With New York’s recent loss of two congressional seats, there was a correlation diagramed between the cause, citizens voting with their feet, and oversized unaccountable government. Recent analysis provides a glimpse of the lack of accountability and the cost to each citizen for the honor of that lack.
The Data and Methodology
There are 62 counties in the State of New York, 62 cities 932 towns and 555 villages; there are over 1300 local governmental agencies including the minimally monitored public authorities. With the exception of New York City’s governmental structure which combines five boroughs into a 51 seat legislature, most of these nearly 3000 entities maintain full and part-time officials and staff to represent the citizens of New York. This, of course, is in addition to the 212 State Legislators and the 39 Legislators representing the citizens at the State and Federal levels.
For the purpose of this report, the most recent approved budget of each of the 58 counties (outside of New York City) and 10 mid-sized cities were downloaded for analysis. Of those 58 counties, eight did not make their budget available on the county website and there was no electronic method for getting in touch with the responsible public employee to attain the most recent budget.
Each county with available email addresses were contacted with response from only one, Hamilton County, which acknowledged receipt of the request for their budget but did not fulfill the request. The counties NOT making their budget easily accessible are Cattaraugus, Chenango, Clinton, Hamilton, Jefferson, Niagara, Putnam and Saratoga.
There were 50 county budgets, eight city budgets and 58 legislative structures examined for this analysis. (It is important to note that only the most recent approved data was analyzed at the time of the survey with at least one legislature still in court over their budget.) The analysis showed, not only inconsistent transparency, but that there are a variety of legislative models and efficiencies, ranging from a full body of full time legislators and full time staffs to part-time legislative bodies with minimal staff. Therefore, for the purpose of a comparing the costs of maintaining New York’s legislative branch, the entire legislative budget was compared rather than the salaries of individual legislators.
County Analysis
The smallest of legislative boards in Franklin and Orleans Counties consisted of 7 members, the largest, Albany County, consists of 39 members. Based on 2009 census estimates, each elected member of the board in Franklin County represents 7182 citizens and in Orleans each represents 6007. Showing a bit of consistency between the smallest boards and the largest, in Albany County, each of the 39 represents 7648 citizens.
With a population of 4923, Hamilton County with nine legislative representatives has the lowest ratio of legislator to citizen with each representing 547. Of course, a copy of the budget could not be attained from Hamilton County so the cost of that legislative body remains a mystery. In Suffolk County, each of the 18 legislators, supported by staff, represent 84,360 citizens with a budget of $10,888,993 and a cost to each of the Suffolk County citizens of $7.17.
Of the 58 counties, 25 have legislative bodies consisting of 15 or fewer members with the majority of those consisting of 15 members. The most citizens represented by an individual legislator is 63,731 in Westchester County at a cost to each citizen of $6,78, also interesting, in Erie County each legislator represents over 60,000 citizens at a cost to each of only $3.43. Of the 25 smaller county legislatures with an average size of 12.2 (most with 14-15), each legislators represents an average of 10,105 citizens costing each of them an average of $7.69.
Of those county legislatures maintaining bodies between 16 and 39, with the average sized at 21, each legislator represents an average of 11,747 at a cost to each citizen of $8.63. While the average cost and size of representation of the larger legislatures is not significantly higher than the smaller bodies, there are drastic inconsistencies in the cost of government and effective representation in both groups. In Warren County, with a legislative body of 20 members, each representing only 3301 citizens there is a cost to each of the citizens of $24.89 while in Monroe county each of the 29 legislators represent 25,300 citizens and the “cost” to each of them is $2.82.
City Analysis
The ten New York Cities/Towns analyzed were Albany, Buffalo, Colonie, Niagara Falls, Rochester, Troy, Syracuse, Schenectady, Utica and Yonkers. Of these ten, Niagara Falls had 5 legislative representatives, three cities maintained six member boards, four had nine member boards and one, the capital city of Albany, maintains a 15 member (totally Democrat) Common Council. The cost efficiencies of city legislatures ranges from Colonie (with each of six supervisors representing 13,586 people, at a cost of $1.54) to Albany (with 15 representatives each representing 6,256 citizens each at a cost of $15.55.)
The Real Cost to the Citizens
New York is losing citizens at a rate steep enough to cause the loss of two congressional seats this decade. An overwhelming factor in that loss is the extent and cost of an invasive and mysterious government being driven by pension heavy public employee unions. The cost of just the 58 legislatures analyzed for this report totaled $78,955,258, add to that the additional layers and costs of the 1300 local “largely unmonitored” government entities, the New York State Legislature, the U.S. Legislature and the New York City legislature and it is clear why New York is losing its representation in Congress.
With the layers of government in New York, each citizen is paying to support municipal, county, state and U.S. legislators (in addition to all the other governmental bodies.) Of the ten New York Cities surveyed, the analysis shows that citizens living in Albany are paying more than any other city at a rate of $24.81 for County and City legislatures and citizens of Syracuse are getting the most for their money at 7.55 each. While this analysis is based on census numbers, take note that not all those counted in the census are taxpayers. The revenue required to pay this year’s $24.81 in Albany comes from many places but primarily from property and sales taxes placing a larger burden for support of our dysfunctional government on residential and property owners.
The burden of supporting a government heavy on nanny legislation, unfunded mandates and one which is unfriendly to private business and industry, is driving property owners and businesses out of the state to be replaced by a more a transient population with a higher percentage of “citizens’ reliant upon the benefits mandated by the State and Federal governments but not funded by them. With the continuance of this trend and the growing burden of health insurance and employee retirement contributions in a state with dwindling taxpayers the destiny of New York is certain. Without swift draconian change, there will be, if there are not already, more people dependent upon the government than paying for it.
The New York legislature and our local governments have proven time and time again that, even with this picture painted for them, they will not abandon the path they are following. Now is the time for the citizens to take back their county and there is no better place to lead the charge than New York State.
While this analysis focuses on New York and its local legislative branches of government, the issues present here are indicative of a greater issue, the government has become larger than the citizens.
An ipetition to support the reduction of New York government is located at ipetition.com. Interested individuals can also subscribe to albanycitizenone.com to keep up to date on what is going on behind the closed doors of the New York Government.
