Rockland County Budget Crisis

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As one EMTBravo member has been saying for so long he ought to change his name to "chicken little", the first of what will likely be many such crises is starting to play out in Rockland.

SUFFERN — A Hudson Valley think tank says Rockland County government needs independent financial oversight as it struggles to address the issues that have left it with the lowest credit rating of all counties in New York.

The experts said the county needed to make hard choices about non-mandated services this year, including the future of Summit Park, the closure of the county pharmacy and the possible demise of the Rockland Sheriff’s Road Patrol.

Further, county and local town and village officials should pursue sharing services to improve government efficiency, they said, adding the creation of a Council of Governments could provide a venue for the discussion of such sharing and other collaborations.

http://www.lohud.com...ess-scrutinized

Proposed Rockland County budget includes 70 layoffs

NEW CITY – Rockland County Executive C. Scott Vanderhoef unveiled 2013 county budget that would hike the property tax rate by almost 19 percent. The $736.9 million proposed budget includes a property tax increase of $13 more a month for Rockland County homeowners. That amounts to 18.4 percent.

Developing the budget, which includes a number of cuts and layoffs, was not an easy task, said Vanderhoef.

“It is one of the more difficult budgets during my tenure. It is not as difficult as last year perhaps, but it comes in close second in terms of what we had to deal with,” the county executive said.

Vanderhoef said he told department heads not to plan on spending any more next year than they have this year, and if possible, come in with less spending.

http://www.midhudson...et-24Oct12.html

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Attached is the report referenced in the articles.

Rockland-County-Budget-Crisis.pdf