Regardless of who wins in today's municipal and county elections, officials will have to deal with the same New York state mandates, which are blamed by officials for fueling rising property taxes.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who lives in New Castle and cast his ballot Tuesday morning at the Presbyterian Church of Mount Kisco, was asked by Patch at a press conference whether people should expect a proposal of future legislation for reducing mandates, with examples given being pension contributions and the cost of Medicaid.
“The voters can expect us to do everything that we can do to make the government work better, more efficiently, to respect their tax dollars,” he said.
While the governor described how increases in spending and taxes are not as much as they used to be, he did not say whether there would be more legislative attempts to curtail mandates. He referred to the subjective nature of the topic, likening it to which sides of a table someone is on.
While acknowledging mandates, the governor added, “but they're like healthcare services, like education, you know, so it depends on what mandate, obviously.”
Pension contributions have been blamed by local officials for fueling higher costs during budget planning and being a factor in escalating taxes, despite the existence of a cap on annual tax revenue growth that Cuomo has championed and signed into law more than two years ago. Counties, including Westchester, are mandated to handle Medicaid spending, an obligation that has been pilloried by county officials.
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