In 2011, Let’s Start Working With SUNY On ‘New Economy’

The high hopes for Governor Spitzer exploded.  Governor Paterson’s strong start soon foundered.  After two years of the troubling Great Recession, the state now faces a $10 billion deficit.
So while every New Yorker should try to be optimistic about Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s prospects, we’ve witnessed how difficult it is going to be to return our state to “Empire” status, wish as we might.
In his New Year’s Day inaugural speech, the new governor certainly captured the pain in describing “the taxpayers on Long Island who are imprisoned in their homes because they can’t afford to pay the property taxes anymore, but the value of the home has dropped so low that they can’t afford to sell the house because they can’t pay off the mortgage.”
Long Islanders, for sure, but homeowners statewide, too.
Cleaning up Albany?  Long overdue.  Right-sizing government?  Sure; economic decline has made the investments of Nelson Rockefeller’s “Golden Age” unsustainable.

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A property-tax cap.  Good.  But, careful: You push in here and it comes out there, as Unatego Superintendent of Schools Chuck Molloy and other educators observed Monday, Jan. 3, at the Otsego County Chamber’s annual State of the State Luncheon.
With the Internet bubble bursting at the beginning of the last decade, the housing bubble bursting eight years later, and tepid economic growth in between, public pension funds stagnated.
Today, with baby boomers heading for retirement, school districts and localities are being required to make big hikes in local contributions during the worst economy in 80 years.  Plus, the federal stimulus that closed budget gaps is expiring.
The state’s Wicks Law, which required $9,000 doors during the recent Cooperstown Central School renovation, has been allowed to lapse in New York City.  Why not statewide?
School districts likewise can help themselves.  But in the ONC BOCES, the only talk of mergers of our many tiny districts is between Stamford, Jefferson and South Kortright, one of many long overdue.
Certainly, there’s much more.

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One benefit of downturns is that they can force us to address painful choices easy to ignore when everything’s going fine.  If the governor and state Legislature can make those choices, they will be heralded.
At the luncheon, state Sen. Jim Seward, R-Milford, pointed out that Texas, Georgia and Florida, the fastest growing states, also have the lowest taxes and highest economic growth.  The energy crisis of the 1970s, of course, was also a big contributor to Sun Belt prosperity.
Sure, let’s rationalize government.  Let’s cut where we can.  But we need a concept that is only now a’borning, evident in the SUNY Albany’s NanoTech Complex and Advanced Micro Devices’ $4.6 billion computer chip under construction in Malta, Saratoga County.
SUNY Oneonta President Nancy Kleniewski told the gathering, “In the next decade, economic revitalization is going to come from higher education.”
She’s exactly right.  The question, locally, is how can we jumpstart the process?  We don’t need Cuomo or state government to intensify that conversation immediately.