Kiryas Joel, Monroe, NY – Gov. Eliot Spitzer, proposed a $120 billion budget that he says would dramatically reorder state government.
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Spitzer proposes no income tax increase, and overall, his proposed budget represents a total spending increase of 4.2 percent, a marked slowdown from recent years.
"This budget makes targeted investments in our future, provides overdue property tax relief to middle-class homeowners and drives resources to communities in need," Spitzer said. "It also makes the tough decisions necessary to bring spending growth under control."
Some of what Spitzer's budget does, it adds $50 million, for a total of $723 million, to aid local communities, including big increases for Newburgh, Middletown, Kingston, Port Jervis, Kiryas Joel, Poughkeepsie and the Town of Monroe, with the Village of Kiryas Joel getting over $500,000 increase in state funding of the budget, to a total of $3,038,224, the year before that they got $2,490,677.
Let me first thank Governor Spitzer for funding “Project Sunlight,” a proposal I advanced to bring new transparency to state government. Through Project Sunlight, my office’s Public Integrity Bureau will publish state data on legislative activity, campaign finance, lobbying, state contracts, and corporations onto a single website. The web site will be searchable, easy-to-use, and allow for cross-referencing of the data. Our current disclosure system is balkanized and unconnected. The state now provides scattered “dots” of information. We will connect those dots to show the full picture. In fact, not only will we bring together this disparate information – we will improve it. In so doing we will increase trust and accountability, and empower citizen activists, journalists, bloggers, and public interest groups to monitor government. This year is the 30th anniversary of the Freedom of Information Act. It is fitting to mark it by launching this project.
“Thanks” he gets.
But face it, $500,000.00 doesn’t buy a village of several thousand families much.
One fully equipped ambulance and a garage will set you back pretty much all of that money.
Think of it this way, if you had to apply it to building more houses for income elgible families, how many houses can you build with that money?
If they were to use the same formula that grants the Village of Monroe all their funding and divide it by total number of residents and by mile, KJ should be getting a lot more of the Village of Monroe’s allocation.
Thanks Gov. Spitzer, you are the BEST!