This is from Dave S. We thank him for sharing his story, and invite you to do the same.  

“I read Steve Sink’s article in the business section of the Sunday Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, in which you were mentioned, regarding the potential for Albany to become the next Madison, Wisc.
 
One item of interest in the article, and the reason that I am writing to you now, was the point about how the recent recession has resulted in an imbalance of public vs. private sector pay and benefits.  The recession resulted in loss of jobs and salary cuts that few, if any, in the public sector experienced. 

I thought about this, and realized that there is another key point that needs to be made clear to all regarding this growing imbalance.  As bad and as long as this recession has been, it still is only a “point” on a business cycle.  The overlooked, and larger cause of imbalance has been and continues to be a trend – globalization!
 
Although it is a favorite vote winning topic for many politicians, America continues to lose private sector jobs to more cost competitive countries.  The corporations are made out to be the bad guys, but the fact of the matter is that corporations, like any consumer, are obligated to get the most value for their investment dollars.  We in the private sector may not like losing our jobs, but if we truly believe in the benefits of free market economies, we ultimately cannot object.
 
I myself just recently lost my job of 26 years, because the corporation decided to move its development operation to India.  This was not a recession related decision, but due to the recession, the timing could not have been worse. 

I was fortunate to find a job that I enjoy, however, even a small percentage of the cut in salary and benefits that I experienced would probably have the overly compensated public sector employee protesting in the streets (while continuing to be paid for the job they aren’t doing).
 
The public sector is immune to globalization. 

We can’t outsource our teachers, highway department, police, or other public workers to China or India.  They are fortunate, but the fact that they cannot even comprehend how this is straining the tax base, the people who provide their paycheck, is truly galling. 

I watched 60 Minutes a few weeks back, as a teacher confronted the governor of New Jersey and his proposed budget cuts, saying “you are not compensating me for my education!”  All I could think is, what an idiot.  Doesn’t this teacher realize that thousands of engineers with advanced degrees would be told that they would no longer be compensated for any education, as they lost their jobs to those overseas who could do it for less?  Perhaps she does, but frankly, doesn’t give a damn!”

For years,  and across party lines, leaders have done their best to mask the growing structural imbalance by increasing taxes or borrowing to cover their bills – basically muddling through from one budget to the next. The result?  A cash-strapped state with a shrinking private sector and a public sector that does not want to share in the pain.

So what do you do when you can’t throw money (i.e. tax and spend) at the problem anymore?

Property taxes are 60% higher than the national average, last year’s budget added $8 billion in new taxes and fees and New Yorkers pay the third highest in the nation in electricity prices. In 2009, state and local governments in New York raised taxes on electricity by more than 15%, during the worst economic crisis of our generation.  In addition to this, a new proposal by the Governor looks to cut business tax credits by 50% for the next three years.  These are the very credits that enable businesses to hire new employees, expand their operations and stay comeptitive in New York.  Businesses and taxpayers have shouldered more than their share of pain.

On the flip side, Unshackle Upstate found that salaries for state and local government employees are 10% higher than the private sector and that New York leads the nation in per-capita contributions for public-employee retirement. Benefits for public employees are 68% higher than those received by private-sector employees.

Public employee unions have said no to wage-freezes, payroll lags and now threaten to sue over furloughs, forcing the state to spend money it doesn’t have on lawsuits.

I was asked recently, what is the state to do when every cut gets opposed by a special interest group? My answer is to review the $12 billion in recommended state savings by Unshackle Upstate. These are pragmatic, realistic cuts that can be made to close the current budget gap.  These are also measures that will have long-term impacts on structurally reforming state government.

Let’s hope that the inactivity on the budget is due to the realization that Albany cannot spend its way out of this fiscal crisis. Unshackle Upstate has maintained that a good, late budget is better than an abysmal on-time budget.

Across the state, members of the Unshackle Army have responded loudly and clearly that it is time for a new way of governing – and we will accept nothing less.

At Unshackle Upstate, we prefer to call it fiscal responsibility, the duty to analyze a significant segment of taxpayer-funded state spending to determine if changes might be in order.

We’re both talking about the debate over public sector compensation, a discussion that’s taken on new life in the state’s current budget crisis.

In a blog posting this week on at SEIU.org, the union – which has strong membership among New York state Employees – cited a new report by the National Institute for Retirement Security that it said succeeded in “Debunking the Myth of the Wealthy State Worker.”

SEIU said that according to this report – a national analysis by two economists – state and local public sector employees are paid 11 to 12 percent less than their private sector counterparts.

Might sound like a reasonable argument, but it misses two key points that basically render it irrelevant to New York’s situation.

For starters, if you look at just New York data, you get a very different result. Unshackle Upstate own report, New York’s Double Standard, found that across Upstate, salaries for state and local government employees were 10 percent higher than the private-sector average.

In fact, Alaska is the only state that pays its government employees higher wages and salaries than New York. And the salaries and wages of New York’s government workers are 44 percent higher than the average of the other 49 states.

There are a lot of other statistics I could cite, but if you want more, you can read the report itself.

Truth is, there’s only one point that I really need to make: New York’s public employees deserve the fairest compensation we can afford. And right now, New York can’t afford this.

When unions and others rail about the high salaries paid to executives of private companies, they miss the point. Those salaries are paid out of the proceeds of the company, not by taxpayers! If a company doesn’t make money, it can’t pay its workers.

Which brings me to my final point – my disappointment – make that angry frustration – over the unwillingness of union leadership to even discuss wage and benefit concessions that could help New York through this crisis.

Public employee unions in Ohio, Florida, Massachusetts, Nevada, Oregon and Connecticut have each accepted pay and benefit reductions to help their governments weather the results of the worst economic downturn in 80 years.

But the leadership of New York’s unions? They’d rather sacrifice jobs of their membership than agree to any cuts. And because of New York’s Taylor and Triborough laws, they don’t have to. We’re the only state in the union to have such “wage and benefit guarantees” on the books. Kind of makes you wonder. Then it makes you mad.

Smear campaign? I think not. Just the facts.

As we shared with you this week, Upstate NY is home not to just nine, but now the 10 highest-taxed counties in the country as a percentage of home value. What does that mean? Those of us in Upstate NY now pay more in taxes for the same priced home than most of the rest of the country. Isn’t that a great distinction to have?

People wonder why are our taxes so much higher? We don’t have enough time to cover all of the reasons, but here are a few:
• Education: we pay more per capita than any other state, yet our results are not commensurate.
• Medicaid: at roughly $51 billion, NY’s Medicaid budget is larger than the entire budget of more than 40 states.
• Labor: NY has far too many public employees who have an expensive pension system supported by taxpayers.

The three areas listed above account for roughly 66 percent of state-controlled spending. And they all deal with people and services. So the concept of cutting into those services makes some elected officials very nervous. That often leads to other “solutions” that entail giving something back to taxpayers, while failing to fix the real core issue of what is driving up our taxes.

In this instance, the property tax “reform” that is holding up the budget in the Senate is a rebate program they propose to give to a very small segment of the population. Not one that is given to all of us…just a few of us. And that simply won’t work for us. We need concrete changes to alter the course of property tax rate increases.

Unshackle Upstate has advanced a bill that will do just that. We have presented a plan that will not only make our property taxes predictable, but will also lead to long-term reductions in spending, and thus a decrease in our property tax burden.

What is the plan? It includes:
• An annual property tax cap that will not exceed 2.5 percent.
• An annual school tax cap that will not exceed 2.5 percent.
• Mandate relief so the state cannot adopt new laws that pass cost down to local governments and schools.
• The ability for voters to override the cap for one year to allow special projects, emergency needs, etc.
• An underride provision that will allow voters to offer a cap lower than 2.5 percent.

The plan mirrors one that was passed in Massachusetts several years ago. And what happened in Massachusetts? The state we used to call Taxachusetts? They went from 3rd to 33rd in property taxes and it did not affect their school performance, with their students scoring well on national tests.

Better options exist then simply applying a Band-Aid to the gaping wound of property taxes. It is time for our elected officials to look at what other state governments have done to fix their ills.

We need real leadership on this issue. Who will come to rescue?

In many states, we are seeing these ideas put into action.  For example, in Connecticut, state workers have agreed to a one-year wage freeze, seven unpaid furlough days and higher employee health insurance contributions. New Jersey civil service workers have agreed to ten unpaid furlough days and a deferral of a cost of living increase; and state police officers and corrections employees have also opted for a one-year wage freeze.

These negotiations were made to avoid layoffs, concluding that it was better for the whole to sacrifice to save the few. Unfortunately, there is no such progress being made here in New York.

The Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA), the state’s leading union, has filed a grievance with the Governor’s Office of Employee Relations over Governor Paterson’s move to delay raises for about 150,000 employees. A statement made by CSEA indicated that the union “has every expectation of prevailing against the governor’s arbitrary and unilateral action.” I don’t see much room for negotiation in that statement.  

Public employees who are vulnerable to the proposed layoffs may want to ask their union leadership what is being done to protect their job.  It seems a legitimate question when it has been demonstrated that a wage freeze could prevent large-scale lay-offs that would put more New Yorkers out of work.

Binghamton University professor Patrick M. Regan, recently ran an op-ed urging fellow union members to back a wage freeze. Regan assessed the situation quite accurately, stating that “it seems we want the fiscal crisis to end, but we do not want to bear any of the pain associated in that score.”

This is not a referendum on teachers or public employees. We in the private sector recognize how fortunate we are to live in a state with quality educators and public employees. This is why we choose to live in New York. The reality is that this is a system that will collapse of its own weight. As the private sector continues to shrink, there simply is not enough revenue to support the continued rise of  wages and benefits for public employees. And it is unrealistic to assume the next generation of New Yorkers will be able to foot the bill.  What will happen when our young teachers, police officers and other qualified public employees are the next to leave New York, rather than be the first to go when times get tough?

It may be incumbent upon the public employees themselves to lead the charge for change right now. If they do the Unshackle Army will be standing beside them.

Can it possibly be true that an announcement was made over the weekend that state employees would be getting $1/2 billion in raises – when we have a budget deficit that is estimated to be $20 billion next year?

As the president and CEO of the Buffalo Niagara Partnership – an organization that represents some 2,500 Western New York companies – I’ve watched private sector employers struggle with cutting or freezing employee salaries, discontinuing 401k matching programs, instituting furloughs or all of the above. They did this in order to save jobs at their companies – and trust me, these decisions weren’t made easily and their impacts on their employees’ families weren’t taken lightly.

That’s why it is infuriating that lawmakers in Albany continue to make decisions that further cut the take home pay of hardworking taxpayers across New York. The nearly 250,000 people Partnership member companies employ are paying for those proposed $1/2 billion in raises — while they are living on less!

A 2009 report from Unshackle Upstate titled “New York’s Double Standard,” showed that annual salaries for upstate public sector employees averaged $47,035. The private sector average was $42,789.  New York leads the nation in per capita contributions to public-employee retirement, at $486 per taxpayer for the 2006-07 fiscal year.

It’s time Albany lawmakers get in touch with reality. If they don’t, it’s critical all you “real world voters” Remember in November.