2008 Legislative Summary

2008 Legislative Summary

The 2008 legislative session wrapped-up on June 24th, ending six months of political turmoil in New York. With the resignation of Eliot Spitzer in March, the State welcomed Lieutenant Governor David Paterson as its new Governor. As Paterson settled-in to his new position, there came a number of resignations throughout state agencies and within the Executive Chamber. We expect more turnovers throughout the next several months.

In addition, Senator Joseph Bruno announced that he would not seek re-election in November and stepped-down as Majority Leader after thirteen years at the post. This led to the nomination and selection of a new Majority Leader, Senator Dean Skelos of Long Island and Senator Tom Libous moved up to the number two spot in the Senate. For now Senator Libous will continue to Chair the Transportation Committee.

On July 8th, Senator Bruno announced that he would not be finishing his term. This change leaves the Republican Senate Majority with a one-seat lead in an election year facing several challenges across the state. Despite these dramatic changes, the legislature passed many bills to address some of the major issues facing New Yorkers. While all legislation passed must be sent to the Governor for review and approval before it is enacted, there were several areas that saw agreement between both houses and the Executive Chamber. Still there are some unresolved issues yet to be addressed.

More recently on July 29th, Governor David Patterson announced that the budget deficit for this year has grown to $6.4 billion. He called for an emergency session with legislators on August 29th to address the financial issues the State is facing at this time.

Record Increase in CHIPs

In 2008 we had a record 16.8% increase or $60 million in CHIPs funding. It was a great accomplishment and could not have been done without the grassroots support of our members and collaborators.  Comptroller Dinapoli is predicting a $5 billion deficit in the 2009-2010 Budget. With our already expiring dedicated fund, this will mean huge funding challenges in the up-coming year. The predicted deficit along with our constantly increasing costs of labor, energy, and construction means next year our CHIPs money will be more important than ever. We need to educate our state officials again to make them aware of how important the local infrastructure is to our State's economy for leisure, travel to work and commercial business.

State Procurement Reforms

Increased transparency is the stated goal for the upcoming changes in the State's procurement practices.  Agencies will be required to justify their approach when not using a standard competitive procurement and they will be required to provide debriefings to bidders. The law will provide that the procurement opportunities newsletter will be available on a daily basis, free of charge, over the internet. The State's centralized contracts will now be required to be open for continuous recruitment during the life of the contract and regional contracts will be encouraged for commonly used commodities and services to encourage small business to participate in the procurement process. Also, surplus state property will now be made available for sale to municipalities before such property is available to the public on E-Bay. The bill will become law upon its signature by the Governor.

Highway Law

On July 7, 2008 a Department of Transportation bill S.7398 Libous/A.11063 Gantt was signed into law. This bill will amend the Highway Law Section.327 to remove the requirement that Towns and Counties obtain approval from the NYSDOT Commissioner prior to installing or modifying lights on Town or County Highways.  Legislation that has yet to be passed by both houses but remains of great importance include:

• The low volume roads bill, S7176-A Griffo/A.10999-A Destito: In 2008 we were very involved in the negotiations of the bill and got a same-as introduced by Assemblywoman Destito. At the end of regular session the Governor's office and the Senate were on the same page and ready to support the bill but the Assembly still had some reservations. We will continue our dialogue and educate the Assembly on the benefits of the legislation so that next year we can get it re-introduced and passed in both houses.
• S.7207 Seward/A.10164 Magee: This bill would allow localities to contract for the purchase of gasoline, diesel fuel and heating oil at the most affordable price without the requirement of paying prevailing wage. During the 2007-2008 session the bill did not appear to have much traction, but we will continue to support any effort to make fuel cheaper for localities especially with the predicted economic downturn and continuously rising energy costs.

As usual, the Unions had many different pieces of legislation introduced to increase the use of prevailing wage. We continue to oppose all of these because it will lead to greater costs to localities and ultimately the taxpayer. One prevailing wage bill on which we took a stance is S.6797 Marcellino/A.6598 John. This legislation would impose prevailing wage rates on off-site fabrication. We have had many conversations with the bill sponsors and wrote a memorandum in opposition stating that with the costs of products already dramatically increasing a concurrent increase in labor costs would only lead to fewer projects undertaken. Our transportation infrastructure needs support and in order to be maintained at the level which taxpayers expect we cannot have the costs of projects going up astronomically. The bill did not pass either house in 2008. We face a number of challenges still. The economy will be the focal point during these difficult times and we need to prevent any legislation from passing which would be detrimental to our highways. If you have any questions or are interested in additional information regarding any of the legislation summarized within this memo, please contact our Albany Headquarters at 518-694-9313.