Hiring freeze could have big repercussions

Fri, May 9, 2008 3:01 pm

To the Editor:
There is still more to the excellent story “Unions blindsided by hiring freeze” (Jeremy M. Roodman ¯ April 28).
The real question many elected officials never want to address is how the hard working New York state civil servants manage the billions of local dollars and more in taxpayer generated aid received from Washington every year. What will the potential impact of Governor Paterson’s recently announced hiring and travel freezes be on the ability of state employees continuing their successful management of federal aid? In many cases, federal agencies provide funding to various New York state agencies for staff to administer their respective programs. They also may provide travel money which state employees may need to visit villages, towns and counties along with other sub recipients around the state. This is done to insure proper oversight when the state passes on federal aid dollars to be spent by local municipalities. Adequate state staff is needed to review and approve vouchers from sub recipients. There is also the need for dedicated state employees to process financial reimbursements and provide periodic progress reports for respective federal funding agencies to review.
Without sufficient staff, will various New York state departments be able to continue submitting grant applications on time? How will current federally funded programs continue being completed on time and within budget? How will they avoid having unspent funds being carried over year after year? How will they provide proper oversight to ensure there is no waste, fraud or abuse? How will they ensure all change orders for construction projects are fair, reasonable and documented? Has New York state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli conducted audits of each respective state agency to see if they have sufficient staff to insure they are doing a good job managing current federal aid programs? Have either New York state Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, Democratic state Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver or any leaders of their appropriate legislative committees in either chamber conducted public hearings to do the same?
Doesn’t it make more sense to exempt any state staff positions or travel funds currently available under existing federal grants from any freezes? At the end of the day, what cost savings can be found by not spending increasingly scarce available federal dollars? Why not allow the hard working career state civil service employees who are managing the billions of dollars in federal aid the full tools they need to continue doing the job right? This might also assist them in the competition against other states for the increasingly scarce discretionary federal dollars to supplement regular yearly formula assistance.
When it comes to freezing any expenditures of available federal aid, in the long run this may be penny wise and pound foolish.

Larry Penner
Great Neck

Larry Penner