NORWICH – Pension and health care benefit coverage for Chenango County government employees are expected to come at a significant cost next year.
Just how significant isn’t known as of yet, according to the county treasurer’s office, but budget makers are anticipating an additional $1 million more for retirement and, if trends are any indication, at least 1 percent more for hospitalization.
Chenango County’s $81 million-plus budget for this year included $1.2 million for retirement and $4.5 million for hospitalization. The latter was up 7.5 percent over 2009. Increases were 6 percent in 2009 and 4.5 percent in 2008.
Chenango County Treasurer William Evans said he would have both numbers pinned down within the next couple of weeks. His office is currently running the New York State Comptroller’s Office retirement rates against the five different tiers of salaried workers.
“We are looking at some very high hurdles,” said Evans, who also pointed to a 12.4 percent increase indicated in the county’s department of social services in 2011.
At a meeting of the Finance Committee yesterday, Evans described the recent rate increases released by Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli’s as “astonishing” and “sickening.”
Committee Chairman Dennis Brown questioned how local governments can continue to increase taxes on property owners. “We need to change the way we do business,” he said.
Members of the committee discussed how the state Comptroller’s office could laud the New York State Common Retirement Fund as one of the highest funded in the nation – one that posted a nearly 26 percent rate of return last year – while, at the same time, ask local governments to raise taxes to pay for it.
“He blames the impact of the Great Recession and our inability to control employees’ negotiated salary and benefit packages,” said Evans. “But, duh, people have to pay the cost to live.”
The state’s rate of return on its pension fund was the third highest in the last 20 years.
Committee Vice Chairman Brown, D-Pharsalia, commented that the state is “taking in more than they are spending” and “shouldn’t be raising the rate.”
“We need to change the way we do business. We have embarked upon a lifestyle where people are expecting the retirement system, some who don’t contribute anything at all to it,” said Brown.
In recent budgeting sessions of the Finance Committee, Brown has advocated for privatizing nursing and building inspector services presently offered via the Chenango County Public Health Department. He has also suggested selling Cook Park and making possible cuts in county support for the arts, tourism and economic development.
Finance Committee Chairman Lawrence Wilcox, R-Oxford, said all department programs that rely on local taxpayer dollars, such as mental health and drug and alcohol abuse should be offered out to the private sector.
“They could garner the Medicaid dollars and other state aid to start businesses and create jobs,” Wilcox said.
Chenango County Public Health Department Administration Services Officer Eric Depperman said employees participating in the state pension program within his department could be looking at receiving a $1,400 to $1,700 per person increase.
Chenango County Auditor RC Woodford told the committee Thursday that some significant claims were developing and medical expenses were already trending higher this year. He requested $750,000 more from county surplus to cover “some very large claims” from “some chronically ill employees.”
Evans reported there was $18.1 million remaining in surplus.
Brown made a motion to draft a letter to New York’s representatives in Washington asking them why health care costs were being passed down to localities.
“I thought all those people with good minds down there were supposed to be passing something that would control health care costs. Even Hillary Clinton said way back at the beginning of reform that you had to control health are costs,” he said.