Sep 25, 2008 7:48 pm US/Eastern
Many Call For County Gov'ts To Slash Budgets
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (CBS) ―
Mayor Michael Bloomberg has given city agencies the order to slash their budgets, and now there's a call for governments in the suburbs to do the same.
Lunch hour at "Lou's Texas Chili" is lonesome time for Richard Viscome. He's all alone on a shift that earlier this year was staffed by three people.
"I tighten the belt, do more work. You can see, I do it all myself," he tells CBS 2.
Employees left the restaurant and weren't replaced, so the establishment could cut costs. That's the approach business leaders are demanding government take at this time of turmoil.
"What would business do at a time like this? They would freeze hiring," says Bill Mooney of the Westchester County Association, a group which wants governments and school districts to sign a "5-point plan."
The highlights include a promise not to raise taxes, a hiring freeze, and a 5-percent across-the-board cut in spending.
"This is not a call to point fingers and say okay the government is not doing enough, it's a time to say let's sit down and work out the problems together," says Mooney.
But many governments say they're already working hard to reduce spending.
Westchester, for example, has turned off half its office building light fixtures to cut energy costs. But county officials say everything they save is eaten up by state mandates to spend more on social services and Medicaid.
Many people hear "state mandate reform" and their eyes glaze over, but some think it is key to solving the whole mess.
"When 70 percent of your budget is mandated by the State of New York, you have no control over the cost of those programs, you're really handcuffed," says Westchester Deputy County Executive Larry Schwartz.
Schwartz says it's like Albany orders you a big lunch you don't want and then makes you pay.
The County Association agrees: mandate reform should be on the menu.
Also in the northern suburbs, the school superintendent in Mahopac is slashing overtime and freezing spending and hiring, to prepare the district to weather a financial storm.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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