A Modest Proposal

“For in reason, all government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery” 

Jonathan Swift wrote 'A Modest Proposal' to call attention to abuses inflicted on Irish Catholics by well-to-do English Protestants. Swift himself was a Protestant, but he was also a native of Ireland, having been born in Dublin of English parents. He believed England was exploiting and oppressing Ireland.

His proposal was radical .......

”I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled ...”

The point of the satire was very simple - Swift was venting his mounting aggravation at the ineptitude of politicians, the hypocrisy of the wealthy, the tyranny of the ruling class, and the squalor and degradation in which he saw so many people living.

'A Modest Proposal' also expresses Swift's disgust at the inability of people seeming to mobilize on their own behalf and change their beleaguered situation. Without excusing any party, Swift shows that not only the politicians but also the public in general are responsible for their lamentable state. His compassion for the misery of the people is severe, and he includes a critique of their incompetence in dealing with their own problems.

In Looking Through My Bills and Not Yet Bankrupt, Just Insolvent we described the mounting aggravation the people of Clarkstown feel about the ineptitude of both the County and Town politicians to come together and govern the citizens of Rockland County out of the fiscal mess they have spent us in to. The tax situation, where Rockland County is now the third highest taxed county in the whole of the United States, is driving people to abandon their homes because of the property taxes and seek refuge elsewhere.

Clarkstown is in the top ten Towns with a population of over 50,000 that has more people moving out than are moving in. That is a situation that spells disaster for homeowners and their property values.  It’s clear the unions in Clarkstown are going to fight and push until Clarkstown is broke.  We don’t blame them, they are trying to do the best for their members, but this cannot be sustained.  Clarkstown’s population is declining and young families are not buying homes here due to the tax burden levied on them.  What can be done?  If we look to the past, we can find solutions.  Ronald Reagan handled an inflexible PATCO union, (Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization) in 1981, when he fired the entire union.  His action against PATCO has been called "one of the most important events in late twentieth century U.S. labor history".  Reagan saw a gluttonous inflexible union and decided to start over.

Back on November 08, 2012 Clarkstown's Town Board spent one hour in a Public Meeting on its proposed 2013 budget after which the Town voted to go on with 'business as usual'. However, just as one needs to reboot a computer periodically when it freezes, one needs also to 'reboot' a Town when it 'freezes' because of inefficiencies. It’s time for the Town Board to reboot Clarkstown.  

To do this we would offer the following “modest proposals”…

For 2013 the Town Board raised taxes by 6.2% but this did not include the 1.2% Town 'tax' that the Town Board collected as a surcharge on the School tax bill or the $2 million reduction in the reserve fund (equivalent to a 1.5% Town tax).  These additional items meant that each of us received a net tax increase of 8.9%. The 2013 budget involved no cuts in staff, no cuts in services and raises continue to be given to all town employees.

Given that the Town agreed to give the PBA a contract with 2.5% annual raises for its members for the next five years, we wonder why a similar maximum tax increase could not be put in place for the next five years for the taxpayers of Clarkstown? Why should options not be considered by the Town Board to reach that goal? Comptroller Duer and Supervisor Gromack could run several 'what-if' financial scenarios such as those routinely conducted in the business world to see what the numbers reveal and what options could be generated. 

They could start by taking a look at our police costs ....

The Journal News of October 17, 2012 reported that Clarkstown had the highest average salary of any local agency in NY State. Its 163 police employees had an average pay of $179,689, and seven of its workers were among the top 20 highest-paid workers in local government in New York. If one adds on for pension and health care costs the usual number of 40%, then the average police officer employed by Clarkstown costs $251,565.

The Journal News Editor remarked: "The takeaway for property taxpayers and voters? When wading through the excuses and explanations on taxes, remember that some of the damage is homegrown."

Four police officers alone take home in salary (before benefits) $1,054,658. Their salaries are:

$270,824 - Anthony Ovchinnikoff, Clarkstown Police Captain No. 2 in the state 
$265,113 - Daniel Weisberg, Clarkstown Police Lieutenant No. 5 in the state 
$264,513 - Robert Mahon, Clarkstown Police Captain No. 6 in the state 
$254,208 - Michael Sullivan, Clarkstown Police Chief No. 12 in the state

These four salaries alone constituted nearly 1% of the 2013 tax increase. The salary totals include overtime and pay for unused sick and vacation time from April 1, 2011, through March 31, 2012 but do not include pension contributions, health insurance and other fringe benefits. 

When these figures were released officials from the Clarkstown Police Department, as well as Supervisor Gromack, were "not available for comment".   Recently when senior officers did an internal audit / investigation of their own department following the resignation of Officer Sherwood for charging overtime he didn’t work, they charged approximately $18,000 of overtime to give themselves a ‘clean sheet’.

Consider this, Orangetown has a population of 50,000 and went down to 76 cops from 81 in their 2013 budget. Clarkstown has a population of 80,000 and 163 cops. If you do the math, for Clarkstown to be on par with Orangetown, Clarkstown would have 122 cops. That is a savings of $10.4 million taking into account their salaries, pension and health costs. Now the effective tax increase of 8.9% for 2013 would have been down to 0.9% with just one line item analysis alone.

If the Town Board were to layoff 40 police officers there would be little need to raise taxes. Some will say that 40 less police officers would hurt crime rates, but that has not proven to be true for other residential towns in Westchester that have conducted more drastic moves such as eliminating their Police Departments completely. Ossining and Cortlandt Manor released their police departments entirely and now outsource police at a dramatic savings. There has been no increase in their crime rate, which is not the case in Clarkstown. Clarkstown is going down on the list of the safest towns in America and now ranks seventh, down from fifth a year ago, yet our police costs keep rising. 

Further, when you look at the Clarkstown Police statistics which are published monthly, you will notice that most of their work is related to traffic enforcement and crime at the Palisades Mall.  Let the town invest in technology such as “red light” cameras to reduce the need for officers on patrol and let’s turn over the policing of the Palisades Mall to the County. Clarkstown gets no revenue from the sales tax generated at that mall; the County gets it all; so let them police it using the Rockland County Sherriff’s Department and their horses.

The situation with the police salaries and the failure for the Town to deal with the PBA has now reached crisis proportions as was pointed out in two previous articles - The Joke Is On You and Two Jokes - One Humorous - One Laughable. Given that this situation is getting worse year by year the Town Board may reach a point where it will have to think 'Out-of the Box' and disband the entire Clarkstown police department, which has a current budget of over $30 Million/yr. This drastic step would finally get the town out of the significant problems caused by the binding arbitration laws in NYS, which at the time of the last police contract saw fit to give the highest paid police department in the USA a raise because Clarkstown "could afford it".

The present 5 year contract could be the last contract ever for the Town of Clarkstown if the Board moved to replace the police department with either additional sheriff officers or state troopers. This has been done in several towns in Westchester County. The potential savings would be over $7 million/yr.

If the Town Board members are unable to get their thinking around the suggestions made above to handle police costs then we would offer a modest proposal to the police department itself ...... Give back the 13% raise that the Town Board gave you over five years in the last PBA contract under the threat of blackmail that the PBA would take the Board into arbitration and you would be granted an even bigger raise. 

"NO" they say?  Then "GO" we say!  

Go find employment in some other town or city that can afford you.  New York City is a good place to look and the commute is not really that bad.  Many of us living in Rockland County will be glad to share a seat with you on the bus or the train. 

There are numerous ways that the Town can examine all of its expenses and make appropriate reductions. Comptroller Duer 'could' do this analysis if he 'would' but apparently he 'won't'. We have just reviewed one line item above and with a single 'what-if' analysis one can bring the Town taxes down without touching the reserve fund or playing around with surcharges on the school budget. 

Let's take a look at Parks and Recreation ....

It’s not just the PBA; it’s also the CSEA.  Why do we pay a groundskeeper over $70,000/year or a custodian over $60,000/year with benefits?  The Town could hire outside firms at a savings of 30% or more.

Clarkstown’s Parks and Recreation Department could be nearly completely outsourced without reducing any services.  Currently, the Parks and Recreation Department spends over $3,000,000 on salaries alone.  Our town pays 14 people as Recreational Leaders /Supervisors for our community centers at an average salary of over $83,000/year, plus full medical and retirement benefits.  If the town outsourced Parks and Recreation, we could save nearly 70% without impacting any services.

At this point we have briefly reviewed only two departments, but we have seen that we could reduce the Town's budget by over $12 million. If the Town Board implemented just these two ideas alone, taxes would be reduced by 4 - 5%. What would the tax reduction be if the Town Board applied even a little effort to automation and outsourcing? Automation and outsourcing are the keys to Clarkstown's financial future.

Let's continue with this analysis. The Supervisor talked frequently about how eliminating the Receiver of Taxes would be a major savings and that consolidation of the Town's garages will "save millions". 

Why stop there? Let's take a look at what is euphemistically called Clarkstown's 'patronage' problem or others might call the incumbents' 're-election' problem ....

The Journal News, which has repeatedly endorsed Supervisor Gromack for re-election, apparently could not stomach his latest patronage outrage and in a scathing editorial on August 22, 2012 entitled "Clarkstown puts political clout before all else in hiring of Frank Sparaco" wrote: 

Rockland County Legislature Minority Leader Frank Sparaco has been appointed “Constituent Representative” for the Clarkstown Highway Department — keeping alive the town’s penchant for hiring political operatives, even amid cost-cutting and consolidation. As a Republican legislator, Sparaco has fought pay raises for county employees; and tried to eliminate the county’s Youth Employment program. Now he earns $75,000 for a 25-hour-a-week town post. That’s $57.69 per hour. He gets no benefits, though — he gets those, courtesy of the taxpayer, through his part-time county post. 

Besides his GOP leadership role, Sparaco also had been a key player in the county’s Independence Party. Highway Superintendent Wayne Ballard, like Sparaco, is a Republican. But in Clarkstown, that’s of little matter. The Democratic supervisor, Alex Gromack, has various party leaders in his employ, and election after election, he and Ballard have been cross-endorsed and rarely challenged. 

Sparaco has owned a tanning salon and vending machine business. As a county legislator, he has his own constituent representative: Daniel Friedman, a Democratic Ramapo Town Board member, also works for five other legislators — and receives a salary of $34,400 for the 25-hour-a-week position. 

Patronage is an institution in Clarkstown. The town’s clerk of the works, Ed Lettre, is executive director of the Rockland Conservative Party, a position that pays $169,000 a year. Mary Loeffler, chair of the Rockland Conservative Party, retired as Clarkstown’s personnel director, earning $134,200. She worked part time for the town, for $50 an hour, for about six months after her retirement. Then there’s former deputy town attorney Marsha Coopersmith, who earned $126,590, plus benefits. She controlled the Independence Party until 2010. Then, a Sparaco-led effort wrested control of the local party and landed Sparaco’s mother-in-law, Debra Ortutay, in the chairmanship. 

However, Independence Party leadership is now up in the air. Ortutay was sentenced in February to four months in jail after pleading guilty to forgery and perjury charges. The improprieties involved the signing of petitions for the party’s ballot line during the Assembly race between her son-in-law and Assemblyman Kenneth Zebrowski, a Democrat. (Sparaco, by the way, accused Zebrowski, whose late father had held the Assembly seat, of being a do-little insider politician.) Ortutay’s attorney was Jay Savino, chairman of the Bronx Republican Party. Savino was hired by Clarkstown in January 2012 for $87,000 a year to handle its tax certiorari filings. The extra help was needed, town officials said, after Coopersmith’s position was eliminated.

The Town Board should immediately eliiminte three positions....

1) The Superintendent/Clerk of the Works position held by Conservative party leader, Ed Lettre.  The 'Clerk/Superintendent of Works' is really the equivalent of a senior project manager in any company and would be paid less than $100,000/yr in the Environmental Control Dept, aka the Engineering Department. Lettre's competence was a topic of derision following his failure to provide a rational cost analysis for the repair of the Senior Citizen Centers at a Planning Board meeting last year. Yet when he snapped his fingers and called a meeting to keep himself in charge of the Conservative party, the Town Board jumped to comply.  

2) The Tax Certierori position, reportedly under the control of Vinny Reda, previously held by the Bronx Chairman of the GOP who got $87,000 to do tax work that any of the Town attorneys could perform as part of their current portfolio within their current salary, and

3) The position of "Constituent Services" (which in the real world is referred to as 'customer service') occupied by County Legislator, Frank Sparaco, which according to Ballard's assistant, Nancy Willen, consists of "making telephone calls and taking photographs". 

That's another one-third of a million dollars saved from three patronage positions.  There will still be 117 positions in the County to eliminate known even to summer students employed by the Town.

Let's take a look at Employee Cars ....

The Town has about 30 employees with 24/7 vehicles. The Town should reduce the number of 24/7 town cars, tighten up the mileage monitoring policy and require that the Clarkstown Seal be affixed to both side doors of the Town cars to ensure that employees are not using Town cars for personal use. There are at least 10 employees that have no real reason for having a 24/7 town car other than having a car as a true employment perk and most of them are part of the Special Bargaining Unit. The net result illustrates the Town Board’s lack of resolve to address the excessive cost of the generous taxpayer funded fringe benefits granted by Clarkstown to those who are politically connected.

Turning now to the Town Attorney’s office ....

A look at the Town's website for this office and the list of its activities show that it is very light when put against the list of personnel - the work is listed as’ advising', 'reviewing', 'preparing' etc. Further, there is another patronage hire here in the person of Keith Cornell. Cornell is the son of County Legislator Harriet Cornell and is also a Town attorney (albeit part time) in South Nyack and has his own practice. He is obviously a very busy man with all of these part-time activities. The 2012 budget for the Town attorney's office was $1.7 million. The salaries of the 8 attorneys were $817,000 in 2012.

One significant item listed in the duties of the list of 8 attorneys is "defending the Town against lawsuits".  However, when three citizens filed a simple 'Notice of Claim' to force an audit of the Town Attorney's office over the hiring of the disgraced and now ex-Bronx GOP chairman, Jay Savino, the Town rushed to Westchester to find someone who would "take the gloves off" against "those taxpayers".  Further, given that there is no one in the Town Attorney's office capable of taking the gloves off against taxpayers, it should not be surprising that there was no one capable of taking the gloves off against the Palisades Mall management either.  In the tax cert case filed by the mall against the Town, it did not use the $87,000 patronage appointee Jay Savino but outsourced the work to the New York City Law firm of Kaye Scholer L.L.P that has has run up a bill of over $1 million dollars for which the taxpayers must eventually bleed.

Taxpayers may be grateful, however, that before Savino was arrested for stuffing his pockets full of other people’s cash, he "sat in on the case but did not charge anything extra" according to Supervisor Gromack. Presumably he was sitting on his hands in the court room apparently incapable of taking his gloves off either.

A case that is a classic example of unbridled taxpayer cost to the taxpayer of the Town's profligate spending on outside legal fees is that of Klubenspies et al versus the Town of Clarkstown (Index No. 002758/2011). This case mentions political payoffs to people in Clarkstown and the “gift” of taxpayers money to the former Conservative Party Head Mary Loeffler for the “sick” time she took off while continuing to be paid. The Town hired the Long Island law firm of Rosenberg Calica & Birney, LLP. When FOILed for the expenditures associated with this case the Town Attorney provided only the case number (as if we didn’t know it) and then later, when asked for the vendor payments that were made to the firm, proceeded to deny that the firm had “handled” the case.   

This case arose after the Clarkstown Taxpayers discovered that Loeffler was enjoying the weather in Florida while still being paid by the Town - correction, being paid by the taxpayers.  A subsequent FOIL with help from the State Government in Albany began to uncover the information that was requested but this particular game of ‘hide and seek’ goes on at taxpayers’ expense and is fast becoming a case which Albany could use to illustrate how the rules of English Grammar can be used until exhausted by a Town Attorney’s office to avoid supplying information that is lawfully requested by citizens.  Word parsing Freedom of Information requests is Town Government working to the full extent of its imperial majesty and glory.

Is the Legal Department in the Town of Clarkstown handling even internal Town issues efficiently?  The Town attorney was incapable of retaining a resume of interest received from a "person of poitical clout" as Town Attorney Mele described him.  The person with "political clout" (Jay Savino) was ignominiously fired in an emergency meeting of the Town Board within hours of his arrest by the Feds.  

Consider this example; in the business world if a Planning Group were to ask its Legal Department for an opinion on a planning issue a response would be expected within a couple of days, certainly within one week.

How long did it take the Office of the Town Attorney run by Amy Mele not to respond to a question from the Town's Planning Board? 

While you are pondering your individual guesses here is the background. In an article entitled "Which Wins Planning Or Piety?" one of the Clarkstown Taxpayers pointed out that a religious minority in Clarkstown, which is extremely litigious, is using the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) to its great advantage.  

RLIUPA states: No local government shall impose or implement a land use regulation in a manner that imposes a substantial burden on the religious exercise of a person, including a religious assembly or institution unless the government demonstrates that imposition of the burden on that person, assembly, or institution, is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest.

This Act has grave consequences for the application of the zoning laws in Rockland County. Simply stated a religious group can take a municipality into court claiming discrimination about a zoning variance it was not granted and the municipality must pay for the plaintiff's legal fees (which can be millions of dollars) if the municipality loses.

On a unanimous vote of the Planning Board on April 25, 2012 the Chairperson, Shirley Thormann, wrote to the Office of the Town Attorney, Amy Mele, on May 16, 2012 saying in part:

"There have been numerous inquiries from residents regarding the 'lifespan' of an application to the Planning Board. The essential question is this: At what juncture does a stay expire? We (the Planning Board) are concerned that in the worst case, the aforementioned would allow a property owner to demolish a non-conforming use and then by merely submitting and indefinitely delaying an application, he or she would forever hold on to the right to a non-existent non-conforming use. While the Planning Board is concerned about the specific applications described, it is even more concerned about the precedent that could be set for future applications. We trust that you will advise us whether this situation can continue ad infinitum."

The Town Attorney's office was apparently taking ad infinitum to respond. Four months later the Town Attorney had still not responded as evidenced by a phone record showing a call placed on September 11, 2012 from a Planning representative asking if there was any response from 'Amy' about the May 16, 2012 formal letter from the Planning Board.

These examples demonstrate that the Town appears not to trust its own Town Attorneys to do any significant external legal work and the internal work has deficiencies. These concerns raise the question of why the Town is employing eight attorneys at an annual cost of over $1.7 million per year.

Here is another very simple yet modest proposal .... 
Require that EVERY department cut its budget by 5%. This is an 'across the board' approach that should amount to a savings of over $5 million or almost 4% of the budget. To date the Town Board provided no other options for the 2013 budget numbers other than a sneak 1% 'surcharge' on the school tax bill, a $2MM raid on the Town's rainy-day fund, and a 6.2% tax raise on the citizens.  Something has to be done or there will be more enraged West Nyack residents such as this one who at the October 02, 2012 Town Board addressed Supervisor Gromack as follows ...

I didn't think I would have to be back here so quick. Now we are talking 6% tax increase where the cap is 2%. R-E-D-U-C-E. Reduce! Reduce! Reduce! That, Alex should be your key word. Reduce! NOT increase! Reduce!  So how do you reduce? Reduce the salaries of all of these folks that are making $100,000 - $150, 000 a year (prolonged applause). Reduce the Town cars like the insurance guy who has a Town car and the reason he has one I was told is "in case there is an insurance emergency" (prolonged laughter). It's sad - it's not funny! That's what I was told, Alex, by your chief of staff.  You're brilliant! You have the Democrats tied up ..... you have got the Republicans tied up .... you have got the Independents tied up ...... you give them all these patronage jobs (Savino - Republican, Lettre - Conservative, Sparaco - Independence) ..... it's absolutely horrific what you are doing.   Take the Highway Department you now have a mouthpiece for Wayne (Ballard) for 75,000 bucks a year (25 hours per week part-time). On top of Wayne's $150,000 salary .... on top of Nancy the open quote close quotes "secretary" who makes $100,000 .... before the garage door opens it's 325,000 bucks. All you need is one monitor to make sure that the guys who make 80,000 bucks driving the trucks aren't working two hours a day. Wayne and I know that!  You have a Chief of Police who makes more than the one in New York City and the one in Los Angeles (prolonged applause). Cell phones galore! Why don't you the Town Board volunteer and give back YOUR 40,000 bucks - it's not a full-time job and say "No, I don't want a pension, I don't want hospitalization". Because we are paying for it. (Speaking sarcastically) You are here for the good of the community - not for the money - right? (prolonged applause). Alex, it is getting to the point you are pushing everybody out! I was here the other day and walked around. A third of the people are doing nothing, repeat nothing. You can lay off a third of the people here and you wouldn't skip a beat. It up to the point that you have got us railroaded. You don't want term limits - you want to keep this cushy job where YOU make 50,000 bucks more than the guy in Orangetown (Supervisor Andy Stewart). STOP LIVING ON MY BACK (prolonged applause) Wake up! Wake up! You have a Parks department - ten people in the Parks department making 112,000 ... 120,000 bucks. We have got 3 parks - they are open 2 months a year - what is everybody doing for the other 10 months? Alex, you were not elected. You were pushed into this. I know YOU do not represent US. I know you don't. Give me a patronage job like you give to everybody else. Shame, shame on you, sir!

Another individual commenting on the article 'Is Rockland Dysfunctional' asked ..... 

Pension costs for the police union and CSEA increased $900,000 in 2013 for a total of $10.8 million. That's a 9.1% increase in one year. Is it proposed to lay off 9.1% of the police and CSEA employees? NO. 

Health-care costs rose from $12.7 million to $13.4 million. That's 5.5%. Is it proposed to lay off an additional 5.5% to cover this expense? NO. 

There is a 2% tax cap in place. Will the Board honor its responsibility to the citizens with respect to the tax cap? NO. 

Did Supervisor Gromack propose a deficit budget AGAIN for 2013? YES. 

Do you know who is going to pay for the police, the CSEA, and the deficits? YES.

Who? 

People like Teresa Mastropolo, 81, a Valley Cottage woman and her husband, Carmine, 88, a World War II veteran who had to tap in to their life's savings to pay their taxes while the Town gave a $75,000 part time job to Frank Sparaco, a County Legislator, to answer the telephone and take photographs and $84,000 to Jay Savino, the head of the GOP in the Bronx, to fill out tax cert forms.  

These comments beg the question - Where are the Town Board's priorities? Are they on the side of the Mastropolos who elected them or on the side of the PBA, the CSEA, the 'Lettres, Redas and the Sparacos who apparently control them?   If the Town loses the Palisades Mall tax certiorari case after having spent over $1 million dollars on ‘white shoe and gold-cufflinked’ attorneys the answer will be apparent to all. Our taxes will go up and everyone on our payroll will continue doing what they are doing. 

You see in Clarkstown the only modest proposal one hears is:  “Let’s continue to do business as usual”.

An earlier version of this article written by Michael N. Hull and Tom Leonard was originally published in NewCityPatch.com in October 2012.  Due to changes in the Patch website layout the original article was lost. 

Picture courtesy of http://www.iappfind.com/app/406833408