medicaid spending would prove to be an unmanageable fiscal burden.

Ned very frequently would cross the street on a Sunday afternoon and talk about the county's financial situation, with constant emphasis on the state's Medicaid program and the drain it created on the county. He often warned that the ever-rising costs of the program would someday wreak havoc on the county's finances. He was, unfortunately, right on the mark. His successors in the county executive's office continued to stress the financial drain that Medicaid was causing.

. . . . Regan was correct in predicting that the program would ultimately become a major negative for the county and its taxpayers. New York's Medicaid program now costs the state $44.5 billion each year and continues to increase annually. It is by far the most expensive Medicaid program in the country.

In my conversations with Regan, I often thought he was off base in his evaluation of the state's Medicaid program and its negative consequences for Erie County. In fact, he was correct.

But Light then focuses, narrowly and unjustifiably, one just one aspect of Medicaid spending, pharmaceutical drugs. In fact, New York spends more—usually much more—than other states in just about every major category of Medicaid spending. A more comprehensive view of New York’s Medicaid spending than Light’s column is available in our research in the Medicaid Watch series. This research shows, for example, that New York spends billions more than the nation on long-term care. And it shows that our biggest single spending disparity with other states is hospitals. Credit where it’s due: Light’s column is disappointing, but the Buffalo News editorial page, to its credit, for years has been more thorough and balanced in examining New York’s Medicaid spending problem.

‘Jesse James driving the Wells Fargo stagecoach:’ In an oped in the Poughkeepsie Journal, a Republican Assemblyman, Thomas Kirwan, harshly criticizes the Runaway Spending Amendment (RSA), the legislator-friendly budget proposal that New Yorkers rejected by a nearly two-to-one margin last month.

This past Election Day, the voters rejected [Senate Majority Leader Joseph] Bruno and [Assembly Speaker Sheldon] Silver's idea of "reform" when they voted against Proposition One by a 2-to-1 margin. The worst feature of the Bruno and Silver "reform bill" was it would have placed control of the budget in the Legislature's hands. This is a good idea only if the concept of Jesse James driving the Wells Fargo stagecoach appeals to you.

The people, in their wisdom, saw through this sham.

What were Bruno and Silver's response to a drubbing?

Bruno blamed the state Board of Elections for the wording on the ballot being too confusing and Silver's spokesman, Charles Carrier, said, "We do not believe the voters are saying 'no' to reform."

So because they couldn't gain control of the budget through the front door via the ballot box, Bruno and Silver are now pursuing some of their defeated ideas through the back door — legislation.

One of their ideas is to create an independent budget office whose members would be selected and paid for by the Legislature and who would report to Bruno and Silver. In other words, at a time when the state is broke, a new bureaucracy would tell the leaders what they want to hear, about how much money they have to spend. We already have a state comptroller elected by the people. Why not allow him to tell us what is really in our coffers rather that what we wished was there?

Kirwan also proposals docking legislators’ pay if they’re late with a budget. Currently, a "reform" measure widely regarded as ineffective delays legislators’ pay if a budget is late until they agree on one. We missed it when it first came out, but it's worth highlighting now: An editorial in the Rome Daily Sentinel last month said workers' compensation reform will require rank and file legislators to stand up before (to?) their legislative leaders and demand action. The editorial, to the paper's credit, names names.

State Senator Rayond Meier and Assemblywoman RoAnn Destito need to shake their respective legislative leaders awake with a straight-forward, heart-to-heart intervention.

The voters didn't say no to reform. They said no to the power grab by Bruno and Silver. What is more, Bruno and Silver don't have to wait for another election, they can bring greater transparency to the current budget process right now, if they have the will to do so. Stop the excessive secrecy.

Open the process to more input from rank and file lawmakers of both parties. Cap spending. Cut the reliance on debt. Restructure bloated and misdirected government. Above all, recognize that New York taxpayers pay more in state and local taxes than anywhere else in the country.

Stop business as usual!

Meier and Destito should clip this editorial, fasten it together with all the others from almost every major local newspaper in the state, thrust it into the hands of Bruno and Silver, and ask them why they persist throttling their fellow citizens with a proposal that did not represent real reform, risked dangerous consequences, and that did not take the long term interest of the state to heart.

Related thoughts: An editorial in the Poughkeepsie Journal suggests that a lawsuit by two minority lawmakers can and should produce some reforms to legislative processes, especially those that affect the doling out of pork-barrel spending.

Since New York's Legislature won't address its dysfunctional practices, it's refreshing that the state's court will. The Assembly and Senate's long-standing, disparate practice in distributing public money is thankfully being reviewed by State Supreme Court Justice Jane S. Solomon.

She should issue a wise ruling that will embrace fairness rather than the status quo. . . .

[Pork-barrel] allocations have nothing to do with the number of constituents represented, needs of a district or effectiveness of a legislator. It's based entirely on politics, cronyism and partisan affiliation.

. . .

If such scandalous practices occurred anywhere else, they'd be resoundly rejected. Public money should be spent for the good of the public, not the party. Yet critics of this unfair system are swiftly and fiscally punished by the leaders. And the punitive practices have been going on for so long, everyone in Albany pretty much buys into them. Any challenges to leadership action results in punitive responses, including staff cuts and removal from committee assignments, which carry bonuses on top of a legislator's salary.

. . . .

Some reform has taken place in Albany, but real change will require addressing how money is distributed. The political leaders cited in this lawsuit should be ashamed the situation is so out of hand that the court has stepped in. While not all aspects of the original case were accepted by Solomon, the heart of the charge is being reviewed.

It's hoped the judicial branch of New York can halt the abuses that pass for normal working conditions in its legislative and executive branches.

Yet another reform-Albany idea: An editorial in the New York Times argues forcefully for legislative redistricting reform. The editorial expresses the hope that the issue emerges in the 2006 race for governor.

If somehow there were one dangling thread that could unravel the dysfunction of New York's Legislature, it would be attached to the unfair system that allows state lawmakers to draw their own election districts every 10 years. So here is our request for anyone running for governor next year to start tugging on that fateful thread.

The stories of how lawmakers have mapped themselves into their permanent jobs are legendary - for example, there is the district in the Bronx and Westchester that is so misshapen to catch every vote that it has been nicknamed "the bug on the windshield." And there are districts like the one in Brooklyn that carefully carves out the home of a potential challenger. These districts are tailored so carefully to the incumbents that it is no wonder that the Legislature's re-election rate has been around 99 percent for decades. (When five incumbents out of 212 lost last year, counting one who had resigned to go to jail, Albany's leaders viewed it as a major upheaval.)

One person could change this legislative petrifaction: the governor, who signs or rejects the whole redistricting package once it is passed along by the Legislature. But Mario Cuomo in 1992 and George Pataki in 2002 both failed to extract any real redistricting concessions from the Legislature before they gave their support for the latest form-fitted districts. If the map making for 2012 is to be better, it is time to extract promises from candidates running for the top job in 2006. New York generally seems to like its governors enough to re-elect them, which means that whoever wins will probably be around for the crucial 2012 redistricting.

The piece also praises state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer for already saying he’d make it a priority if elected. Another reform idea: term limits for governors: Professor Jerry Benjamin of SUNY-New Paltz, a sensible authority on New York State government, urges term limits for New York State governors in an oped in the New York Times.

A fascinating story by Fred Williams of the Buffalo News notes that some blue-collar workers in western New York have little sympathy for unionized workers at the struggling Delphi Corp. plant in Niagara County .

Autoworkers say their fight at Delphi is a fight for working people - but not everyone with a blue collar wants to link arms with the union.

"I have no sympathy for these overpaid people who are now crying the blues," said Jan M. Bernas of the Town of Tonawanda.

The 57-year-old school bus driver said she makes a fraction what Delphi workers do, and can only dream about job guarantees and full health benefits that the auto parts maker provides.

Delphi Corp.'s proposal to cut its $27-an-hour production wage has churned up a spectrum of reactions from Western New York about what constitutes a fair day's pay.

The United Auto Workers says paychecks from Delphi's 3,800-job plant in Lockport support other jobs throughout the region's economy - at suppliers but also at services like restaurants and convenience stores. Slashing pay, health benefits or pensions - or closing the plant - will mean harsh consequences for living standards around the region, UAW Buffalo area director Kevin Donovan said.

Many in the community agree. But some also said that compensation at Delphi, including pensions that kick in after 30 years, is out of line with most factory jobs.

"My dad was a UAW member, he didn't get to retire at age 50," Town of Lockport resident Don Kowalski said. "They get an exceptional deal."

Unjustifiably high pay and benefits could help drive the money-losing company out of business, said Kowalski, an accountant whose father worked at Bell Aerospace.

Median hourly pay for production jobs in the region was $14.87 in 2004, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Others criticize hiring practices at Delphi and other UAW-represented plants that give preference to family and friends of current workers.

"I have been at Delphi's door three times in my career and have never even been given the courtesy of a rejection letter," said one worker from Niagara County.

A labor expert reflects on labor issues in WNY: In this Q&A in the Buffalo News, a faculty member at the Cornell University School of Labor Relations answers questions about what current events in western New York say about the strength and future of organized labor. The exchange is interesting but not particularly informative. The gentleman sounds like a union flack. And, it turns out, he began his career as a union official in a Buffalo factory.

Visit any city in Upstate New York, and you'll see abandoned industrial sites that could be home to major new investment and jobs. In 2003, the Legislature enacted a law that was intended to lead to clean-up and redevelopment of such "brownfield" sites. But the law has failed to accomplish either goal, The New York Times reports.

...two years after the legislation passed, only slightly more than 100 of the state's thousands of industrial sites have been approved for the program. As well, scores of developers, confused about the program's regulations, still have no idea whether they qualify to participate.

Indeed, many private nonprofit organizations hoping to use the legislation to develop housing and other projects in low-income neighborhoods complain that the program excludes smaller, less contaminated sites - like a dump filled with car parts or construction materials - and may prevent new economic development in the communities that were supposed to benefit most from the legislation.

New York was the last old-line manufacturing state to adopt a brownfields-redevelopment law.

In many ways, some legislators and development experts say, the experience of the brownfield cleanup program is emblematic of New York's way of doing business: later and more strangely than any other state in the union.

The law is the product of typical Albany thinking: That New York can fine-tune economic behavior by enacting nitpicking, costly regulations and then creating tax credits to help regulated industries pay some of the extra cost. Instead, the law simply prevents economic behavior (in this case, much-needed investment in former industrial sites). The law reflects the position of many environmental advocates, that a brownfield law should not allow cleanups based on intended use (for instance, different standards for manufacturing than for residential use). Instead, every project should restore property to pristine condition, environmental organizations argued. In real life, that's seldom an option; the tradeoff is between use-based cleanups and redevelopment, or no cleanups at all. Developers simply are not interested in sites where extreme environmental standards make it impossible to know whether a given investment will produce adequate return. New York's brownfields program forces would-be developers to undergo a much more complex and difficult process than other states' programs. Ironically, as the Times points out, the program design works against many lightly contaminated sites. Those sites are contaminated enough for a developer to be cautious about taking title, but not so contaminated that they would be priority cleanup sites for DEC. The result: No cleanups, use-based or otherwise, at many of these sites. By the way: We would be remiss if we didn't mention that, as part of the brownfields law, the Legislature imposed about $20 million in additional fees, mostly on New York's declining manufacturing sector. The bottom line: A "brownfields redevelopment" law that does not work, and even higher costs on manufacturers who had nothing to do with the pollution in those old sites. Jennifer Steinhauer's article from the Times is here.

New York has been adding jobs, but not as rapidly as the rest of the country, Business First of Buffalo reports.

The state's employment base grew by 0.8 percent between October 2004 and October 2005, according to a new report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The nation, as a whole, enjoyed an increase of 1.1 percent.

The article is here. Our more detailed analysis: The Public Policy Institute's "Facts and Figures About New York's Economy" shows that most Upstate regions lag well behind downstate, the Hudson Valley and the nation when it comes to creating new jobs. The Glens Falls and Ithaca areas are two exceptions, showing strong growth over the past year.

And what can other states learn by watching the decline of New York?: Those questions are the topics of a new and long-awaited book by veteran Albany journalist Jay Gallagher. Gallagher, who has been the Gannett News Service Albany bureau chief since 1989, wrote The Politics of Decline to chronicle New York's "slow descent from its one-time perch as the economic and political center of the country, and describes how it affects laid-off workers, struggling businesses, school children and taxpayers," according to a press release from the publisher.

Gallagher presents a powerful argument why an informed, active citizenry is crucial to making public officials work for the public good. Over the last 40 years, the Empire State, so named for its ability to generate wealth, has created jobs at a lower rate than any other state. Gallagher lays the blame for the state's laggard economic performance at the feet of state government, whose leaders are too often wooed by the political power of narrow interests at the expense of the general good. He describes how not only are large businesses looking to relocate rarely even interested in New York, but the state seldom nurtures the small businesses that could be the key to any economic resurgence.

Advance notices on the book have been positive. Typical is this comment from state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer:

Jay Gallagher steps back from a stellar career as a newspaperman to reflect on the future of the state he loves. With the facts and with brutal honesty, he explains how government has not only failed to stem the decline, but has actually made problems worse. His book should be required reading.

Our readers in the Capital District may be interested in a book-signing that Gallagher is planning at the Book House in Stuyvesant Plaza in Albany on Tuesday, December 13, from 7-9 p.m.

Two manufacturers are expected to move ahead with expansion plans that could bring more than 200 jobs to the area, according to a story in Business First of Buffalo. One is an $18 million expansion by Steuben Foods in Elma that has been in the works for a few months.

The deal was solidified just after Thanksgiving, when an incentive package including low-cost hydropower was finalized.

The other is a possible 50,000-square-foot expansion of Luminescent Systems Inc. operations in East Aurora.

Together, the two projects could add 225 workers, many of them in high-paying, high-tech jobs.

The 401(k) is winning, according to a Business First story.

"Defined benefits is a failed system; look at what's happened to the PBGC, the insurer of defined benefit plans," said Lawrence Kavanaugh, vice president of Pension Services Inc. of Western New York in West Seneca.

. . . .

"In Western New York and elsewhere, defined benefit plans began going out of favor 10 to 12 years ago and defined contributions plans started to take hold," said Joseph Fornaserio, a partner at Dopkins & Company of Williamsville, whose services include developing and servicing pension plans for other companies.

"There are many variations of defined contributions plans," he said. The most widely recognized is the 401(k) plan, which also has numerous versions.

"401(k)s have become the main retirement plan option for most companies here and elsewhere. Their popularity has been further increasing because the pension plans of old are weeding themselves out," said Michael Filing, a financial consultant for First Niagara Securities, an arm of the First Niagara Financial Group.

Filing also pointed out that workers in recent years "are catching onto the fact that Social Security is in a bit of a crisis and they need to start taking care of their own future."

There is much more to the story.

Business investment in Monroe County has grown 90 percent in a year, the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle reports, citing data from the county executive.

A letter in the Utica Observer-Dispatch argues that .

The Syracuse Post-Standard reported that Madison, Oswego and Onondaga counties experienced the following in the last four years: increase in population, increase in jobs and increase in the rate of retention in keeping college graduates in their area. This is in spite of the loss of jobs at Carrier Corp., etc.

Our neighboring counties are producing results. Oneida and Herkimer counties are not, to the same extent. It is time to stop talking and get the job done. Advertisement

Property taxes must not increase at a moderate rate; they must be reduced by at least 15 percent. It can be done in Ilion and Mohawk by dissolving both villages and having the town of German Flatts provide governmental services.

New-car sales are sliding in Western New York and some in the industry suspect consumer unrest could be attributed to "industry woes," according to this story in Buffalo's Business First.

"There is some evidence of that, but how much a factor it is, I can't say," says Tom Kanaley, general manager of Fuccillo Chevrolet on Grand Island.

"Sales are off to a small extent, and it's hard to tell what the reason is by looking only at the numbers. But I think uncertainty is beginning to show up in the buying habits," he said.

New vehicle sales through October showed that the first 10 months of this year continued to lag behind the same period of 2004.

Lower year-to-year numbers were posted by 21 of 33 dealerships reporting sales to the Niagara Frontier Automobile Dealers Association, which compiles monthly reports.

Like Kanaley, Pat Gambino, president of Lockport's Gambino Ford, sees consumer worries fueled by the bankruptcy of Delphi Corp. and announced plant closings by General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. as raising the caution flag for consumers.

'The public would rather have its collective fingernails forcibly removed with vise grips than support pay raises for do-nothing legislators.' Fred LeBrun of the Albany Times Union says he expects that he and others in the media will soon begin receiving private phone calls trying to drum up support for a legislative pay raise. He is able to contain his enthusiasm for the idea of raises, but he focuses more on an argument that the charade by which legislative pay raises are arranged—usually in a horse trade for something that might or might not be good public policy—is folly.

An editorial in the New York Sun needles Governor Pataki for spending time in other states on other political priorities while the state's Republican Party is suffering a "meltdown." The piece refers to the fuss over whether Jeanine Pirro, the governor's original candidate to run against U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-New York), should or shouldn't say in the race. But it's interesting to us because it argues that the governor's record is lackluster at best on some issues of great importance to the Upstate economy.

A cynical view is that Mr. Pataki doesn't really want any Republican Senate candidate to defeat Mrs. Clinton because he thinks she will be an easier candidate to defeat in the general [presidential] election in 2008 than, say, Phil Bredesen. Another cynical view is that Mr. Pataki thinks a noncompetitive Senate race will keep turnout in heavily Democratic New York City low enough in 2006 to allow a Republican candidate to squeak through and get elected governor. A more clear-eyed view is that on balance Mr. Pataki has shown little record of looking beyond his own interests and those of his small circle of cronies.

The editorial reviews a number of notable accomplishments of the Pataki administration, including tax reductions and a strong first-step commitment to charter schools, but then criticizes the governor's record in both policy and politics.

Still, one looks in vain to discern any principle or idea that Mr. Pataki stands for consistently. It's not fiscal restraint. As the Manhattan Institute's nyfiscalwatch.com has documented, the state budget under Mr. Pataki's leadership has grown to $106 billon from $62 billion. That far outpaces either inflation or the growth in the gross state product over that period. It's not free markets or educational choice. Ohio, Wisconsin, Florida, and the District of Columbia have private school vouchers, but Mr. Pataki has not embraced the idea, let alone succeeded in getting it through the state legislature.

In political terms, Mr. Pataki's coattails are as short as any in memory. The Republican Party barely clings to a majority in the State Senate through a combination of gerrymandering and geriatric medical care. . . .

What's left as a legacy is patronage appointments and a reputation for Mr. Pataki as the leader of a state government where lobbyists like Alfonse D'Amato are the ones with the real power. It's a sad end of the line for the governor who once showed so much promise. One can make the case that the lineup of Republican candidates who hope to succeed Mr. Pataki - including a former state assemblyman, John Faso; a former New York secretary of state, Randy Daniels; and a former governor of Massachusetts, William Weld - is a sign he hasn't entirely destroyed the office. But what does it say that the Conservative Party of New York is said to be considering endorsing not a Republican but a Democrat, Thomas Suozzi, for governor?

But: We missed it when it first ran, but Michael Cooper's analysis in last Sunday's New York Times argues that the resounding defeat of the Runaway Spending Amendment, Proposal One on last month's ballot may be evidence that the governor still has some political strength.

Associates of Mr. Pataki insist that he remains upbeat, despite the griping in the Republican Party. They say that he has been energized by his recent political trips to states that play large roles in presidential politics, like Iowa and New Hampshire, and claim that the tumult in his party is part of the cyclical nature of state politics.

His aides point to state voters' overwhelming rejection last month of a constitutional amendment to overhaul the budget process. The proposal would have given the Legislature, which is also not winning popularity contests these days, more power in the budget process; the governor's aides claim the vote was an affirmation of his leadership.

More on the governor's travels: Here, in the Syracuse Post-Standard. And: Bill Hammond of the Daily News outlines some political challenges former Massachusetts Governor William Weld is likely to face if he runs for governor of New York in 2006. A long-shot candidate welcomes a primary: Assemblyman Pat Manning (R-Dutchess County) has indicated that he would welcome a Republican primary for governor, Yancey Roy of the Gannett News Service reports. Related thoughts: Where ex-Republicans come from: In an essay in the New York Sun, a columnist explains how she decided to change her enrollment from Republican to Conservative.

In 2006, we will be electing a new governor and a U.S. senator and we the people will have absolutely nothing to say about choosing which candidates best represent our interests. The state party leaders, led by [Republican Party Chairman Stephen] Minarik, will be pushing a former Massachusetts governor, William Weld, as their preferred nominee. Originally, Mr. Minarik had scheduled a meeting on December 12 for the bigwigs of the party to officially endorse their gubernatorial and senatorial candidates. Adverse criticism of this highhandedness may alter the timing of that meeting, to which we the people were not invited. Yoo-hoo, Albany, does the word "primary" mean anything up there?

I spoke to the chairman of the New York State Conservative Party, Michael Long, to get his thoughts on the status of the Grand Old Party in the Empire State. He said: "I think the state GOP is headed in the wrong direction. They are seeking to anoint William Weld, who is not a Reagan Republican, as their candidate. This is not giving the grassroots of the party an opportunity to get involved. By issuing a mandate, they are not allowing the process to work. Instead, the party is catering to special interests. Those candidates who are up to the task of running for office should be out there talking about the issues and creating a broader basis against the opposition."

. . . .

I was delighted to read that Georgette Mosbacher, who as a former co-chairwoman of the Republican National Committee's Finance Committee is one of the most loyal Republican contributors, is just as frustrated as I am with the New York GOP. She has announced that she will close her checkbook to the party next year.

Ms. Mosbacher, who is CEO of the international cosmetics firm Borghese, said, "Our New York party leaders have tried to be everything to everybody, and what's now happened to us is that we've become nothing to everyone." Hear, hear, Georgette.

There's more. Meanwhile, on the Democratic side: The Associated Press reports that state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has been endorsed by 25 New York State mayors.

Rochester Democrat and Chronicle columnist Mark Hare is asking his readers to help make the case the Rochester should be an attractive place to live for a Florida couple looking to leave the Sunshine State.

Sharon Donovan, 38, and a 26-year resident of Orlando, Fla., sent me an e-mail asking about life here. She and her family have been reading the Democrat and Chronicle for months now, trying to get a feel for the community they hope to soon call home.

That's right. Next July, the Donovans hope to swap the endless summer for the endless winter.

. . . .

Sharon's husband, Tom, is originally from Mount Morris, Livingston County. Last year, the family attended a family reunion in Letchworth State Park. The park, she says, was spectacular, and later, they drove around the Rochester area, including the city, and found it was "a breath of fresh air."

In Orlando, she says, "there's no heart to the city, just a whole lot of people walking around bumping into each other."

She wants a real community to call home. The Orlando natives, she says, can't afford to enjoy Disney World. The cost of living is high. The schools are not so hot.

Even the churches seem too big, too distant, too cold.

She's asking for a little help, and I'm asking you, dear readers, to oblige.

Donovan wants to get a better idea of their ideal community. It could be a Monroe County suburb, a city neighborhood, or a town or village outside the immediate Rochester area — in Livingston, Wayne or Ontario counties, maybe.

She says she and Tom are pretty open-minded, as long as they're not living in an unsafe neighborhood or where they have no elbow room.

They'd like to buy a four-bedroom home, and "we'd like some room for the kids to run around, but we'd like to be close to nice neighbors." In Orlando, she says, it's hard to get to know people.

Hare closes his column with some encouraging words about Rochester and the quality of life there.

And just remember that line about the grass always being greener. No place is perfect, but for all its shortcomings, Rochester has always been a pretty good place to raise a family. The Donovans have figured that out from far, far away.

It will be interesting to see what this family decides. Rochester is indeed a very special place, and we hope it can add this family to its population. We can't help remembering, however, the experience of another family that was looking to relocate to Rochester—and found itself in Kentucky after seeing New York's high property taxes up close. That's another key difference between New York and Florida. New York's high tax burden routinely turns New Yorkers into ex-New Yorkers and Floridians. Let's hope it doesn't sour this family's legitimate enthusiasm for life in Upstate New York.

Buffalo News columnist Mary Kunz Goldman writes about a book that compares North American cities and argues that Buffalo may need to change some of its perceptions about itself. However, the stuff that caught our eye confirms some common perceptions about advantages and disadvantages of living in Buffalo.

Compiled in 2004 by two prominent researchers, Bert Sperling and Peter Sander, it compares 331 American cities according to economy, cost of living, climate, leisure, arts, health, crime, you name it.

. . . . these factoids and numbers can either prove or disprove a lot of the folk wisdom swirling around our area. Such as:

The stuff that caught our eye, naturally, focuses on issues related to the region's economic well-being and how government policies affect that. For example, Goldman says the book puts the lie once and for all to the oft-heard myth that we spend too little on schools.

We spend a whopping $8,605 per pupil, compared with a national average of $5,894. Our student/teacher ratio, too, is above par.

She also notes that, while the region is ranked 71st out of the 331 cities in economy and jobs (one wonders what year's data are used in the book), it does have (no surprise here) an unusually heavy tax burden.

. . . our taxes are close to double what others pay, and our projected job growth is grim (6 percent vs. a national average of 15 percent). That puts us in the basement, economically speaking.

. . . .

This book helps put things in perspective. Let's see. Buffalo's a bargain except when you pay taxes. Our city and county budgets don't balance. We're taxed to the max as the result of decades of liberal social spending. We've created generations of voters dependent on the free stuff, often at the expense of the truly needy. And when anyone brings up numbers, all our leaders can think of is roulette.

An editorial in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle advances a not entirely persuasive argument that today's windmills may be ugly and intrusive, but they are necessary. The piece comes just after two excellent Rochester Democrat and Chronicle stories (here and here) outlined in detail the controversy over windmills, about which many New Yorkers and New York State communities are not at all enthusiastic.

. . . reaching [energy] independence will be difficult and expensive. It will entail commitment and sacrifice, on a national scale and on the local level. And that applies to the Rochester region.

Currently, rural communities in the Finger Lakes are confronting the promise, and imposition, of wind power. The huge turbines that harness the wind and convert it to electricity are not easily accepted by some residents used to untrammeled landscapes.

Developers and government must do all they can to respect property rights and individual concerns. But wind power is one route to energy self-sufficiency as a nation. That's a goal that all should be willing to strive for, even if it means man-made towers, and the whoosh of big blades, on rural hilltops.

No one should expect wind power alone to replace fossil fuels as America's prime energy source. But it surely can provide more than the 1 percent that is now the case. Gov. Pataki has set an ambitious goal of having renewable energy sources — water, wind, sun — provide 25 percent of the state's energy by 2013.

. . . .

But the larger point is that New York and America must diversify its energy sources and stop acting as if foreign oil will be there for us forever. To do that is to walk the razor's edge.

There's no argument here with the importance of energy independence. And we don't oppose wind power. Our concern is with wind power being effectively jammed down the throats of New York's communities and New York's energy consumers by state energy policies that first impose huge taxes to subsidize wind power, then promote the notion that this somehow makes wind competitive on cost, and then require New Yorkers to buy more wind power. This policy is at the core of a misguided Pataki administration energy-policy called the Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS). From our August 2005 summary of the likely effects of the Renewable Portfolio Standard on energy markets and costs:

A $24 million annual surcharge will be added to New Yorkers’ electric bills starting in October, as a result of a renewable-portfolio mandate imposed by the state’s Public Service Commission (PSC).

. . . .

The renewable-portfolio mandate, which the Council had urged the PSC not to enact, will require that 25 percent of electricity purchased in New York by 2013 be from renewable resources.

"The state’s move to mandate which sources consumers must buy electricity from will create a seller’s market for selected sources," Business Council President Daniel B. Walsh said. "New York’s electricity costs are already among the highest in the nation. This will undoubtedly drive them up further."

. . . .

The Business Council and its member businesses support efforts to create and sustain new kinds of renewable energy resources, but fear that higher energy costs created by renewable energy mandates will hurt New York businesses’ ability to keep and create jobs, the Council’s vice president, Edward Reinfurt said in testimony submitted to the PSC during one of the last public hearings conducted by the PSC on the renewable portfolio mandate.

We think the decision to buy it should be consumers' decision, made without hints or orders from state government. In fact, there are legitimate reasons to wonder how effective wind power can be in meeting New York State's future energy needs. We summarized the concerns succinctly here:

The most likely source of new renewable energy is wind, but its potential lies mainly in western New York, which already has ample power. Wind is a much less promising resource downstate, where generation is most needed. What's more, wind is least likely to be a productive source during the summer, when statewide and downstate demand are both at their peaks.

Energy independence is a virtue. But any case for forcing New Yorkers to accept windmills and higher costs imposed by government should address legitimate concerns about the efficacy of wind power and the likelihood that this government mandate will drive already high energy costs even higher.

We noted earlier this week a ridiculously one-sided story in the Middletown Times Herald-Record that gave only the unions' perspective on sections 240 and 241 of New York State's Labor Law, the notorious "Scaffold Law," and omitted any discussion of the many serious policy objections to the law. A letter in the paper from a construction-industry official briefly outlines the strong case for changing the Scaffold Law.

The New York State Builders Association does support reform of this law, which is widely abused by trial lawyers and has driven many builders out of business in the state. That said, far from making work sites less safe as the article claimed, the reform sought would give builders and contractors an incentive to provide a safer work site.

[Proposed reform] legislation allows a negligence standard only for those builders and contractors who have provided strong safety training and provision of safety equipment on the job site. Contractors and builders who do not do this would continue to face strict liability.

New York is the only state in the nation to have this law that allows workers to sue even if they have ignored safety training or not used the safety equipment provided. New York state has also not been proven to be safer because the law exists.

There are more details on the strong case against 240/241 in legislative testimony by The Business Council two years ago. An excerpt:

Sections 240/241 of the state's Labor Law expose New York's property owners and contractors to unfair liability, make business insurance prohibitively expensive if it's available at all, and drive up everyday costs for taxpayers and all New Yorkers.

This crisis may be a boon to some trial lawyers, but it is a bane for all other New Yorkers. It's time New York followed the common-sense lead of 49 other states and repealed this short-sighted law.

. . . .

. . . liability under 240/241 is extremely broad and unforgiving. New York's courts have upheld this "absolute liability standard," which means property owners and their contractors have no way to defend their actions and their safety records in liability cases that fall under this statute. They are absolutely liable even if they bear no responsibility for the injury.

Offering insurance to an industry that cannot even defend itself is fighting a losing battle. It is no wonder that general liability coverage premiums continue to increase dramatically while fewer and fewer carriers even offer 240/241 coverage.

The damage to industry in New York is indisputable. No other state has a law like this on the books. . . .

. . . .

The costs of insurance in New York that are so needlessly inflated by 240/241 impose a new burden on New Yorkers —— because it is they, after all, who ultimately pay the inflated costs of construction projects in this state. This burden is especially unwelcome in a state that already endures one of the nation's highest overall tax burden.

. . . . The state's draconian absolute-liability standard must be replaced with a more sensible and balanced negligence-based standard. As long as the law stands as it is, premiums will continue to rise and contractors will continue to leave the state or shut their doors.

Rising health-care costs are now in the same category as death and taxes: Business owners in an Albany Business Review discuss their health insurance situation. And: An editorial in the Rochester Business Journal reflects on the rising cost of health insurance.

A number of companies—faced with average yearly premium hikes of 11 percent to 12 percent—have taken either or both steps over the past five years. Others have shifted to experienced-rated or self-funded plans, depleting the community-rated pool and putting increased cost pressure on it.

These businesses are understandably concerned about their expenses. But make no mistake: Moves designed strictly to reduce company health care expenditures do not get rid of those costs; they merely shift the burden.

Who picks up the cost? To a large extent, taxpayers. They foot the bill for uninsured and underinsured people receiving medical care.

The most recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau show 14 percent of area residents lacked health care coverage from 2001 to 2003. This rate translates to tens of thousands of people.

Solutions: Another Albany Review Story profiles some cost-control measures insurers and businesses are taking.

Every fall, BlueShield of Northeastern New York sends each of its business clients a letter telling them how much the employee health plan they have this year will cost next year.

This fall, those letters were a bit different. The Latham-based insurer added a grid telling employers about alternatives they might want to consider, such as a high-deductible, consumer-driven plan.

With health insurance premiums continuing to rise at a pace averaging four times the rate of inflation, few businesses are content to sit back and do nothing. They are taking control--redesigning plans, raising deductibles, hiking co-pays, limiting drug benefits and eying consumer-driven plans in an attempt to keep costs down. And insurers like BlueShield are taking a proactive approach, offering more options and spending more time talking to clients.

"We're trying to take on a more consultative role," said Brian O'Grady, vice president of BlueShield. "Our ultimate goal is to get out there and meet every small business customer."

There's much more to that story. Another solution: A third story in the Business Review highlights businesses that have gone their own way, literally, by self-funding their health insurance plans.

It's a strategy that won't work for every organization and one that should be entered into with some caution.

"You need a critical mass of at least 250 employees to really make this work. That's the smallest organization that should consider going the self-funding route," said Barry McNamara, president of Benetech Inc. of North Greenbush. Benetech is an employee benefits consulting firm in Wynantskill.

The biggest issue in self-funding is covering your company's vulnerability to risk. With health care, catastrophic events and high utilization by employees can make for exorbitant claims. Even self-funders will need to purchase other insurances to cover both of these variables.

McNamara said every company will need 'specific stop-loss' reinsurance, which covers claims over a certain threshold and sets a limit for what the self-funder is liable for.

Self-funders can also pursue aggregate stop-loss reinsurance, which protects against employees' high utilization rates. This protection will reduce the risk of a quantity of significant claims.

In an oped in the New York Sun, former New York State Secretary of State Randy Daniels, a long-shot candidate for the Republican nomination for governor, enthusiastically describes an innovative idea to rein in Medicaid costs that is being championed by Tom Santulli, the county executive in Chemung County.

What is this new approach to cost containment? Very simply, it's a software package dubbed Muni-Minder that applies the basic rules of cost accounting to allow county administrators working in concert with medical providers to uncover patterns of wasteful or fraudulent spending. Already, Onondaga County, which encompasses the city of Syracuse, has announced that it will purchase the new software, and in all likelihood, additional counties will soon follow suit or seek out similar solutions from other vendors in the marketplace.

The potential for savings is immense. According to Thomas Santulli, the innovative Chemung County executive who commissioned the software after a chance meeting with executives at a local trade show, the savings are likely to amount to 20% to 30% a year. On a statewide level, this would translate into a savings of approximately $10 billion, half of which could then be returned to state and local taxpayers.

The reasons that a relatively inexpensive software program appears able to generate such significant savings are not hard to understand. First is the simple fact that New York spends so much more than every other state in the country, nearly as much as California and Florida combined, even though those states have a population almost three times larger than we do. Obviously, not all our money is being spent wisely.

More pointedly, it has long been the case that every transaction, including something as simple as a basic prescription, that is paid for by Medicaid in New York is recorded in a comprehensive database that subsequently can be tracked and analyzed. The problem until now has been getting that information into the hands of people who could make effective use of it.

Daniels cites a leading expert on Medicaid in New York State, John Rodat, to cite huge differences in Medicaid spending between counties in New York State.

. . . Rodat . . . has long produced reports that show that some counties in New York are able to provide Medicaid services at nationally competitive rates, while others spend two or three times as much, with no apparent evidence of superior care.

Thus, a study that Mr. Rodat completed in 2003, based on the data available at the time, found that Putnam County in the Hudson Valley was spending $17,709 per capita on Medicaid, while Allegany County in the western part of the state was spending only $5,079, a difference of more than three-to-one. Intriguingly, the five counties of New York City, although they have large caseloads, are not particularly spendthrift per patient, spending approximately $100 less per patient than the average for the other 57 counties.

As the information technology revolution begins to take root in how New York manages Medicaid, and waste and fraud become easier to identify, the scramble over what to do with the available savings is sure to become intense. By recognizing the opportunity sooner, those of us who support tax cuts will be better positioned to make our case. Not only are additional tax cuts more necessary than ever, they are also likely to become increasingly affordable. It's an opportunity not to be squandered.

And: A story in the New York Times notes that New York State may have trouble convincing the federal government to permit the state to continue its current tactics designed to help the state inflate enrollment in Medicaid.

New York is the only state that allows H.M.O.'s, community groups and clinics to help people fill out applications for Medicaid, the government health plan for the poor. That practice has helped increase Medicaid enrollment statewide by more than a million people.

Federal law generally prohibits anyone but a government employee from working on Medicaid enrollments, but the Clinton administration waived the rule for New York five years ago. That exemption expires on March 31, and the state had until Dec. 1 to ask for a new one, but as recently as two weeks ago, the Pataki administration had not made a decision.

Last week, the state applied to the federal Department of Health and Human Services for a new waiver, said Robert Kenny, a spokesman for the State Health Department.

. . . .

H.M.O.'s that participate in Medicaid now do most of the enrollment in New York. They have been particularly aggressive about signing up people, recruiting customers at street corners, schools and parks.

That has caused some controversy. Thomas R. Suozzi, the Nassau County executive, announced recently that county workers had caught H.M.O. employees coaching people on how to conceal income in order to qualify for Medicaid. State officials have said that facilitated enrollment makes this kind of cheating easier.

Rising health costs mean government should do something: An editorial in the Syracuse Post-Standard decries rising health-insurance costs, and says government should do something about it. The piece stops short of offering specific policy suggestions.

Today is the 64th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. We call your attention to several tributes to Upstate veterans who remember the "day that will live in infamy." From the Binghamton Press & Sun Bulletin. From the Elmira Star-Gazette. The Jamestown Post-Journal has an editorial tribute here. (Link is for subscribers only) The Albany Times Union reports on some events that will mark the anniversary, here.

An Albany Times Union op-ed by SUNY trustee and Hudson Institute fellow Candace de Russy advises caution and study before giving the okay to a proposed 12 percent increase in SUNY spending.

To efficiently allocate the scarce resources available to an institution such as SUNY, or for that matter any enterprise, management must know both the relative efficiencies of its operations as well as the quality of the product or service that it produces. Rational allocation of the funds available in a higher education institution, therefore, presupposes that its administrators evaluate the faculty for teaching, research and productivity and put in place a rigorous, comparable and transparent process for assessing student learning.

According to a well-established pattern, the SUNY administration and professors' union will in unison deny this charge, claiming that many statistics are gathered and reported to SUNY headquarters. Ever so true. But the most relevant data are, deliberately, not assembled in a clear, useful form by the SUNY administration.

To prove the point, ask a simple question: If a parent or prospective student wishes to know the relative academic merits of the various SUNY campuses so that they might be better able to select the campus that best suits them, how and where would they find such information? And if the administration were interested in comparing the hours of instruction by departments within and among the various campuses, where might they find such data?

Simply put, this information is not available, because those in charge have long resolutely, and often haughtily, refused to take the most basic first steps necessary to accumulate and then rationally use such data.

. . . .

And does the State University merit a 12 percent increase in funding? We cannot know.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist weighs in on New York's high taxes, in this New York Sun op-ed about the federal deductibility of state and local taxes.

When Department of Taxation and Finance forms begin to arrive in the mail a few weeks from now, New York residents will get a stark reminder that tax season has begun. New Yorkers need this kind of reminder: From Buffalo to Manhattan and everywhere in between, Empire State residents pay too much in taxes.

...When accountants add up federal and state taxes, the government takes nearly one out of every three dollars that New Yorkers earn. On average, Americans pay 29% of their income in taxes. In my home state of Tennessee, the bill comes in at about a quarter of all income.

New York's taxes are so high partly because federal deductibility of state and local taxes encourages profligate spending, Dr. Frist says.

New York's state taxes, although lower than they were 10 years ago, still remain higher than average largely because of past administrations' massive spending binges. Because individuals in high-tax states get the largest benefit from state tax deductibility, New York governors from both parties felt free to raise taxes through the roof to pay for pet programs.

We're not sure Dr. Frist is right that ending federal deductibility is in New Yorkers' best interests. But when such an argument comes from the leader of the U.S. Senate, a potential candidate for president, it should serve as yet another wake-up call. Federal changes over the last 40 years, such as reduction in top marginal rates and imposition of the alternative minimum tax, have already eroded the benefits of deductibility. We're on notice: More changes that could further raise the effective cost of our high taxes may be on the way.

Many in Western New York are applauding the New York Power Authority's $279 million hydropower settlement that could help rebuild the area's waterfront.

The hydropower settlement will likely draw huge new private investments to Buffalo's waterfront, along with more government money, they said.

"This takes us from the dream stage to the reality stage," said Anthony Gioia, chairman of Erie Canal Harbor Development Corp., which is charged with remaking Buffalo inner and outer harbors. "We can acquire property and make it more attractive for private developers to take over."

About $65 million of the hydropower money is likely to arrive as soon as next year, meaning work can begin quickly.

More: Buffalo News Columnist Donn Esmonde weighs in here.

Other politicians and apologists said we should play it safe, to not risk what we have by trying to get more. Brian Higgins said that was ridiculous.

He was right.

And: The Buffalo News editorial page adds its own applause.

Politicians, some late to the game, developed the right mix of leadership and strategy and held fast for a fair share. They should mark this as a model for working together, despite the obstacles, turf fights and inertia, to do what's best for the entire region.

United Auto Workers union leaders said yesterday that a strike is "probable" at Delphi's Lockport plant, according to Business First of Buffalo.

UAW Local 686 Unit No. 1 officials at the Lockport plant, where the union represents 3,200 hourly workers, said in a communiqué that national Vice President Richard Shoemaker "has asked the leaders of all UAW locals to inform their membership of an increased likelihood of a strike which could happen as early as the first quarter of next year.

"Based on this information we strongly encourage everyone to use the time available to prepare for this probability," the communiqué stated.

The message -- sent under the names of Shop Chairman Matthew Gianno, President Paul Siejak and shop committeemen -- refers to a stated intent by Delphi Corp., which filed for bankruptcy protection in October, to terminate wage and benefit contracts.

More: The Tonawanda News has other details in this story.

"A decade of inaction by the Legislature" on workers' comp reform must end now, David Wehner, the chairman of the state Workers' Compensation Board, writes in this Democrat & Chronicle op-ed.

Recently, Delphi, one of the Rochester area's largest employers, filed for bankruptcy protection, citing, among its most pressing issues, workers' compensation costs. Overnight, the future of thousands of workers in the Finger Lakes region and their families became cloudy.

...

Certainly there are debates ahead about how best to fix the system, but when you read about Rochester families affected by Delphi's woes, one thing becomes crystal clear: We need to fix it, and soon, or there will be more companies taking a hard look at their future in New York state.

We couldn't agree more. Governor Pataki and legislators from the Monroe County-Western New York region, particularly Democratic members of the Assembly and Republican members of the Senate, will have a lot to say about whether there is action on workers' comp reform in 2006. With good jobs at stake, we hope it's not yet another year of rhetoric. And: Wehner also has this op-ed in The Buffalo News, making similar points.

The world is becoming a smaller place. Competition for jobs and business comes from every corner of the world. The global economy has created challenges for all states and regions across our country. New York is no exception. In order to deal with these new realities, we must do things differently.

Onondaga County officials are reconfiguring the county's Empire Zone to comply with new rules enacted in Albany earlier this year, the Post-Standard's Rick Moriarty reports here.

The biggest change is that the county can no longer spread its zone all over the map. Instead, it must designate up to six distinct and separate areas in which a maximum of 1,280 zone acres or two square miles will be located.

However, businesses that are in the county's Empire Zone areas and that are zone-certified do not have to be inside any of the six designated areas. They can be outside the six areas and still qualify for the zone's tax credits because of a "grandfathering" provision in the new law.

Sounds pretty complicated, right? Imagine trying to make a multi-million-dollar investment based on such rules. And those are just the beginning. We're big supporters of New York's Empire Zones; for many businesses, they make all the difference in terms of surviving the high costs New York State imposes on employers. But that's precisely the point: We need Empire Zones mainly because our governors, state legislators and local officials have imposed such high taxes and heavy-handed regulations over the years, and are now doing far too little to change things. In coming months, candidates for governor will tout plans to improve New York's economy, particularly the lagging Upstate economy. We'll be watching to see which plans represent real improvement in our business climate, and which amount to further rewriting of the rules for programs that simply hide our problems.

A Syracuse Post-Standard reader worries that good jobs at a major local manufacturer may not last long, because of New York's uncompetitive business climate.

This is in regard to your article Dec. 1 about New Process Gear. How long do you think NPG will employ 3,500 - plus 500 new jobs? New York state has the highest energy prices and taxes around. Do you really think manufacturing will hang around in New York? They would be nuts. They could never compete.

Well, our energy costs aren't quite the highest in the country, but they certainly are higher than those in most states. As for taxes, unfortunately, the letter-writer is correct: We're Number One. Those and other comparisons with other states are here.

Sullivan County lawmakers may have a difficult time getting a sales tax hike approved, according to this story in the Middletown Times Herald-Record.

Assemblywoman Aileen Gunther says she's not sold on a proposed 0.5 percentage point increase in the sales tax in Sullivan County.

Lawmakers are expected to pass a $188 million budget tomorrow that calls for hiking the sales tax to 8 percent in Sullivan. The county portion would jump from 3.5 percent to 4 percent. That would bring in another $4 million annually for the county.

In order for a sales tax increase to go into effect, Gunther, D-Forestburgh, and state Sen. John Bonacic, R-C-Mount Hope, must agree to bring it before state lawmakers.

"First of all, they haven't come to me," Gunther said yesterday.

"If you want to raise taxes, there has to be a reason why. I haven't been approached."

Bonacic won't rubber-stamp the measure either, his counsel, Langdon Chapman, said.

And: The Tompkins County Legislature is set to vote soon on a law that would change assessment cycles there from every year to every three years, according to this story in the Ithaca Journal.

Opponents insisted that assessments simply “keep score” of property values and that annual reassessment is the most equitable way to maintain this information.

Proponents were equally adamant that annual assessments are unpopular and stressful and that taxpayers need a break from the frequency of the cycle.

Some good news: Dutchess County residents will see their property tax rate decline about 10 percent, on average, next year according to the Poughkeepsie Journal. Revenue is rising in Dutchess County even though the tax rate is decline because of increased economic growth -- the only real solution to budget problems everywhere in the state.

In the Albany area: An Albany-area factory plans to close its doors and lay off about 120 workers according to a report in the Albany Times Union.

U.S. Foodservice Inc. will lay off nearly 120 workers and close a manufacturing plant here that makes paper and plastic products for commercial and institutional customers.

The company notified the state Department of Labor last week that it planned to shut the unit, called Superior Quality Products, or SQP, which employs 118.

The plant makes straws, lids, food trays and toilet paper for colleges, hospitals and restaurants. The workers are scheduled to be laid off Jan. 31, and the plant will close Feb. 14.

In Western New York: A West Seneca manufacturing facility plans to close, laying off 130 workers, according to the Buffalo News.

Visteon Corp. announced plans Tuesday to halt production at its West Seneca plant and move to a lower-cost area, dealing another blow to the region's struggling auto parts industry.

The decision "was in no way related to employee performance but rather was prompted solely by business and economic issues," the Michigan-based company said in a statement.

Closing Visteon's Climate Control Systems plant will cut 130 production jobs, the company said. However, the site will retain another 70 people in administration, engineering and customer service. The plant in the North America Park makes replacement or "aftermarket" radiators and air-conditioner parts.

No date is set for the shutdown, and the decision isn't final until after negotiations with the United Auto Workers, spokesman Christopher Walton said.

Meanwhile: Another Albany-area plant has received a grant from the state to create 25 new jobs. Details are in this story from the Daily Gazette (for paid subscribers only).

The state is giving a Mechanicville information technology infrastructure company almost $400,000 so it can add 25 new jobs and move its headquarters from Mechanicville to an office and warehouse facility at 5 Enterprise Ave. in Clifton Park.

E.nfrastructure Technologies Inc., which will employ 100 with the new jobs, has secured a $195,000 grant from the Community Capital Assistance Program and an additional $200,000 from the Empire State Development Corp. The company specializes in professional services, management services, deployment and structured cabling for businesses and government agencies.

Experts at a panel discussion Tuesday morning at Schenectady County Community College said students have to work hard in the areas of math and science and apply themselves in order to "be part of a world-class work force for Tech Valley," according to a story in the Times Union.

The discussion, hosted by the Graduate College of Union University, quickly focused on the "disconnect" between jobs that go begging and the workers who lack the skills to perform them.

"There are already jobs in upstate New York that are not being filled because we don't have the people with the skills to fill them," said U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., who moderated the panel. "We are in danger as a nation of losing our technological edge to the rest of the world."

While the average fourth-grader is technologically savvy, said Ed Reinfurt, vice president of The Business Council of New York State Inc., interest in science and math is waning by the sixth grade.

But while the social and entertainment value of technology may be what drives tech-savvy children, said David Pace, science/technology supervisor for the South Colonie School District, "that's not what is driving our overseas competition.

"A basic understanding of math and physics ... that's what we need to have (students) talk about," he added. And Pace said students will also "have to really want to work."

. . . .

Several panelists said that same hard work and dedication among students and teachers is required if Tech Valley is to have enough workers with the skills to keep technology companies here competitive.

"If we are truly serious about a world-class work force, we not only have to say it, we have to stay with it for the long term," said Reinfurt of the Business Council, the state's largest business lobby.

More: The Daily Gazette of Schenectady has more details in this story (for paid subscribers only).

Members of the Glenville (Schenectady County) Police Department are considering retiring because the town may make slight adjustments to the rich pension benefits officers now enjoy, The Daily Gazette reports.

Detective Stephen Janik, president of the Glenville PBA, said older officers are retiring out of concern that the new contract will require them to wait until they are 55 to collect health insurance and to pay 10 percent toward that benefit.

Under the current contract, those officers hired before 1990 are guaranteed free health insurance immediately upon retirement. Officers hired after 1990 must wait until they are 55 and pay at least 10 percent of their health care coverage.

The story is here, for subscribers.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs the subways and other transit in New York City and surrounding counties, is proposing common-sense reforms to its costly pension program. Governor Pataki, next year's gubernatorial candidates, the state Legislature, and local-government leaders around the state should take note.

Worried about large budget deficits beginning in 2007, the authority's chief negotiator said yesterday that the pension plan for nearly 34,000 subway and bus workers was unsustainably generous. He said the authority's pension spending for the workers soared to $453 million this year from $145 million in 2002.

With a sixth round of talks scheduled for today, the negotiator, Gary J. Dellaverson, said he would urge Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union to accept a plan that would give future employees pensions only after age 62. Under the current system, in place since 1976, transit workers with 25 years of experience can retire at age 55 and receive pensions equal to half their salary.

"Maintaining this level of contributions to support this level of pension benefits over the long term is unsustainable," he said in an interview at the authority's headquarters. "It's not just true for us, but for other public employers."

Mr. Dellaverson is absolutely right, of course. Property taxes around the state have risen sharply in recent years in large part because of exploding pension costs. Public employees whose pensions were traditionally far richer than the typical private-sector taxpayer are enjoying better retirement benefits than ever after Governor Pataki and the Legislature enacted major sweeteners back in 2000, such as eliminating a 3 percent contribution for thousands of public employees. For its part, the union representing downstate transit workers wants taxpayers and straphangers to pay for even richer pensions for its members.

...the union's proposal to revert to a far more expensive pension plan ...would allow workers with 20 years of experience to retire at age 50 with full pensions. Such a plan was in place until 1973, and Mr. Dellaverson said he believed it contributed to the fiscal crisis of the mid-1970's.

That proposal can be taken as mere negotiating strategy; we'd guess that even the union knows it has no chance. But we'd also suggest that it says something about public-employee unions' view of the world: It just plain doesn't matter how much taxpayers have to pay, as long as we get ours. The federal government, and more progressive states such as Michigan and Florida, have enacted a pension reform that makes the M.T.A. proposal seem minor by comparison: Giving workers defined-contribution retirement plans, as most private-sector employers now prefer, instead of defined-benefit plans. The Empire Center's E.J. McMahon has details in this report.

The Buffalo News reports that the head of the Buffalo city school district is making plans to change operations to reflect continuing declines in enrollment in city schools. Changes proposed by Superintendent James Williams emphasize efforts to promote academic rigor, higher achievement, and programs for the gifted and talented.

Faced with a sixth consecutive year of sharp enrollment decline, Buffalo Schools Superintendent James A. Williams outlined a plan Wednesday to establish an all-honors high school, greatly expand the system's Montessori program, and offer gifted and talented classes in all elementary schools.

Figures released Wednesday showed that enrollment in Buffalo Public Schools dipped 4.6 percent this year, to 36,706 from 38,479 last school year. About 46,000 students were enrolled six years ago.

While much of that loss has been attributed to the growth of charter schools and the city's dwindling population, Williams said many parents simply are dissatisfied with the choices available in the school system.

"Parents are looking for rigor, for more honors and Advanced Placement classes," he said. "I think when we get these things in place, by September of 2006, we're going to see a swing."

The story has much more detail on the proposed changes.

PepsiCo. Inc., one of New York State's leading corporations, is about to overtake its long-time rival, another company that makes soda, in market value, according to a Bloomberg News Service story in the Buffalo News.

PepsiCo Inc., the world's No. 2 soft-drink maker, is on the verge of surpassing No. 1 Coca-Cola Co. in market value for the first time after beating its competitor in sales growth and diversifying beyond soda.

PepsiCo's stock has climbed 14 percent this year, pushing market value to $99.1 billion. Coca-Cola shares have risen 2.2 percent, worth $101.2 billion.

PepsiCo shares fell 23 cents to $59.22 Wednesday on the New York Stock Exchange; Coca-Cola fell 34 cents to $42.20.

A decade ago, Coca-Cola's market capitalization was $133 billion, more than double PepsiCo's market cap of $59.4 billion, according to Bloomberg data. Coca-Cola shares traded at $37.89 at the time, and PepsiCo shares traded at $25.47. Since then, Coca-Cola shares have risen 13 percent, compared with a 135 percent gain for PepsiCo.

Our Capital Region readers (and anyone else who has seen the sights in Albany) might be amused to learn that Nelson Rockefeller’s vision of “the most electrifying capital in the world,” is being needled a bit in a new video by a band that calls itself They Might Be Giants. (The band is most well known for writing the theme song for television's Malcolm in the Middle, "You're Not the Boss of Me.) In an introduction to the new video on the band’s Web site, an actor playing a news anchor says the band recently visited New York’s “futuristic” capital where members got lost in its “concrete shrine to Nelson Rockefeller’s vision of dehumanizing bureaucracy.” The focus of the piece is "the Egg"--the most distinctive feature on Albany's skyline, the egg-shaped center for the performing arts. (Learn more here.) A typical barb: The fellow paying the news anchor in the video says the Egg's "smooth, featureless exterior suggests a worrisome lack of fire exits." During the song itself, lead singer John Flansburgh walks through a cartoon-like depiction of the Empire Plaza and the Egg singing “The Egg, when will it hatch?” and “From the outside I’m thinking 'What were they thinking?'” To view the video, visit www.tmbg.com and click on “2. Albany,” in the menu on the right-hand side of the screen. In defense of the Egg, it’s one of Albany’s best-known landmarks, and, to our knowledge, there isn’t another building like it in the world. (The building also has the distinction of wearing a girdle, according to its own Web site.)

How the arts and arts-related businesses can foster economic development was the topic of a conference in downtown Rochester Thursday, the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle reports.

Arts groups and economic development planners have long viewed Rochester's wealth of cultural assets as key to its vitality. Yet the groups often work in isolation and don't develop partnerships with other community leaders, conference organizers said.

That needs to change, said Sarah Lentini, president of the Arts & Cultural Council for Greater Rochester. The conference was the first step. Similar conferences will be held quarterly over the next year.

"We're looking to strengthen relationships to bring good ideas to the table, but ultimately make some positive community changes," she said.

The arts council, which sponsored the daylong event, brought in leaders from Toronto, Maryland and Cincinnati, to discuss how those areas incorporated arts into their economic revitalization.

'It's not about pay, it's about service:' An editorial in Ithaca Journal says Albany should be in no hurry to approve legislative pay raises. The part of the piece that caught our eye argues that lawmakers' performance managing the fiscal policies that determine the fate of the state's economy has not been good enough to justify a raise.

Keep in mind that these are lawmakers whose annual struggle with their basic responsibility, passing a state budget, has become folklore. The same cast of characters that constantly shifts costs to local governments through unfounded mandates and still has built billions in public debt. The very people who have yet to solve the state's education funding crisis. The same folks who have the Empire State firmly planted in the rear when it comes to overhauling our polling place technology. The same ones who, well, you get the idea.

Five of six Democratic county executives in New York State have endorsed the candidacy of state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer for Governor in 2006. The other one is Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi, who has expressed interest in the job himself. Liz Benjamin of the Albany Times Union has a story here; Mike Gormley of the Associated Press has a story here.

An editorial in the Buffalo News praises a settlement in the dispute over the region's share of benefits from Niagara River hydropower as a substantial improvement over the authority's original negotiating stance. The piece credits U.S. Rep. Brian Higgins for his leadership in representing the region's interests.

The Buffalo Niagara region presented a unified front and won a deal almost three times as lucrative as what the authority first dictated. As important as the overall settlement is the specific designation of $5.5 million a year to the waterfront, a clear, defined priority.

. . . .

This arrangement is smart, too. It avoids raising electricity rates - a NYPA threat if forced to pay more - to companies employing 43,000 local workers; it funnels the money via the Erie Canal Harbor Development Corp.; it includes substantial aid for Niagara County and the prospect of a belt of green space connecting the two counties that is as important symbolically - connecting two estranged counties - as recreationally.

Mark Johnson of the Associated Press reports that New York's new law allowing wine shipments to and from other states might not survive a challenge to its constitutionality.

Corbin Houchins, a wine-industry lawyer since 1971 and a former in-house counsel for E & J Gallo Winery in California, said the law is likely unconstitutional. That, he said, is because the U.S. Constitution prohibits states from passing laws that discriminate against out-of-state businesses - an argument made by wineries to win the May Supreme Court ruling. The new law may be vulnerable to legal challenge because it excludes wineries in non-reciprocal states.

"It's interesting they would write a law assuring it would have to be changed again," said Houchins. "Most observers agree that the Commerce Clause knocks out reciprocal agreement laws."

The U.S. Constitution's Commerce Clause reserves for the federal government the right to regulate commerce among the states, as well as antitrust laws protecting free trade.

The clause was put into the Constitution to prevent the kind of trade wars seen between states under the Articles of Confederation, said Bernadette Meyler, an assistant law professor at Cornell University Law School.

"I think the (New York) law does violate the Constitution," she said. "And the spirit of the law contradicts many of the comments made in the Supreme Court ruling this spring. The court was trying to eliminate destructive trade wars occurring between states in the area of wine."

The Syracuse Post-Standard reports that 132 New York State businesses that received reduced-rate electricity as a job-creation incentives are being punished for not creating the number of jobs they pledged to create as part of the deal.

Thirty-one Syracuse-area companies are among 132 New York businesses whose allocation of state-subsidized electrical power has been reduced because the companies did not employ as many workers as they promised.

Cuts in the Power for Jobs program could jolt some Central New York companies.

Crucible Specialty Metals, in Geddes, is facing a subsidy cut worth $25,000 per month or about $300,000 per year, said Michael Saltzman, who speaks for the New York Power Authority.

"That's a cost we can't pass on to our customers," said Jim Beckman, Crucible's president.

He said that Crucible has asked the state to reconsider its decision.

The Power Authority cut Crucible's allocation of cheap power by 832 kilowatts the second-biggest reduction in the state.

Crucible had promised the state it would employ 875 workers when it applied for Power for Jobs benefits. The company fell short by 182 workers in 2005, when it asked to have its contract extended through 2006.

Beckman said the subsidy reduction would not hurt Crucible's employment next year but would harm the company's ability to invest in its future.

For the past three months, the Power Authority has been reducing the subsidies of Power for Jobs recipients who missed their jobs obligations, Saltzman said.

There's more.

Health savings accounts, an innovative idea in health insurance, are becoming more and more popular around the country. As physician David Gratzer writes in this Wall Street Journal op-ed, HSAs offer lower cost and many other benefits. But...

HSAs allow people to purchase a relatively inexpensive, high-deductible insurance and deposit money into a tax-free account. Thus, they combine real insurance (i.e., coverage for high and unpredictable costs) with contributions to a savings account that can be used to pay for smaller health expenses and rolled over from year to year. HSAs are a significant departure from the last four decades of health reform, which have been dominated by paternalist programs like Medicare, Medicaid and managed care. HSAs seek to give Americans more control of their own health care. . . .

. . . .

When Congress passed the HSA-enabling legislation, many foresaw disaster, claiming that the insurance was for the healthy and the wealthy and would do little to help those without coverage. But early data suggest otherwise. An online insurance brokerage, eHealthInsurance, reports that nearly half of its HSA customers earn less than $50,000 a year. A full 70% pay under $100 a month for the coverage. A third were previously uninsured (perhaps not surprising given the insurance's low cost). Assurant Health, a large insurer, notes that many new HSA purchasers are over 40, often with chronic health problems.

Let's be clear: There have been plenty of growing pains. In California, legislators have yet to pass amendments to current law that would allow individuals to deduct HSA contributions. In New York, Massachusetts and a handful of other over-regulated states, HSA products are absent from the individual insurance market.

But HSAs are quietly gaining popularity. Perhaps most importantly, they are changing the way Americans think about their health care; empowered with health dollars, people are becoming more cost conscious. As a result, many insurance companies aren't just selling HSAs -- they're offering companion services, like information Web sites. At the Cigna site, members can estimate annual costs, compare drug prices and access comparisons of hospitals (showing quality ratings for certain procedures, as well as cost and length of stay). Others offer "health coaches," so that a health professional can help patients navigate health care's choppy waters.

The essay also urges Congress to pass a law that would allow Americans to buy health insurance in any state, not just their home state. This is important because it would counter actions by many state governments, including New York's, that effectively give individuals fewer options, not more.

Still, for individuals seeking insurance in high-regulation states, HSAs will remain unavailable. This is unfortunate, given that more and more Americans are seeking coverage outside the workplace. Hopefully, state legislators will take note, and action -- but over the last dozen years, Albany and other capitals have moved in the opposite direction, increasing regulation and undermining choice of insurance companies.

One way New York can move in the right direction is to enact legislation sponsored by progressive-minded legislators such as Senator James Seward and Assemblyman Joseph Morelle, to allow the higher-deductible plans that are an essential part of HSAs. The Seward-Morelle legislation would allow what in New York would be called Freedom Health Plans. More information is available here.

Newsday columnist Ray Keating offers insights into why New York's local taxes are so high. The context is a recent poll that got Long Island residents' reactions to their famously high local taxes, but it's of interest here because some of the factors Keating cites also drive up Upstate's local tax burden.

So who is to blame? School taxes make up the biggest chunk of the local property tax bill. We certainly can point fingers at public school board members, administrators, teachers' unions and some of the higher paid teachers in the country. They've worked together to drive spending and taxes through the roof.

But county, town and other local government officials also deserve blame. They pile expenses on the taxpayers as well, with few showing any serious interest in exploring ways to reduce costs. . . .

In addition, our state legislators over the years have socked public schools and local government with all kinds of mandates. That's always fun and easy for a politician - take credit for a new program and let somebody else pay for it. State politicians obviously don't care about slicing away at mandates or layers of government. Instead, they pander to public-sector unions that contribute lavishly to political campaigns, and hit residents with heavy state taxes as well.

Unfortunately, fingers must be pointed at both Democrats and Republicans, since neither party has exhibited any broad political leadership on reducing taxes.

But guess where ultimate blame lies? If you don't vote, you're to blame. If you buy into the baseless spin that more must be spent to get better results in government, you're to blame. If you voted for school budgets hiking spending and taxes, you're to blame. If you ignore widespread government waste, you're to blame. If you vote for candidates who love government more than taxpayers, you're to blame.

Tom Precious of the Buffalo News reports that victorious opponents of Proposal One on last month's statewide ballot were outspent by more than three to one by those who favored the change . Proposal One, you'll call, was a constitutional amendment that would have radically overhauled the state's budget-making process by taking power away from the executive branch and giving it to state legislators. It was widely derided as the Runaway Spending Amendment (RSA) because its critics argued it would drive the state's already high taxes, spending, and debt even higher.

Spending by the two sides, a drop in the bucket compared with campaigns for statewide offices, totaled about $1.5 million, according to a review of the major groups involved in the Proposal One constitutional amendment campaign. The money, according to the filings made public this week, came from unions, wealthy conservative businessmen, a major cable firm with ties in Albany and business groups.

. . . .

Probably [New Yorkers to Change Albany 's] best investment was reflected in one of the strangest entries in a state elections board report: "Pig rental." The group paid $1,000 - plus $2,000 for a "pig truck driver" - for a big, plastic, pink pig that attracted media attention as it was hauled around the state, conveying the not-so-subtle opinion of lawmakers who were pushing for the budget change.

The group concentrated much of its advertising - about $81,000 worth - in the final week in the Buffalo media market. Stocker said he wasn't sure why that was done, except possibly to reach sympathetic voters in Erie County where "there have been a number of frustrations with government reforms."

Its biggest chunk of money - $190,000 - went for "robo calls," prerecorded phone calls by several prominent Democrats and Republicans urging a "no" vote.

The other major opponent of the plan - the Business Council of New York State, the chief business lobbying organization - spent about $32,000 on its internal efforts to kill the proposal, plus $50,000 in donations to the New Yorkers to Change Albany group.

The Citizens Budget Commission, a budget watchdog group based in Manhattan, spent about $18,000.

After the measure's defeat, State Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno, R-Brunswick, had insisted that opposition groups spent several million dollars on their efforts. But the elections board filings did not support that conclusion.

The story also totes up spending by pro-RSA groups, and finds that it exceeded $1 million.

An editorial in the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin argues that public-sector pension deals should not include free lifetime health insurance when most private-sector workers are paying more out of pocket for health insurance.

With increasing costs of health care, workers in the private sector — those fortunate to have insurance — have been forced to contribute more out of pocket expenses to their plans almost every year. The public sector cannot ignore that trend. After all, it is the taxpayers who must pay the salaries and benefits for public posts. City of Binghamton resident recently voted to have the mayor pay for a portion of his or her health care insurance. That's a step other municipal officials can take even without the bother of a public referendum.

Although a free-insurance benefit is certainly an enticing perk for potential job applicants, it's just as certainly an affront to taxpayers who already bear a staggering burden.

The Buffalo News reports that a strike by unionized auto workers against struggling Delphi Corporation is possible, and the economic repercussions for western New York would be significant .

A strike would rattle the economy in Western New York, where Delphi employs 3,800 in Lockport and where General Motors, its major customer, accounts for thousands more jobs.

In a flier dated Tuesday, the UAW unit in Lockport warned members to prepare for the "increased likelihood" of a strike, after leaders returned from the Detroit meeting with Shoemaker.

"We strongly encourage everyone to use the time available to prepare for this probability," the flier from UAW Local 686 said. The warning echoes one the UAW unit issued in October, days after Delphi filed for bankruptcy protection, raising the prospect of a strike if Delphi sought to cancel its labor contract.

Delphi spokeswoman Claudia Piccinin said Wednesday that the company hopes to avoid a strike.

"We're going to continue on with our discussions with the unions toward a consensual restructuring plan, and that's where our focus is right now," she said. "We think a strike would not benefit any parties."

Robert S. "Steve" Miller, Delphi chairman and chief executive officer, repeatedly has said a strike, which he believed could be averted, would not be in the workers' best interest.

Delphi has asked its unions to agree to cut wages by more than 60 percent, from $27 an hour to a range of $10 to $12.50, which Delphi says would be competitive with other union and nonunion suppliers.

In a letter in the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin, a top New York State official representing the construction industry urges reforms to New York's workers' compensation system and the state's notorious Scaffold Law. The Scaffold Law, which is embedded in sections 240 and 241 of the state's Labor Law, denies contractors and property-owners the right to even offer evidence in their defense if a worker is injured on the job. The law, which like so many other policy follies is unique to New York State, says to contractors and property-owners: If a worker gets hurt in any worksite incident involving any height, you're absolutely liable. Period.

Management's longstanding proposal to reform 240 and 241 (co-sponsored by Senators Libous and Winner) is simply designed to give only the safe contractors who can show they have equipped, trained and managed their workforce safely their day in court. For all other contractors who are unsafe, the status quo remains.

In terms of workers' compensation, something is wrong when New York has such low benefits for workers but such high costs for employers. Seems like a situation that could easily be fixed. The governor, Legislature, labor and management need to work to find some common ground that would reform and balance our system to provide injured workers with the adequate benefits they are entitled to and competitive costs for employers.

And: Another letter in the Middletown Times Herald-Record gives the paper another smack for its silly, one-sided story a week or so ago giving the trial lawyers' view of the Scaffold Law but not the case against it . Unlike the story, the letter accurately explains how the law actually workers.

Section 240 of the New York state Labor Law states that if a builder or property owner hires workers, they are liable for any injury sustained by a worker that has fallen. This seems reasonable; however, the law takes it one step farther by placing absolute liability on the builder or owner. That one word, absolute, means that no matter the cause of the injury or who is responsible, the builder is automatically held liable.

In a country that presumes you are innocent until proven guilty and goes to great lengths to ensure murderers, rapists and even terrorists have fair trials, it is unbelievable to think that because I am a builder in New York, I cannot even get a trial. That is un-American, and our politicians should be ashamed of themselves.

A Rochester-based health insurer maintains that Upstate New Yorkers could save more than $800 million a year if they had more access to generic alternatives when they get prescription drugs. Jay Gallagher of the Gannett News Service has a story here. The Albany Times Union has a brief here. The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle has a story here. The Syracuse Post-Standard has a story here. The Utica Observer-Dispatch runs a variation of the Gannett News Service story here, emphasizing Oneida County statistics.

Trying to figure out what to do with all your digital pictures? The Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg, one of the best-read technology writers around, has high praise for Kodak's new photo-organizing program. It's free, works on both Windows and Mac computers, and has a number of other advantages, Mossberg writes.

This free software is called EasyShare, and it comes from Eastman Kodak, though you don't have to own a Kodak camera or printer to use it. It works with any brand of camera and printer to easily organize, email, print and touch up your pictures. And it's closely linked to Kodak's EasyShare Gallery online photo site, formerly called Ofoto, which is one of the best Web photo services and is free to use.

There's more here.

The other day, we noted a promising approach to reducing Medicaid spending that is being championed by Chemung County Executive Thomas Santulli. Our blog entry quoted an oped in the New York Sun by former Secretary of State Randy Daniels, a longshot candidate for the Republican nomination for governor in 2006.

What is this new approach to cost containment? Very simply, it's a software package dubbed Muni-Minder that applies the basic rules of cost accounting to allow county administrators working in concert with medical providers to uncover patterns of wasteful or fraudulent spending. Already, Onondaga County, which encompasses the city of Syracuse, has announced that it will purchase the new software, and in all likelihood, additional counties will soon follow suit or seek out similar solutions from other vendors in the marketplace.

The potential for savings is immense. According to Thomas Santulli, the innovative Chemung County executive who commissioned the software after a chance meeting with executives at a local trade show, the savings are likely to amount to 20% to 30% a year. On a statewide level, this would translate into a savings of approximately $10 billion, half of which could then be returned to state and local taxpayers.

The reasons that a relatively inexpensive software program appears able to generate such significant savings are not hard to understand. First is the simple fact that New York spends so much more than every other state in the country, nearly as much as California and Florida combined, even though those states have a population almost three times larger than we do. Obviously, not all our money is being spent wisely.

More pointedly, it has long been the case that every transaction, including something as simple as a basic prescription, that is paid for by Medicaid in New York is recorded in a comprehensive database that subsequently can be tracked and analyzed. The problem until now has been getting that information into the hands of people who could make effective use of it.

This prompted a thoughtful e-mail from a reader, who argued that this software-based change will be helpful but not sufficient.

The software package looks like a good idea from a cost management point of view, but I wouldn’t go as far as calling it “reform.”

Even if the system rooted out all fraud and abuse, we would still see Medicaid growing at unsustainable rates. We would still have wealthy seniors hiding assets to receive benefits, we would still see HMO’s signing up and charging for beneficiaries who never go see a doctor, we’d still see those signed up go to the emergency room anyway, etc, etc.

While the system sounds great, real long term reform will take policy changes, not just better management.

While we're catching up on our e-mail: We don't always take note of our correspondence (mea culpa), but we do appreciate it. A few weeks back, shortly after Election Day and the defeat of the Runaway Spending Amendment, a correspondent wrote to compliment us on the information we provided on Proposal One:

Your site was a great resource on this item and I referred many people to it. Good work. Thanks.

Another correspondent wrote simply: "Good blog and links." Thanks to all.

In an oped that ran in last Saturday's Plattsburgh Press-Republican (we didn't see it because the paper doesn't put its opeds on its Web page, from what we can tell), a physician argues that New York's high costs are helping turn New York's physicians into ex-New Yorkers.

We have two talented general surgeons who are looking out of state as the situation in northern New York has progressively deteriorated. Both of these guys could have a job elsewhere with a 50 percent raise in pay in 10 minutes with one phone call. . . .

The essay places some blame on inadequate reimbursements from both private health insurers and the state's Medicaid program. But the author also cites New York's high taxes and some other business climate issues.

. . . Two of my partners have left Plattsburgh in the last 15 months due to frustration with New York's climate of confiscatory taxation, penurious Medicaid reimbursement, and unresponsive bureaucracy. One of them regularly calls to taunt me with the improvement in his working conditions.

We're proud to say that the author of the essay, Dr. David Stinson, is a regular reader of this blog and a frequent correspondent.

New York Sun columnist John Avlon considers some internal and external challenges facing New York's Republican party and argues that former Massachusetts Governor William Weld would be the party's best candidate for governor in 2006. Avlon's argument focuses on fiscal issues that are of most interest to those of us who follow the Upstate economy.

First, the party needs to decide what it stands for - this should not be a difficult question. It is a simple equation: in New York, Republican equals reform. That has always been the case from Teddy Roosevelt to Fiorello La Guardia to Rudolph Giuliani to today. Rather than being distracted by divisive debates on social issues, New York Republicans should focus on common ground and face the future as a party that is low-tax and pro-business, tough on crime and corruption.

A 2006 ticket led by William Weld would best advance this agenda. He has experience as an effective state executive with a national reputation, cutting taxes and reforming out of control entitlements like Medicaid. He is a former Reagan Justice Department official and U.S. Attorney who brought the Massachusetts Republican Party from the wilderness to control of the governor's mansion for the past 15 years. An Albany outsider, he is attempting to build a campaign of based on forward-looking ideas, witnessed by a November Nassau County speech outlining his vision for an Empire State Taxpayer Bill of Rights.

Mr. Weld's campaign would be best supported by having fiscal conservative-favorite John Faso serve as candidate for Lieutenant Governor. If Mr. Faso declines to serve on the ticket, former Secretary of State Randy Daniels could add some much needed diversity and oratorical skills to the state G.O.P. (Mr. Daniels, a Bronx resident, might also want to begin lining up support as a possible successor to Mayor Bloomberg in 2009.) In the event that Mrs. Pirro drops down or out, Mr. Golisano's dollars would be far better used in a campaign against Hillary Clinton, while dark horses like Pataki Criminal Justice Director Chauncey Parker or Staten Island's District Attorney Dan Donovan could prove to be competitive candidates for attorney general.

Avlon also argues that the Democratic party has recovered some of the strength it lost in the 1990s because relative newcomers have challenged the status quo.

The resurgence of the statewide Democratic Party from near irrelevance in the late 1990s occurred because ambitious figures like Eliot Spitzer and Nassau County's Executive Tom Suozzi made reform the focus of their efforts, even at the expense of party bosses like Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. Mr. Spitzer has continued that theme as a candidate for governor, recently backing needed but Albany-feared measures such as redistricting reform. Republicans should not surrender the reform mantle without a fight.

Facing budget deficits and an aging population with a dysfunctional state legislature and an economically stagnant upstate region, New York state needs a competitive New York Republican Party in the coming years. Reforming the nominating process should be part of the party's future agenda, but a compelling agenda to reform the state should be first at this time. As the county chairmen mull Monday's meeting over the weekend, they should recall Pierre Rinfret's 22-point campaign against Mario Cuomo in 1990, and then remember the late Sun columnist Jack Newfield's wise warning that "ignoring electability is the fingerprint of fanaticism." The reality is that state Republicans are one election away from irrelevance, and now is not the time for ideological infighting. A relevant, competitive party puts forward candidates who can win.

Golisano should fish or cut bait: The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle reports that Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno wants Rochester billionaire Thomas Golisano to decide sooner rather than later if he wants to run for governor as a Republican .

The Poughkeepsie Journal reports that Assemblyman Pat Manning (R-Dutchess County), a longshot candidate for the Republican nomination for governor in 2006, spoke to a group of trial lawyers Thursday and made some friendly noises on the issue of tort reform.

"I'm trying to convince my colleagues this is not a black-and-white issue," Manning told the approximately 50 lawyers and guests at the Poughkeepsie Grand Hotel.

He said he had learned a lot about insurance companies helping constituents who have difficulty filing claims and from his own experience after he and his wife were involved in an auto accident in Hopewell Junction several years ago.

"I found out first-hand as a citizen how hard it is to go up against an insurance company" when he sought money for his and his wife's injuries, the assemblyman said.

The story does report exactly what, if any, tort-related policies the Assemblyman discussed, supported, or opposed.

One gets the impression that the Middletown Times Herald-Record realizes that its story a week or so ago on New York's infamous Scaffold Law really was unfair and one-sided—-because the paper continues to run strong letters to the editor objecting to the story. There are two more letters in Friday's paper excoriating the Middletown Times Herald-Record's story on the Scaffold Law. The Scaffold Law is New York's one-of-a-kind law holding that contractors and property-owners are absolutely liable for worksite injuries to workers, and don't even have the right to introduce evidence in their own defense. The first letter explains why this policy hurts New York and New Yorkers.

On account of this, insurance rates for contractors are by far the highest in the nation. Many small contractors have difficulty obtaining insurance at any price.

The result is that construction costs in New York state are also the highest in the nation.

We believe that it is appropriate for New York state to fall in line with the other states so that insurance costs will be not be so prohibitive. We also believe that a worker who is injured will continue to be protected by liability insurance policies, after an appropriate finding of fault, in addition to worker's compensation insurance.

The second letter covers similar ground and also explains why trial lawyers favor the law so much.

It is no surprise that his lawyer is a big supporter of the law, since lawyers are the prime beneficiaries of it. Unlike virtually any other area of law, they get to win huge settlements - and their own hefty percentage - without ever having to prove anything.

Why should you care? This law has caused insurance premiums to jump to many times their previous level, adding tens of thousands of dollars to the cost of each house. This cost is ultimately borne by you the purchaser. This law must be amended.

Technology companies and other employers in New York have a challenge for Albany: They need more science and engineering graduates from our fine institutions of higher learning, if we're to compete with China and India. The good news: A new, nationwide study finds that, unlike most states, New York already has one key ingredient in place.

Nearly half the states are doing a poor job of setting high academic standards for science in public schools, according to a new report that examined science in anticipation of 2007, when states will be required to administer tests in the subject under President Bush's signature education law.

This article in The New York Times puts the report, by the Thomas Fordham Institute, in the context of international competition for innovation and jobs.

The report also appears to support concerns raised by a growing number of university officials and corporate executives, who say that the failure to produce students well-prepared in science is undermining the country's production of scientists and engineers and putting the nation's economic future in jeopardy.

...

"Many states are not yet serious about teaching science," said Michael Petrilli, vice president for national programs and policy of the institute, a group that supports education reform. "The first step is to set higher expectations, and too many states have low or a lack of expectations to respond to the new global competitiveness."

What about the Empire State?

The authors of the report analyzed each state and awarded a numerical score that translated to a grade. Only seven states, including New York and California, got an A, with 12 receiving a B, and 8 plus the District of Columbia receiving a C. Seven states got a D, and 15 got an F. Iowa was not included in the report because it does not set standards for any subject.

Down the road, the real test is whether the higher standards are successful in driving higher performance. We have our work cut out for us. In 2000, the most recent nationwide comparison for which data are complete, New York 8th graders ranked only 22nd of 37 states tested in science by the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

An editorial in Buffalo News offers a strong defense of charter schools, arguing that New York should not deny applications for charter schools just because that causes financial inconvenience for conventional public schools.

Quality education should be everyone's goal, whether that education is in charter schools or traditional public schools. The state Education Department betrays its loss of that perspective in recommending denial of a license for the proposed Elmwood Avenue Charter School only because of the financial pain that charter schools inflict on traditional public schools.

. . . .

The whole purpose of the charter school program is to improve education, both by offering alternatives and providing a motivational competitive spur to existing schools. Like all consumers, the parents of schoolchildren vote with their feet. Population shifts to better school districts, and schools left behind have to downsize accordingly. The above average percentage of Buffalo students in charter schools - 13.5 percent here versus a goal of 7.5 percent statewide - shows how some parents view traditional public schools. Well-performing charter schools provide another public school outlet for parents who cannot afford to send their children to Buffalo private or parochial schools, but want comparable programs.

Buffalo Board of Education member Donald A. Van Every maintains that the board's focus is on the children - those who remain and, critics argue, are further neglected because of the state's shift of money to charters. District administrators are making a valiant effort to improve education and we hope they succeed. Meanwhile, put the children first. Improve the product. Don't stifle the competition.

Related thoughts: A member of the Buffalo school board writes in the Buffalo News that school reforms should precede any new infusion of state aid to schools. The key target for reforms, he argues, should be antiquated union contracts.

Recently New York State's highest court ruled that the state is violating its constitutional mandate to provide a "sound basic education" to all children by inadequately funding New York City's public school system. Most agree that this court case may cause historic increases in the amount of state aid not just for New York City but for high-needs districts statewide.

. . . .

If millions of additional dollars were to arrive today, I regret to say that most of them would not get down to our children but be diverted because of our inefficient and ineffective system of educating our children. Why is this? Two main reasons: (1) Inefficient and antiquated organizational structure and (2) unaffordable and inflexible union contracts.

Simply put, our school system as it is currently constituted serves well the majority of the adults in system (the employees) but serves a large percentage of our children very poorly.

The facts are that our school budget has exploded over the last several decades, increasing exponentially while our school-age population has decreased nearly by half.

In 1990 we had 47,000 children in our system and our total budget was about $340 million. In just 15 years our budget has doubled, $700 million this year, while our school population has declined by 10,000. This is more pronounced on a per pupil basis. In 1990 Buffalo's per pupil expenditure was $7,300, while this year we are spending over $16,000 per child. That is more than the tuition for the most elite private schools in the area.

Simply put, our delivery system is just not working anymore. We are saddled with union contracts that we cannot afford and that impose far too many constraints on the academic side of our school operations. If we were a private company, we would have filed for bankruptcy a long time ago.

There's more.

One Ithaca-area resident wonders in this letter to the editor in the Ithaca Journal if having a recall measure would be good for New York voters.

Shortly before the November election, I had occasion to stop at the Board of Elections to obtain information about the forthcoming election. While there, I made a casual inquiry as to whether it was possible to institute a recall of an elected official. They informed me that according to their best knowledge New York state does not have a recall petition stature for elected official.

With such a secure position I began to wonder whether the elected official acts on behalf of his constituent once they are elected or do they assume that what they think is right is correct irrespective of the feeling of their constituents.

This I am beginning to discern is the impression I have with respect to the downtown development. The tenor of the tone of the city residents is saying, enough already, stop placing more tax burden and debt on us. Why do we have to pay for all this planning, consultants and development? If the elected official does not receive that impression from their constituents, then maybe we should try a referendum on this project and place it in the hands of the voting public.

A Syracuse manufacturer is helping keep United Nations diplomats and staff safe from potential attacks of anthrax and other biological weapons. The Post-Standard has the story here.

Business First joins other voices in applauding the hydropower settlement between Erie County and the New York Power Authority.

NYPA's contribution of $279 million over the next half century to waterfront development is appropriate. Businesses pay the bills for NYPA-generated power, and it makes sense that a portion of the money is reinvested in the region.

It's refreshing that this agreement, unlike so many others, captures the money before the projects. Buffalo has suffered too many failed dreams -- grand visions of office buildings and theme parks (and perhaps still a Bass Pro location) that went unfunded.

In this case, the funds come first. That allows government officials and private developers to be strategic in their planning. Government should position the private sector to generate growth. That's precisely what this deal is designed to do. Now it's up to the money's caretakers, particularly the Erie Canal Harbor Development Corp., to use it wisely.

A story in the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin profiles the vote some Binghamton-area residents will cast this Tuesday on a $48 million "expansion and renovation project" for the Norwich and Masonville BOCES campuses.

The Port of Oswego is little used, but could become "one of the main economic engines that drive Central New York," the Syracuse Post-Standard says.

The port has fallen on hard times in recent years, largely reflecting declines in local manufacturing. As Post-Standard reporter Delen Goldberg pointed out last Sunday, the port remains today a rarely used, debt-ridden facility that depends on the support of New York taxpayers to get by. It has lost nearly a quarter of a million dollars so far this year, handling just 17 or 18 ships. From 2002 through 2004, only nine cargo ships came in.

...

The community should explore construction of a four-lane expressway connecting the port to Interstate 81. Brownfields by the port should be redeveloped to expand truck handling and storage capability, and a free-trade zone should be established. Port facilities need to be upgraded to handle cargo from modern ships. And the port needs to be better integrated into regional plans for tourism and recreation, especially with the Erie Canal and Destiny USA.

Speaking of brownfields, the potential economic benefits of the port are yet another reason Albany must become more flexible on redeveloping old industrial sites. The Post-Standard editorial is here.

It could be a very important year for the city of Buffalo, its hometown paper observes.

When running for U.S. Senate in 2000, Hillary Rodham Clinton made the Upstate economy a signature issue, and promised to help bring new jobs to struggling communities. How's she done? Darryl McGrath examines that question in this Buffalo News op-ed.

During the 1990s boom, residents of Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse and Albany, and the many smaller cities and towns in between, watched just about every other part of the country reap the benefits - however short-lived they turned out to be - of the high-tech economy, venture capitalism, the dot-com era and all the other glitzy alternatives to manufacturing.

If there's any grim consolation to the fact that manufacturing in upstate New York was nose-diving then and has continued to tank since then - as illustrated by Delphi's and Kodak's announcements earlier this year to cut jobs or wages - it's that the rest of the country is finally catching up, although in ways that you wouldn't wish upon your worst enemy. Suffice it to say that the economic picture of upstate New York wasn't rosy in the mid-1990s, and it's not so great now, a decade later.

Candidate Clinton "made campaign promises that she would help create 200,000 jobs in upstate New York, but most critics don't appear to take that seriously anymore," McGrath writes. How does Senator Clinton rate her own record on the Upstate economy?

"I have been extremely encouraged by the progress that we have made together in upstate New York," she said last week. "We've made critical investments in new technologies; we've created new opportunities for our farming communities; we've supported our entrepreneurs and our small businesses; we've connected upstate businesses with downstate investors, and we've helped encourage tourism to this beautiful and historic part of our state. And we did this in the face of a sagging national economy."

We recall that controlling property taxes was on the agenda in the 2000 campaign. Unfortunately, the article doesn't mention that issue. It does get into another, increasingly important concern for Upstate: high-speed Internet connections that will be essential to the technology jobs of the future.

...she won over supporters in even hard-core Republican areas, such as St. Lawrence County. This part of the state didn't have fiber optic cable or high-speed Internet access until two years ago, a liability that kept small businesses from investing in the region, despite the presence of three respected colleges: St. Lawrence University and the SUNY campuses at Potsdam and Canton.

Now, 450 miles of fiber optic cable have been strung through St. Lawrence, Jefferson and Lewis counties. Local officials credit Clinton and State Sen. Jim Wright, R-Watertown, with getting the funding, equipment and expertise to get the project moving.

Meanwhile: AP's Marc Humbert also takes a look at Senator Clinton and the Upstate economy, here.

"Yesterday, we were in Syracuse where we did have a very big job fair because there is a disconnect," the Democrat said at Schenectady County Community College, in the shadow of the huge General Electric complex that once had more than 40,000 employees and now has about one-tenth that. "There are already jobs in upstate New York that are not being filled because we don't have people with the skills and experience to fill them."

Clinton said that at the job fair, employers had 2,500 openings and slots for 450 interns. She said the state's automobile dealers recently told her they needed about 600 auto mechanics who now must not only change spark plugs, but know how to operate computers.

Every city in Upstate New York is home to once-thriving industrial and commercial properties that are potential havens for good jobs, but are neglected as "brownfield" sites. We took a look at this issue in our weekly public-radio commentary, available here.

This is not only a New York problem; the same kinds of sites can be found in neighboring states and almost everywhere in the country. But New York is different in one key way: Our state laws and regulations make it much harder than it is elsewhere for businesses or nonprofit organizations to clean up brownfield sites, make them productive, and get them back on the local property tax rolls again.

Thousands of properties across the state are classified as brownfields. More than two years after Governor Pataki and the Legislature enacted a law intended to restore such sites, only 100 or so are back in use.

Scores of developers who would like to invest in such projects, and make contaminated properties attractive and useful again, find the state's regulations so confusing they have no idea whether they can even qualify to participate...

Most other states design brownfield redevelopment plans with the simple goal of encouraging brownfield redevelopment. The key to that is to keep in mind what it is that discourages businesses from tackling such properties: They don't want to assume liability for a problem someone else created and left behind. So most other states relieve new developers of liability for the old contamination, as long as they do a good job of cleaning up the site for whatever its intended use will be. If it's a new factory, for instance, the project may not need to incur the expense of restoration to pristine status, as it would if it were to be homes for families with young children.

But that kind of common-sense compromise is missing from New York's approach. The result is ironic and unfortunate: We say we want brownfield sites cleaned up better than those in other states. Instead, we're not getting them cleaned up at all.

Maybe it's time, on this issue as with so many others, for New York to act more like a normal state.

That's the question explored in this article from the New York State School Boards Association newspaper.

The issue of escalating school property taxes promises to take center stage in statewide political debates in 2006.

Several political figures have indicated their intention to tackle this issue, including a Long Island county executive who may run for governor. Republicans in the State Assembly have organized an Assembly Minority Commission on Alternatives to School Property Taxes.

Unfortunately, from what we've seen, most of the discussion so far has not really been about reducing school taxes, or even reducing the regular increases in taxes. Those options would be entirely realistic if school spending did not increase by twice the rate of inflation year in and year out. (See our annual School Tax Watch reports, such as this one from earlier this year.) Instead, the discussion from incumbent legislators, Democrats and Republicans alike, is mainly about shifting the cost from one tax to another, such as income and/or sales taxes. That would allow elected officials to avoid any hard choices (or even no-brainer choices) about how to control school-spending increases. In that latter category of no-brainer reforms, the school-boards association is once again urging Governor Pataki and the Legislature to repeal the Wicks Law, which drives up the cost of public construction by hundreds of millions of dollars a year. That would be one excellent way to start freeing up education dollars for educational use. As for that idea of raising income and sales taxes to reduce property taxes: Two years ago, our state Senate and Assembly members claimed to do just that. They imposed a $2 billion tax increase. But we didn't see school taxes go down; they continued rising sharply.

The new book by veteran journalist and Gannett News Service Albany bureau chief Jay Gallagher is profiled by the Times Union.

The book expands a 2004 series Gallagher wrote, with new a forward, introduction and solutions chapter. Gallagher said he wrote the new forward, titled "The Year of Reform" after last year's elections brought some changes in the Legislature.

But, Gallagher cautioned, those only scratched the surface of what needs fixing, and campaign finance and reapportionment remain big issues. Competitive districts, he said, would "require elected officials to really be responsive to what people really want and not what lobbyists are twisting their arms to do."

The book has received bipartisan praise from politicians including Democratic state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and former Assembly Minority Leader John Faso, a Kinderhook Republican.

As for readability, local author Joseph E. Persico praised Gallagher for writing "in the style of a born storyteller, not in bureaucratic gobbledygook."

You can find out more about the book and tomorrow's book signing here.

With the Runaway Spending Amendment* consigned to the dustbin of history, The New York Times says state leaders should look for "a better budget fix."

Now that we've managed to avoid making things worse, it is time for New York's lawmakers to start thinking about how to make them better. The state's budgeting system needs to be made modern, open and efficient.

So far, so good.

First, one person or board should set revenue estimates for the state. Any decision to spend more should be balanced with an explanation of where the money comes from, and it is all too easy to find the funds simply by raising the estimates on how much revenue will be coming in. Right now there can be at least six estimates: one from the governor, one from the comptroller and one from each party in each legislative house. All these separate operations cost an estimated $11 million a year, and that's not counting the governor's budget bureaucracy. A nonpartisan legislative budget office - like the Legislative Analyst's Office in California or the Congressional Budget Office - would be best.

We don't have any fundamental objection to this idea, or to the others in the Times editorial (available here.) We would note that New York City's budget rules, which the editorial cites as a good model for Albany, put the chief executive in charge of determining how much revenue is available. That's a good way to promote fiscal discipline and stability. If the Legislature does create a new budget office (it already has four), we'd hope the new fiscal experts have useful work to do in the 11 months of the year when revenue estimates will not be pressing issues. Reviewing the cost-effectiveness of costly state programs would be one such idea, in keeping with legislatures' traditional responsibility for oversight of executive agencies. More broadly, fixing Albany's budget process is simply not as important as fixing Albany's budget policies. Our own thoughts on where Albany should go next in fiscal reform are available here. * The legislator-friendly budget proposal that New York voters trashed by a nearly two-to-one margin last month.

Business First of Buffalo reports on the auto-industry anxieties plaguing Western New York.

Added to the region's months-long fear for its largest manufacturer, Delphi Thermal & Interior in Lockport, is newly arisen uncertainty about Ford Motor Co.'s stamping plant.

Though there is no indication from the company that the Woodlawn site is endangered, national media reports on Dec. 7 surfaced that Ford planned to close more plants than previously reported and make deeper workforce cuts.

The Detroit News said Ford's board of directors was considering a plan to close at least 10 assembly and components plants and to cut 25,000 to 30,000 hourly jobs in North America in the next five years. A week earlier, media reports said five North American plants were targeted for closing.

Ford is scheduled to release details of its restructuring plan on Jan. 23 and company officials said that until then, the automaker would have nothing to announce and that all media reports are speculative.

In mid-October, Ford Chairman and Chief Executive Bill Ford Jr. said the company would roll out a restructuring plan in January that would include "significant plant closings."

The local stamping plant has 1,550 employees, including 1,400 hourly workers, and is in the midst of a $90 million project involving installation of a new press and retraining of employees.

As science and technology become even more important in the global economy, Upstate's Rep. Sherwood Boehlert offers some observations from his position as chairman of the House of Representatives' Committee on Science.

For America to remain competitive in a global economy, it must "renew its focus on innovation and math and science education," Rep. Sherwood Boehlert told a gathering of about 55 corporate, education and trade organization leaders in Washington last week.

Boehlert, R-New Hartford, who chairs the House Science Committee, served as an adviser to the National Summit on Competitiveness, which concluded that if current trends continue in U.S. research and education, "our nation will squander its economic leadership, and the result will be a lower standard of living for the American people."

Summit participants recommended that the federal government increase spending on basic research by 10 percent a year for seven years. They also called for doubling the number of bachelor's degrees awarded in science, math and engineering by 2015 and increasing the number of science and math teachers in elementary and secondary schools.

The Post-Standard has the story here. And: Senator Clinton echoes the call for better science and math education -- and takes the suggestion an interesting step further.

The former first lady stressed the need for students to arm themselves with math and science skills to make it in the new job market. She said the challenge facing America reminds her of the space race of an earlier generation.

"I am old enough to remember Sputnik," Clinton, 58, told her Schenectady audience. "I can remember my fifth-grade teacher coming in and saying the president wants you to do your math. I certainly didn't want to do it, but if the president wanted me to do it, I thought I better do it.

"Well, we have a silent Sputnik today," Clinton added, noting the technical advances being made in Asia and other parts of the world.

While New York's junior senator agreed with panelists who said government, schools and the private sector have to do a better job in coordinating training efforts, she also said students must simply learn to work harder.

"I don't want to sound like my late father, who said, 'I got up at the crack of dawn and after I milked the cows and fed the chickens, I walked 10 miles in the snow to schools,' " she said. "But certainly there is a concern on the part of many people that with the enhanced entertainment, media-saturated environment that our children grow up in, instant gratification is the name of the game."

The Albany Business Review has more details on the December 6 education conference where experts said educational gaps in math and science have to be overcome in order to make the region into Tech Valley.

The national shortage of students training in math, science and engineering figures to be felt most keenly in areas like the Capital Region that are trying to orient their economies to technology, said Ed Reinfurt, vice president of the Business Council of New York State.

He said his group will push in 2006 for creation of a major new scholarship or loan forgiveness program to encourage more of the best math and science students to become teachers.

. . . .

Kevin O'Connor, CEO of the Albany telecommunications company Tech Valley Communications, said he is worried by the performance gap between suburban schools and those in the Capital Region's inner cities. The popularity of charter schools in Albany reflects that gap, he said.

"For us, we see a real challenge with trying to hire students coming out of the K-12 system in the city of Albany," O'Connor said.

. . . .

[U.S. Senator Hillary] Clinton said when she was a kid, the launching of the Sputnik satellite by the Soviet Union added a sense of purpose to science classes for all American students. Youngsters have to feel that same sense of urgency now, she said.

"They have to know they are in competition for their standard of living," Clinton said. "They have to realize that there is absolutely no guarantee that they will just walk into a prosperous future. In fact, I think it is fair to say that we're going to have to fight very hard to maintain our standard of living and economic prosperity."

The Albany Times Union "Capital Confidential" column reports that a top national political consultant is advising state Senate Republicans to focus on issues such as jobs and taxes, if they want to maintain their majority in the 2006 elections. The column is here.

[B]ehind closed doors at a downtown ballroom, GOP senators, who hold a slim 35-27 majority, also got a blunt political assessment from John McLaughlin, who has advised campaigns nationwide.

McLaughlin told them they'd better begin campaigning for next year's election "early, often and with enthusiasm," according to some Republicans.

McLaughlin also told Majority Leader Joseph Bruno and his colleagues to focus on local issues and on priorities identified in polls, particularly taxes and jobs. He suggested phoning, writing and generally keeping in touch with voters.

Bill Weld, one of the Republican party's potential candidates for governor, told Fred Dicker's WROW-AM radio audience today he is intrigued by the idea of letting Upstate be Upstate.

I've got some sympathy for this slogan that I hear from time to time, let Upstate be Upstate. If there are Upstate counties that don't want to participate at quite the same level as other counties, if they'd rather have the blue-plate special than the full gourmet meal, I think they should have the right to do so.

This is a mega-issue, but I think the relationship between the state government and the 57 counties and the five boroughs could stand some rethinking.

We couldn't agree more. Our report on that topic, called Could New York Let Upstate BE Upstate?, is here.

Last week we blogged about a new song that pokes fun at Albany's "performance orb," the Egg. In defense of Albany's most famous landmark, we wrote that "to our knowledge, there isn’t another building like it in the world." Apparently, we were wrong. A reader informs us that there is, in fact, another building like the Egg:

Actually the Palacio Do Congresso in Brazil’s capital city of Brasilia was built BEFORE the Egg and some have speculated that the Empire State Plaza’s design was in fact inspired by Niemeyer. So, now you know that there IS another building like it in the world.

This makes sense to us. The late Albany Mayor Erastus Corning 2nd maintained a file on the development of the Empire State Plaza (then called the South Mall). The file reportedly was labeled "Brasilia." We're happy to be corrected. Now, has a song been written about the lack of corners in the Palacio Do Congresso?

This editorial in the Auburn Citizen asks Governor Pataki to make sure that the state's long-awaited hospital report cards are completed before he leaves office at the end of 2006.

Another example of executive branch incompetence (or obstructionism, depending on how one chooses to view it) involves the state law that says the Department of Health is to issue detailed report cards on hospital performance every year. The department has confirmed that it will be issuing the first comprehensive report card next month - a full decade after the law was passed.

Rumors are traveling around Buffalo that the city may have a budget surplus this year. But a Buffalo News editorial warns lawmakers to take it easy.

It was as predictable as snarled traffic in a snowstorm. Reports of a burgeoning budget surplus in Buffalo immediately precipitated a clamor to raise spending (unwise) and to dump the city control board (illegal).

News of the surplus should be heartening to city residents, but it should be understood for what it is: The outgrowth of significant financial restraint brought on, largely, by the control board. It will take years of such results before the city can think about taking off the training wheels. Indeed, the control board law requires a minimum three years of balanced budgets before it can enter a dormancy period. The first such budget under that umbrella was only approved this summer.

. . . .

We hope the city and its employees, including teachers, will continue - or in some cases, start - to work with each other to help the city surmount these problems. In particular, the teachers union needs to drop as a bargaining chip the single health care plan. That proposal could save the city $10 million a year without harming anyone's access to health care or needlessly skewering the tax base.

What's happened moves the city closer to the day when all involved, taxpayers included, can return to a more normal, though perhaps healthier, way of doing business.

One Utica-area school district is doing all it can to offset this winter's high energy costs, according to the Observer-Dispatch.

With the record rise in fuel prices prompting thousands of dollars in unbudgeted costs, Westmoreland, like other districts around the area, is implementing cost-saving measures while administrators brainstorm ways to pay the additional expense and maintain academic offerings.

"Sometimes we forget or are only out for a minute," Westmoreland Central School District Superintendent Toni Kulak said of the district's signs that remind classroom users to turn lights off. "It does make a difference."

Kulak said that while activities such as upcoming field trips haven't been affected by rising costs, there have been several cost-saving measures designed to defray an additional $70,000 in heating and fuel costs including weather stripping around windows and lowering thermostats to 66 degrees.

. . . .

And: Another Utica-area school district is following Westmoreland's lead, the Observer-Dispatch reports.

The Rome City School District expects to balance huge heating cost increases with savings in electricity expenses, Assistant Superintendent for Business William Thomas said.

The district already uses computers to turn back building boilers to take advantage of changes in the outside temperature, Facilities Director Vito Rizzo said.

We hope to read more stories like these.

Government spending, not assessments, is the issue in property-tax increases, says an editorial in the Ithaca Journal.

Sure, you can argue over how much your assessment went up compared to your neighbor, and 1,680 won that argument last year. But no one should argue that assessments drive taxes. The key is how much government spends, and how much it has to raise from local property owners through that levy.

That's where the debate ought to be, and there's plenty to talk about.

Local governments and the constituencies they serve need to face some tough spending choices. Some force needs be found to stop state and federal mandates that look good on the congressman's press release but don't come with the cash to carry them out. Of course the monster of the entire property tax universe — how we fund public schools, the biggest property tax hog of them all - needs a complete reinvention. These are the real issues.

Changing assessment cycles as a way to ease taxes is a ruse. Without facing those bigger questions, three-year, 10-year, 50-year cycles won't do a bit of good.

Meanwhile: The Gloversville Leader-Herald is reporting that the city of Gloversville is preparing a five-year financial plan.

Now that the city has adopted its 2006 budget, Commissioner of Finance Bruce Van Genderen has begun preparing a five-year plan for the city's finances.

Van Genderen said the city received approximately $185,000 more in state aid for 2005 than it had in the past.

The city agreed to prepare a five-year plan of its finances because it received the additional aid.

The Aid Incentives for Municipalities program requires the municipality prepare at least a three-year plan to include projected employment levels, expenditures, property tax revenues, sales tax revenue and reserve fund amounts.

"It gives some direction of where we should be budgetwise and will gear the council for planning," Van Genderen said.

One purpose of the plan is to identify problems the city could face in the future, he said.

We encourage more local governments to take action now on plans that could identify future financial difficulties before placing the burden for them on taxpayers. In Oswego County: Local lawmakers have passed a 10 percent tax cut, according to the Syracuse Post-Standard.

The Syracuse Industrial Development Agency is holding its last meeting of the year and doesn't plan to include a discussion of the mega-mall, Destiny, on the agenda.

David Michel, the city's economic development director, said Monday the city's attorneys have been meeting with representatives of the Destiny USA development team since the mayoral election Nov. 8 to discuss ways to move the project forward.

The conversations have been "going well," but they have not produced an agreement that would enable the city's development agency to issue bonds today for the project - a necessary action to activate a 30-year property tax agreement for the project.

However, a special meeting could be held before the end of the year if need be, Michel said.

. . . .

Mayor Matt Driscoll, a Democrat, was re-elected after a campaign in which Destiny USA was a major issue. Republican challenger Joanie Mahoney tried to paint Driscoll as an obstructionist who was getting in the way of economic development in Syracuse. Driscoll said he was just looking out for taxpayers.

There's much more to the story.

What to do with a former psychiatric facility and the land it sits on is a big question for Utica-area residents and lawmakers, the Observer-Dispatch reports.

There's no shortage of ideas among residents and politicians about what should become of the vacant, aging buildings at the Mohawk Valley Psychiatric Center or the land they sit on.

City officials had hoped they would form the crux of a new state homeland-security training center, but Gov. George Pataki last week awarded the center to the Oneida County Airport.

. . . .

Old Main is the centerpiece of the campus. Opened in 1843, the Greek Revival building was home to those deemed mentally insane. After closing in 1978, the National Historic Landmark sat empty for several decades until New York reopened it this year as a record repository.

But like the other buildings, there's room to spare at Old Main. Only the first of four floors are in use. Jill Daniels, a spokesperson for the state Office of Mental Health, said no plans existed for the open floors or other vacant buildings.

Common Councilman Howard Welch, the outgoing West Utica representative, said he could see a market for large, upscale homes on the campus if demolition occurs. He said such a project could have far-reaching effects, sparking retail development and raising home values.

"That could have a huge economic impact on the area, probably more so than the homeland-security center," Welch said. "The potential is there."

The land surrounding the last family-owned resort in the Catskills is on the market because the expected boom from casinos may never come, according to a story in the New York Times.

After years of waiting for casino gambling, the owners of Kutsher's Country Club, the last of the big family-owned Catskill resorts, have decided to put most of their land on the market, about 1,000 acres.

The resort hotel, in Monticello, N.Y., has managed to hang on in a struggling region, which was long ago named the borscht belt for the predominantly Jewish clientele it attracted. Scores of hotels have closed in the past 30 years, along with two other large resorts once mentioned in the same breath as Kutsher's: Grossinger's and the Concord.

. . . .

Whatever the true nature of the listing, the marketing of such a large chunk of the Kutsher's empire is another sign of the sagging prospects for gambling in the Catskills.

Last year, Gov. George E. Pataki was pressing for five casinos in the Catskills. But court rulings that appeared to undermine the state's Indian land claim settlements and a growing opposition movement clouded the picture. In the spring, the State Legislature ended its session without agreement on even a single casino.

Kutsher's Country Club's own hopes were further deflated this fall when the St. Regis Mohawks suddenly announced that they would abandon a five-year effort to win approval for a Las Vegas-style casino there. Instead, the Mohawks, who had teamed up with Harrah's Entertainment at Kutsher's, decided to revive an earlier plan to build a casino at the Monticello racetrack, which is operated by Empire Resorts.

New York employers are slightly less optimistic than those across the country in terms of hiring plans for early 2006, according to the latest Manpower Inc. survey of companies. The Times Union's Alan Wechsler has the story here. It highlights the fact that, among Capital Region employers, slightly more are planning to hire than to reduce employment.

Manpower Inc.'s employment survey found 20 percent of employers in the region will be looking to hire in the first quarter of 2006. Another 12 percent plan to decrease the number of employees in the January-March period, the Milwaukee-based employment firm reported Monday.

"That is an 8 percent positive swing for the region," said Alexander Courtney, owner of the Manpower branch in Albany. "Last year, it was an 11 percent positive swing. It's a little less optimistic going into this (new) year, but not hugely so."

We're not sure a few percentage points make a trend at all, but it's good to know more employers are expecting to add jobs than cut them. At the state and national level, the number of respondents is much larger, allowing more confidence in relatively small differences.

Around the state, 20 percent of businesses plan to increase jobs, while 13 percent plan cutbacks, Manpower reported. Nationally, 23 percent of companies surveyed expect to increase jobs and 10 percent expect to decrease their payrolls, the company said.

Manpower interviews 16,000 companies around the country four times a year for the survey.

More: The Elmira Star-Gazette reports on the Manpower survey results in the Southern Tier.

We're always sorry to see this sort of letter. It's a reminder that many educated, intelligent, hard-working people in Upstate New York are experiencing tough times.

The fact is that Buffalo is one of the most economically depressed and least attractive places in the country to live. You had better believe that "our economy's the worst." The 6.2 percent unemployment figure is probably closer to 12.2 percent because it doesn't account for workers such as myself who have surpassed unemployment benefits. We no longer exist in the job statistics.

Let's look at the reality of opportunity in Buffalo. I know that I'm not alone, because I'm part of a support group of more than 400 similar cases. I have an engineering degree, a management degree and 40 years of plant managerial experience. I lost my job 15 years ago. Since then, it has been mostly minimum wage retail and service job openings available. Any true career opportunity turns out to be temporary because the company shuts down or sells out.

I've been out of work for two years and see little hope around here. I've had dozens of good job offers to relocate, but my wife won't leave our daughter. At least we are getting along, basically just surviving on her job, stuck in Buffalo.

A Rochester Democrat and Chronicle story provides some good background for those readers not familiar with the 9-state plan which will raise electric rates by requiring power plants to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. The plan, known as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), is contentious for many reasons, the story points out.

Three years from now, electricity-generating plants in Monroe County will likely be forced to buy the right to pollute.

Governors in at least eight states this week are poised to approve a regional greenhouse gas emissions trading plan, a sort of market for pollution that aims to reduce the release of carbon dioxide by power plants.

How this will affect your energy bills is a matter of debate. But the aim is to improve the environment for everybody, as most scientists believe that the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide is the biggest factor behind the human component of global warming. The initiative is a "cap-and-trade" program, in which limits on pollution are set not by the smokestack, but regionally — in this case, across a nine-state area stretching from Maine to New York.

. . . .

Just this month, however, Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney announced that he does not expect to have a plan in place when the strategy is finalized Thursday. Rumors of other states following his lead are rampant.

. . . .

Studies released earlier this year predict that households could pay between $3 and $30 more per year in electricity costs because of the program.

With the volatility in fuel prices over the past three months, some call that analysis optimistic.

First, the environmental impact: The "aim" may be to "improve the environment for everybody," but RGGI simply does not do so, at least in any measurable way. The plan's own supporters admit it will not affect global temperatures. And the likely effect of the RGGI on costs: If you’re wondering why Gov. Romney appears to be reconsidering the wisdom of RGGI, remember that business organizations from all nine states set to join RGGI wrote a letter to their nine governors laying out the compelling case against this notion. The letter made a strong case that the policy change would inevitably drive energy costs higher. From our summary of that letter:

Significant changes must be made to the proposed Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) to minimize impacts on the economy of the Northeast. . . .

In the September 22 letter to Governor George Pataki and his counterparts in Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Vermont, the organizations criticized the plan as likely to drive electric prices higher for businesses and residents.

“For the private sector businesses we represent, the costs of electric power, and the reliability of our power grids, are priority issues,” the letter said. “Obviously, recent developments have made energy prices a significant issue for the average citizen as well.”

. . . .

In New York, the RGGI proposal would be the latest in a series of actions by the Public Service commission and Department of Environmental Conservation that are inflating electric prices by hundreds of millions of dollars. The state Energy Plan calls for policies that would reduce New York’s high energy costs.

“The RGGI region already has the highest average electric prices in the continental United States, with New England region at 52 percent above the national average, and mid-Atlantic region at 31 percent [above the national average],” the letter said. “For many businesses, these high energy costs are already having an adverse impact on their competitiveness.”

The proposal poses a “significant risk” of increasing electric power prices in the region by driving generators toward natural gas, imposing additional costs for the acquisition of carbon dioxide allowances or offsets, and requiring upgrading of combustion units, the letter said.

One reason Upstate New York is home to so many shuttered factories is that, when someone wants to reopen one to bring in new jobs, some neighbors are sure to oppose the idea. The latest example comes from Corinth, where out-of-town developers (horrors!) reportedly are considering a plan for a waste-to-energy plant in a former paper mill. The Albany Times Union reports today on Barbara Weatherwax, a "gray-haired, modestly dressed version of Erin Brockovich," who opposes the idea. Ms. Weatherwax held a meeting for other local residents last week.

She asked her audience to help her pronounce the names of some of the chemical compounds a gasifier is said to release into the air. She has a handle on terms like sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide, she said, both of which have been shown by the Environmental Protection Agency to cause respiratory problems.

Well, we guess that settles the matter. Can't have sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide going into our air, can we? We'll have to close virtually every power plant in the country, and shut down many of our remaining factories. Oh, and get rid of all our cars, by the way. But hey, this is our environment we're talking about!

Weatherwax isn't sure what she's fighting, but she's sure she doesn't want it.

Kind of says it all, doesn't it?

Jay Gallagher, veteran journalist and author of the new book The Politics of Decline: A Chronicle of New York's Descent and What You Can Do To Save Your State, will be at an Elmira-area bookstore Thursday for a signing. The Star-Gazette has details.

A chicken farm outside Binghamton might create some jobs, but would also lower property values and increase health problems, some neighbors complain to the Press & Sun Bulletin.

Deborah Stephens, 40, who lives across the street from where the farm is expected to be built, cited several studies done over the last few years showing that Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations have harmed neighborhoods. She said while property values and quality of life go down, instances of asthma and other illnesses increase.

We note that, unlike some similar stories we've seen elsewhere, in this case the neighbors came before the chickens and eggs.

Legislation pending in Congress could cause major problems for agricultural employers and workers in the Finger Lakes region, this guest essay in the Democrat & Chronicle warns.

In the tri-county areas of Orleans, Monroe and Wayne counties, more than 25,000 acres of apples are in production. Two hundred and fifty families operate these farms, producing close to 17 million bushels of apples — all harvested by hand.

In addition, this area produces many other crops such as cabbage, grapes and pumpkins, to name a few, that are all hand-harvested.

Not only do American farmers rely on migrant labor, but the lodging, restaurant and service industries across the United States do as well.

There's more.

Most residents of the Mohawk Valley are satisfied with the region, because of factors such as affordable housing, manageable traffic and good neighbors, the Observer-Dispatch notes in this editorial. (We'd venture to say the same is true of most folks across Upstate New York.) But bringing in new residents and businesses, to ensure that quality of life does not deteriorate, means selling the region's assets, the editorial says.

Government leaders can help, but we all need to be part of the effort.

There's more, well worth reading.

There are too many cooks in the kitchen, writes one Erie County resident in a letter to the Buffalo News.

I think Erie County government should be radically reduced. There are simply too many cooks in the kitchen. The legislators' inability to govern in these times of financial need is affecting regular people more than they think.

. . . .

I can only hope these lame ducks don't make some last great stand of stupidity before they leave office. I'll wait and see how things shape up next year. I, for one, will not be sticking around here if it's the same old story with a new county government.

And: The writer of this letter in the Buffalo News wonders if the waterfront in Buffalo will benefit from the hydropower settlement.

How much of that money will it actually see before greedy politicians get their paws into this funding? Then, when it's time to balance the budget, there will be more red ink.

The writer of this letter to the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin sees a link between Nordic Vikings and today's local governments.

One thousand years ago, the Nordic Vikings had a strong taste for spending money and the good life.

Consequently, instead of practicing fiscal conservatism and living within their means, they regularly boarded their boats and sailed about, plundering coastal communities — i.e., property owners — whenever they needed extra funding.

This type of behavior is rude.

It is rude when 50 percent of your monthly mortgage payment is property and school taxes.

It is rude when a couple cannot buy a new home because although they can afford the mortgage, they cannot afford the taxes.

It is rude when homeowners must fear home improvements because of increases in assessments.

. . . .

[T]he public-service sector, particularly the school system, needs to stop its Viking behavior.

And: Another Binghamton-area resident says the town of Vestal is misusing taxpayer dollars.

I consider the recent appointment of Mayor Richard Bucci to an $80,000 position with the Vestal schools to be another outrageous example of the misuse of Vestal residents' taxes by a self-serving school district administration.

I hope the political patronage bought with our tax dollars will serve our administrators well in their aspirations for eventual employment opportunities within the state education department.

In Plattsburgh: A Press-Republican editorial says taxes are so high in that area, only "deep and painful" cuts will help. It's available here.

Plattsburgh's property assessments have exploded. People's homes are simply worth more, as judged by the market -- not your assessor -- than they used to be. If your home went up for sale, the price it would fetch would probably be to your liking.

Combine a bloated tax rate with a soaring assessment, and you have a tax bill that will seriously impair your own budget.

That is where Plattsburgh has arrived in December 2005. The tax bills will be more than inconvenient next year, they will be unaffordable for many people.

. . . .

The residents of Plattsburgh must now face this harsh fact: Those services may no longer be affordable. Maybe the city can't keep as many people on the payroll performing as many functions as before. The Common Council, as it faces the last stretch of meetings to decide on a final budget, is showing a 24-percent increase in the amount of money that has to be raised by taxes. That is far too high.

If it keeps a 24-percent increase in the levy, it will drive people out of their homes. So services must be found that can either be offered at lesser levels or eliminated altogether. Some residents won't like that at all. But it is preferable to demanding a level of taxation that is excessive and prohibitive.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is reporting that the head of the University at Buffalo's Center for Excellence is leaving for Georgia Tech, and taking 20 scientists with him.

Jeffrey Skolnick, a scientist in systems biology — a field that uses supercomputers to break down information in the genetic code in a quest to create new drugs — also will bring $1.5 million in grant funding to Tech.

Skolnick's arrival in Buffalo, N.Y., made headlines. The Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics, which he led, was regarded as a symbol of hope for the struggling upstate economy. He was regarded as the academic equivalent of a celebrity.

But his 3 1/2 years at the school were marked by clashes with university officials, and he was known to be looking for a new home for his work.

Gary Schuster, dean of Tech's College of Sciences, called Skolnick, who is 52, an "acclaimed figure" in the highly competitive field of bioinformatics. He said the researcher and his team "will be making important discoveries that will pay off in societal benefits" in the fight against diseases like cancer.

Skolnick is the 51st scholar who has been recruited to the state by the Georgia Research Alliance, a nonprofit corporation made up of business and university leaders that fosters the growth of biotech start-ups.

The group will pay for part of Skolnick's $2 million endowed chair at Tech, said the research alliance's president, Michael Cassidy. The state will pick up a $5 million tab for computers and specialized laboratory equipment Skolnick needs for his research. He will be paid a salary of $225,000 a year, Tech officials said.

. . . .

Skolnick said in a telephone interview Tuesday that the university and the city of Buffalo set "unrealistically high" expectations for him. The city hoped the biotech center would bring instant life to an economically depressed area, a feat that proved difficult, Skolnick said.

Bright scientists such as these will have to play a key role if Western New York is to climb out of its long economic stagnation (perceived even way down there in Atlanta). We're sorry to see them leave. And: Columnist Donn Esmonde lets readers know what Buffalo's "everyman" thinks about the promises for Buffalo's revitalization.

I found him in his usual spot, hunkered at a table in a dark corner of a nameless coffee shop. He had two-day stubble on his face and his shirt was rumpled.

Call him Buffalo Joe. He is our fictional Everyman, the imaginary icon of the dashed hopes that hound us. He is the ghostlike symbol of ever-delayed projects, of dumb ideas that got done and good ideas stuck in limbo.

Buffalo Joe was once bright-eyed and eager. Decades of disappointment broke his spirit. Only a flicker of hope remains in his eyes.

Some good news for Erie County: The local real estate market has picked up, according to this story in the Buffalo News. And, a dialup internet provider plans to being 165 jobs to the area.

The Schenectady County Legislature approved a "first-ever agreement that allows the county and other municipalities to share highway material, machines and equipment," The Daily Gazette reports. A good idea, no question. But officials say the savings for taxpayers are "difficult to estimate," which we take to mean "probably not a whole lot." And the many details that must still be worked out in this sensible-but-hardly-revolutionary plan provide a strong argument for consolidation of municipalities, not just services.

The shared-services five-year agreement takes effect immediately. It gives authority to highway superintendents and the county’s director of public works to operate jointly without having to seek legislative approval each time.

Municipalities still must figure out how much they'll pay each other, or how much service will be rendered in a bartering-type relationship, when an employee of one governmental unit does something for another.

County Legislator Ed Kosiur said the agreement is the result of several meetings between political leaders and highway superintendents.

...

Each municipality must approve the agreement through its own legislative process before it takes effect, he said.

Michael Lamendola's Gazette story is here, for subscribers. One question: When so much time and effort are needed to accomplish relatively little, isn't more fundamental change in order? And: A former employee of the Monroe County Sheriff's Office says a county-wide police force may have some benefits, but could bring new problems, too. The Democrat & Chronicle op-ed is here.

I'm undecided about whether I support the idea of a countywide "metro" police force. In theory it is a good idea. Manpower can be focused where it's needed most, redundancy can be reduced and things like health insurance, computers and office supplies can be bought in bulk to save money.

Sounds good to us.

However, consolidating bureaucracies is not always a good idea without years of careful planning beforehand. Metro police departments can initially appear cost effective on paper but in the long run may turn out to be just as expensive and more difficult to manage than multiple smaller agencies.

Any fiscal restraints that initiated the centralization idea won't magically disappear, and past services offered by smaller agencies may be watered down significantly or eliminated by a metro police force. Also, accountability may become more difficult in a larger agency.

Obviously, "careful planning" is essential. As for levels of service and issues of accountability, aren't those the kinds of things that good leadership is supposed to address? We don't argue that consolidation of police or other services is always the best idea. But with so many municipalities having seen population decline by a third or more, and tax bases that can't support continued spending growth (see above), it's well worth a close look.

We're always glad to see scholars and the news media pay attention to the decline of Upstate cities, a central element in the broader story of Upstate New York's struggle to compete for business, people and jobs. We wish, though, that the discussion could get beyond the simplistic, and sometimes downright silly, talk about "sprawl." Take this Albany Times Union story, on a presentation Tuesday by a Brookings Institution scholar.

If the Capital Region is going to compete with the rest of the country for jobs and economic development, it is going to have to focus resources on its cities, not the suburbs.

That was the message that Bruce Katz of The Brookings Institution gave to business and academic leaders attending a forum Tuesday at the University at Albany sponsored by the Business-Higher Education Roundtable.

The problem is, the Capital Region is not doing a good job right now of supporting its cities, he said.

We attended Katz' presentation, and we'd say TU writer Larry Rulison does a good job summarizing the main idea. As often happens in discussions on "sprawl," the suggestion is that some conglomeration of governmental and other forces is pushing business and residential development to the suburbs and exurbs. We'd offer this explanation instead: Real, easy-to-identify competitive forces drive both businesses and residents out of the cities. For businesses, one such force is simply that it's often far simpler to operate in the suburbs (not only because of physical things like parking, but because cities tend to impose more red tape on development). For families, of course, perceptions of school quality are key. Whether anyone likes it or not, cities themselves will bear the primary responsibility for eliminating needless hurdles for business and making sure every child in urban schools gets a good education. "The Capital Region," whatever that means, will not get those important jobs done. But we think Katz and other "sprawl" theorists are right about some things.

The fragmentation of the Capital Region, with its residential sprawl and patchwork of municipalities, is hurting its economic competitiveness. "It's really wasting an enormous amount of fiscal resources," Katz said.

...

Katz praised the Capital Region for its wealth of academic and health care centers, pointing out that 17.6 percent of the region works in higher education and health care, compared with 13 percent for the rest of the country. He cited Albany NanoTech and RPI's Center for Biotechnology & Interdisciplinary Studies as examples of what has been created from local intellectual capital. But he said the region needed better urban housing plans and a way to attract more immigrants.

The fragmentation of local governments is one reason we have so many more government workers than the average state. As we reported last year, bigger government payrolls may add $4 billion a year to Upstate's heavy tax burden. The TU story does not mention some other relevant points in Katz' presentation. For instance, he pointed out that government policies make it easier for businesses to invest in "greenfield" projects rather than redevelop "brownfield" areas, which are disproportionately located in cities. We, too, wish the Legislature would end New York's policy of needlessly discouraging brownfield redevelopment. More on that is available here, and here. Katz also suggested that New York voters and opinion leaders insist on a vigorous debate about the future of Upstate cities in the coming gubernatorial campaign. We think that's an excellent idea. And: This editorial in the Observer-Dispatch says the Utica area needs a "regional growth plan."

We want real growth, not just sprawl. When suburbs spread outward without really growing, municipal services are stretched over a larger area but there's no corresponding growth in the tax base to support the increased costs.

...

A cohesive, regionwide plan for development would provide the the larger view, one that's not obstructed by municipal borders.

There are two separate issues here. One is that the Utica region, and most of Upstate, has not seen much "real growth" in recent decades. That's our real problem. If we had more growth overall, more of it would take place in Utica and other cities. As for regional plans: We're all for the idea of better planning. But let's not pretend that we can help our overall growth by discouraging business and jobs anywhere.

An editorial in the Jamestown Post-Journal notes that, 214 years ago today, the first 10 amendments to the Constitution were ratified. The Post-Journal's editorial is available to subscribers only. But the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and all other amendments are available here.

Yes, the Plattsburgh Press-Republican says in this editorial.

Students who are delayed cognitively, physically, socially or emotionally benefit from having more time to obtain support and to practice skills in the areas of delay.

Full-day kindergarten can help level the playing field for those students who were not afforded quality pre-school experiences.

...

The greatest obstacle, of course, is the expense.

The editorial lists other reasons to support the idea. Although noting the "obstacle" of paying for a major expansion of educational services, it does not mention what that expense might be. Nor does it question whether those dollars might be used more productively, in any other way, to improve our kids' education.

Most local-government officials know that commercial and industrial development are essential if municipalities and school districts are to control property-tax increases. The Dutchess County Economic Development Corp. says residential development, in some cases at least, may have the same beneficial effects.

Most housing creates a net-positive fiscal result at the county, town and school district levels, the study showed.

...

A single-family detached home provides an average annual positive impact of $414 to the county, $742 to the town and $2,034 to the schools, counting property taxes and sales taxes from initial construction and from new residents' purchases, the study shows.

The recent research still supports preliminary results from earlier in the project, begun in early 2004. Commercial growth, including industry, offices, hotels and trade, pays substantially more in overall taxes than it costs local governments.

"We genuinely need commercial development," said Frank Pepe, a committee member and superintendent of the Arlington school district. Pepe said the study found no correlation between enrollment growth and increased taxes. It's per-pupil costs that are rising, he said.

The Poughkeepsie Journal has the story here.

A new report shows that the number of New Yorkers working for subsidiaries of foreign companies continues to rise and is now the second-highest in the nation. The Albany Business Review has details here.

The number of jobs in New York state related to companies based outside the U.S. continues to rise.

That is according to the Organization for International Investment, which pegs the number of "insourced" jobs throughout the state at 382,600. OFII, a Washington-based business group, said that figure places New York second only to California, which counts 561,000 "insourced" jobs.

. . . .

The New York total number of 382,600 insourced jobs accounts for 5.4 percent of the overall number of jobs within the state, and 60,900, or 16 percent, of insourced jobs are in the manufacturing sector, according to the report. Also, the number of "insourced" jobs in New York in the past five years is placed at 54,600, an increase of 17 percent.

The Rochester Business Journal has a story here. The paper quotes Governor Pataki's statements on the findings.

"The most effective way to create jobs and expand the economy is by cutting taxes and promoting policies that reduce the cost of doing business,” said Gov. George Pataki in a statement.

The study confirms that the importance of the global marketplace to working New Yorkers. However, the job number cited in the study illustrates only some of the jobs created by international trade. Upstate New York has 344,000 manufacturing jobs, and many of those depend on goods shipped and sold around the world.

The Taylor Law governs relations between New York's state and local governments, and the unions that represent public employees. Downstate, the law is in the news today because of the threat of a strike by transit workers who run the subways and buses in and around New York City. But the decisions that state leaders such as Governor Pataki and Attorney General Spitzer make with regard to the transit union could have implications for future matters involving state-government workers and local-government employees throughout the state. Nicole Gelinas of the Manhattan Institute provides this analysis, in the New York Sun.

A new nonprofit organization, the Rochester Regional Health Information Organization, will promote regional electronic networking for medical records -- an important step toward better, more cost-efficient health care. The organization is an outgrowth of the Rochester Health Commission, which closed its doors several weeks ago.

The RHIO hopes to give health care providers quick access to patients' medical records and has been hailed nationally as a way to cut medication errors and improve patient safety, among other benefits.

Several officials agreed that the RHIO project would improve health care here.

Consider this scenario: A patient in an emergency room needs critical care. The patient's medical history, such as past tests and current medication, is not immediately available.

So the doctor orders tests and procedures that might be useless, "maybe even dangerous, since they're administering care without full knowledge of the patient's record," said Mike Howard, who is serving pro bono as the commission's acting general manager.

RHIO would provide access to such information, he said.

Joy Davia's story from the Democrat & Chronicle is here.

The Rochester City School District has agreed to a new teachers contract that provides raises of 25 percent or so above the inflation rate, in each of the coming three years. The district also is continuing an early-retirement plan for teachers. School officials, already facing a $25 million budget gap in 2006, immediately said they will need more revenue from Albany to pay for the contract, the Democrat & Chronicle reports. Somehow, we can already hear the district's petition to its state legislators, coming in just a few weeks: "Governor Pataki's proposal to increase state aid to Rochester schools just isn't enough. We have fixed costs that are beyond our control, such as contractual cost increases. Pension payments, another fixed cost beyond our control, continue to rise as well. We may have to lay off teachers if Albany does not invest tens of millions in additional funding to support quality education in Rochester."

The proposed contract calls for salary increases of at least 4.39 percent each contract year, which runs from July 1, 2006, to June 30, 2009. The raises could be higher, depending on a benchmarking formula aimed at making city teacher salaries among the top one-third in Monroe County.

There are 18 districts in Monroe, meaning the City School District's goal is to have its teachers be among the top six in pay. The average city salary this year is $52,323, 10th-highest in the county.

The state Budget Division estimates inflation for 2006 at 3.2 percent. Gary McLendon's story from the D&C is here. Meanwhile: Voters in the nearby Webster school district rejected a $75 million building project "because they were hesitant to approve a tax increase in the midst of an uncertain economy and questioned the necessity of some of the proposed spending," the D&C reports here.

Borrowing for the project would have increased the current property tax rate of $21.99 per $1,000 assessed value by 1 percent in each of the first three years. In years three through 15, the rate would be 3 percent higher than this year's.

All of which brings to mind a couple of questions about that new teachers contract in Rochester: How much will the new contract raise taxes there? And, if Rochester voters had a say in the matter, would they turn thumbs up on that new contract, or thumbs down?

Saratoga County lawmakers have passed the 2006 budget, cutting the tax rate by 6 percent, according to the Albany Times Union.

The budget, which provides a second consecutive year of tax relief, will allow the county to protect property owners from future tax increases for several years, Gutheil said.

Under the 2006 budget, the tax rate falls 6 percent...

County finances have been helped by an expanded property tax base and continued growth in sales tax revenues. The county lowered its property tax rate, but will collect $1.7 million more next year in taxes due to the larger tax base. It grew by 11.4 percent to $15.88 billion for 2006 from $14.24 billion in 2005.

Note that revenue is rising even though the tax rate is declining, because of increased economic growth -- the only real solution to budget problems everywhere in the state. In Broome County: The Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin reports that county lawmakers are considering a move that have retired Broome County employees paying more for their healthcare.

The Broome County Legislature will consider today whether retirees who get health insurance from the county should increase their contribution to 15 percent of the premium from 10 percent, a 50 percent increase, but some legislators would like to see the resolution modified.

The county's health care costs have increased $3.5 million, mostly because of rising prescription and hospital costs, said Broome County Risk Manager Robert Murphy. In 2005, the county's health plan budget was $25 million; that figure in the 2006 budget is $28.5 million.

And in Herkimer County: County officials had forecast a 13 percent property-tax increase, but new information from the state Health Department on Medicaid trends will allow taxes to remain essentially flat, the Utica Observer-Dispatch reports. That story is here.