Watch for Unshackle Upstate to make news on Monday.

That’s when we’ll announce the results of our 2010 Legislative Scorecards. We’re calling these scorecards a voter’s guide to Judgment Day, Nov. 2, 2010.

That’s because from these scorecards, which we’re issuing for all 212 New York state legislators, you – the taxpaying voter – will be able to determine which of our lawmakers acted with your best interests in mind. For instance, who voted for reducing taxes, cutting spending, reducing state borrowing and mandates. And who just paid lip service to those important issues.

Let me give you a little preview, share our methodology. We’ve been keeping an eye on all the legislators – what bills they sponsored, what they supported and what they opposed. And we’ve assigned a value to their actions.

For instance, legislators could earn up to 60 points depending on how they voted in committee and on the floor on items supported or opposed by Unshackle. For instance, those who opposed a bill that would have required overtime pay for farm workers (a bill that was fortunately defeated), earned points.

Also in the calculation, up to another 25 points depending on how they voted on the 2011 state budget. In other words, those who voted against it got 25 points, those who voted for it got 0.

Legislators had a chance to improve their scores by up to 15 points by sponsoring bills that Unshackle Upstate supported. But they could also hurt their scores, losing up to 15 points by sponsoring bills that Unshackle opposes.

But these scorecards, revealing as they may be, are just one step in Unshackle’s endorsement process. They’ll be factored in with other measures, such as whether the candidate has a history of supporting or opposing Unshackle, as well as the candidate’s responses to our questionnaire and input from the chamber of commerce in each candidate’s area. All will be used to compile a list of endorsements we will be releasing in the coming weeks.

Why do we do all this? Because we at Unshackle Upstate feel it’s essential that you enter the voting booth on Nov. 2 armed with the facts and prepared to make a judgment. Did the candidates on the ballot before you stand up for you as a taxpayer, take the actions necessary to lower your taxes and create jobs? Or was the candidate more interested in securing re-election by advocating for the demands of a select few?

Read the scorecards. Study our endorsements. Then on Nov. 2, you be the judge.

Go to the voting booth and help us take back our state government. Send Albany a message that our elected officials work for us – the state’s largest special interest group – the taxpayers.

As the New York legislature went home for the 4^th of July holiday, Governor Chris Christie and the New Jersey legislature came close to a compromise on a proposal that will slow rising property taxes and reform what New Jersey residents have identified as their number one issue – property taxes.

Like New York, the Garden State also suffers from extremely high property taxes. Governor Christie noted that since 2001, spending at the local levels in New Jersey rose 69 percent (hmm, sounds familiar). Had a hard property tax cap been in place since that time, the average New Jersey family’s property tax bill would be more than $2,000 lower than the current average of approximately $7,200.

Christie has been advocating for a property tax cap at 2.5 percent with very little exemptions.  Earlier this year, Unshackle Upstate put forth a plan that would do the same for New York. Both plans model Massachusetts Prop 2.5,  which has the distinction of bringing Massachusetts as the state with the 3rd highest property taxes nationally – to the 33rd.

The New Jersey legislature offered a plan that would cap property taxes at 2.9 percent and included a list of exemptions. Last week, Christie said he would not sign a 2.9 percent “Swiss cheese” cap bill the Legislature sent him last week because it had “too many holes in it” (referring to the fourteen exemptions the bill included). However, given the importance of the issue, Christie offered a compromise, bringing New Jersey one step closer to real property tax relief.

Christie offered a conditional veto modifying the Senate bill to include a cap on future property taxes at 2 percent while including four exemptions for debt service, pension and health care costs and states of emergency. A key element of this plan, like Unshackle Upstate’s, relies on participation of the taxpayer in the process. Voters will  have to approve an override of the cap with a majority vote.

Should both houses approve the governor’s modifications, New Jersey will  have accomplished what will New York seemingly refuses to do – offer real reform to its taxpayers. Christie lauded the bipartisan effort to take “decisive action on a decades long problem that has become a full blown crisis to the people of our state.”

Meanwhile, in New York, the Senate and Assembly budget plan rejected the inclusion of a property tax cap – Governor Paterson’s proposal included a cap on local governments and school districts at 4 percent. Instead, they have put forth a plan to offer property tax “relief” in the form of rebate checks. Bear in mind – they will be increasing taxes and fees by about $1 billion (on top of $8 billion last year) to pay for the checks to go back to the taxpayer – doesn’t make much sense, does it?  But this is what we have grown accustomed to, and this is what we need to change this year.

So while New Jersey moves forward in a bi-partisan effort to offer much needed tax relief to their residents, New York continues politics as usual. The opportunity for real relief for New Yorkers is there, but the political will is still missing. There is a saying, “to get something done right, do it yourself.” The Unshackle Army will send a message this year – we will change Albany ourselves. The  tool that we will use to do this is our vote in November.

Send a message that New Yorkers deserve real property tax relief - now.

Can you hear us now Albany? This is the message that Unshackle Upstate and like-minded business coalitions are bringing to members of the Legislature as they head into the final weeks of session. Unshackle Upstate and its coalition partners will demand from Albany,  a budget that reigns in spending, reduces taxes and moves New York one step closer toward fiscal reform.

Because it seems that despite the well-intentioned efforts of some members of the Legislature work toward these goals, they’re words continue to fall on deaf ears. For most, the propensity toward expanding the size of government, increasing the power of labor unions and stymieing the growth of business is still to strong.  Inevitably, this leads to the perception that the status quo is okay in Albany. And often times, perception is reality.

Take for example some of the bills that are being considered right now. The service worker, utility worker and IDA bill all will impose prevailing wage mandates on private industry. This will result in hidden taxes and higher costs to taxpayers, but also sends a message that the costs of doing business in New York is getting higher.

There is also the “abusive workplace” bill, which if enacted, would establish a new civil cause of action for any employee in New York to claim that they have been subject to an abusive workplace environment. If passed, New York would be the first state to enact such a law.

Of great concern to us in the southern tier, are the number of bills aimed at delaying or further hindering natural gas exploration in the Marcellus Shale. The regulations imposed by the DEC are perhaps the most stringent in the nation and will continue to be, even as gas drilling becomes a reality. The sGEIS that will be released this fall can put us one step closer toward realizing the economic potential that exists with safe gas drilling.  Many energy companies have stated that they will comply with whatever regulations the DEC puts forth. Yet there still exists legislation (A.10490 Englebright) that will delay natural gas drilling, perhaps indefinitely.

With such little time left, why not have a real dialogue on instituting a real property tax cap with mandate relief or a state spending cap? Put forth bills that lower energy costs, reduce the hold of labor unions and provide tools for businesses to grow and expand.

It is imperative that the Unshackle Army continue to demand that their legislators hear what they have been saying. Because if they don’t hear us now, we will make sure that they do in November.

Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey continues to be a glimmer of hope for those of us in New York.

In my opinion, he has advanced a plan that would certainly stop the bleeding in New Jersey and at least get them pointed in the right direction. He understands that when spending far outpaces revenues you need to cut your spending – not arbitrarily increase taxes and fees. So he continues to ignore taxing recommendations from the public employee unions, such as raising the tax on millionaires. Side note: Remember NY did this in last year’s budget – but millionaires were deemed to be people making more than $200,000 as well as businesses with profits of over $250,000.

In addition to his fiscal controls, Gov. Christie has also embraced a plan put forward by Unshackle Upstate. He believes that all public employees, those that get their pay and benefits from the taxes collected by state and local governments and schools, should be moved out of their current defined benefit plan (fully guaranteed by taxpayers) into a defined contribution plan (a 401K, if you will) for their pensions.

By doing so, you remove a great deal of liability on taxpayers that exists when the investment market (Wall Street) falters, as it has happened regularly over the past 18-24 months. He believes, as we do, that taxpayers can no longer foot the bill for a pension system that is simply not affordable and cannot be sustained.

Now, Christie has advanced one more idea: Having N.J. adopt the same property tax plan that was used in Massachusetts and which dropped their property tax rates from 3rd highest in the country to 33rd.

You’ve heard me talk about this before. It is the same plan that we at Unshackle Upstate have been talking about for months. This plan caps school and property taxes at no more than 2.5 percent annually, allows voters to override the cap if needed or underride it if they feel it is too high, and it prohibits the state from passing on unfunded mandates to local governments and schools. If the state wants a new law in place, state officials have to figure out how to pay for it. It is the plan we in New York state need passed so that we can begin to control property taxes that are 60-70 percent higher than the national average.

Take a moment to click this link and listen to the debate. Listen to what they are saying and ask yourself why they aren’t talking about NY.

Regardless of whether you like him or not, you have to acknowledge that Christie is talking the right game. And not only is he talking, but he is taking action. Upon taking office, he declared a state of emergency and froze all spending. He recently introduced a $29.3B budget that eliminates a projected $11B deficit. In N.Y., the recently lapsed state budget was $131.8B and the projected deficit is $9.2B.

When Unshackle Upstate proposed more than $12B in cuts, we were told that wasn’t possible. We were told that it was too much too soon. Maybe it is, but why can’t we try?

Christie recently told the Wall Street Journal, “You just have to stand and grit your teeth and know your poll numbers are going to go down — and mine have — but you gotta grit through it because the alternative is unacceptable.”

N.Y. will be electing a new governor this fall. Will our new governor grit his/her teeth or simply rollover as others have done? In the coming days, Unshackle Upstate will be asking you what you want our next Governor to do for NY. We’ll take your thoughts and share them with the candidates.

Let’s start telling them now that we need them to grit their teeth and make the tough calls.

The State Employees International Union (SEIU) called it “a smear campaign” and “a constant refrain in the Republican handbook.”

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.

When you’re trying to affect change in a political institution, it’s all too easy to get frustrated by what at times seems an impossible challenge.

And then you get an e-mail like this, and your faith and energy are instantly renewed.

“Why don’t I give up on Upstate NY? I will tell you why.
When my parents are old, I want to be close enough to check on them and when they can no longer care for themselves I will care for them.
When my children are grown I don’t want them to have to run off to a faraway place just to find a job.
When I have grandchildren I want to see them every day. I want them to ride their bike to my house and I want to teach them things that I have learned from my lifetime of experience.
I would rather make cuts to our school system so that we can cut taxes for businesses so that my children can find a job or create a business of their own without moving away.”

Beautiful sentiment, but it’s the closing line that really got to me.

“If something does not change,’” the writer concludes, “We will be moving away so my children can have a hopeful future.”

That says it all: New York must change if our state, our families and our businesses are to have a hopeful future.

And it is time for our elected officials to finally realize that they need to be on our side, and step away from those who don’t worry about how their greed is ruining our state. It must be about what is good for all of us, the people of the state of New York, and not just the few who are entrenched and unwilling to change.

So how do we bring about that change? By banding together and speaking out on the issues that matter, the issues that will change New York’s future.

In fact, that’s what we did recently. And we were successful in stopping two legislative bills that would have severely hurt Upstate New York – the Farmworker Fair Labor Practice Act and the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA). Click here to read Unshackle’s statement .

This is a great achievement, as these were two bills that we adamantly opposed. If enacted, farms that have been in families for generations would have ceased to exist and vital economic development projects would never have been started.

Both bills were passionately argued by both sides of the issue. Fortunately, rational heads prevailed and the bills were defeated.

So what have we learned? We learned that the voice of the Unshackle Upstate Army is being heard and having an impact on legislative activity in Albany.

We can and should celebrate. But we cannot rest. There will be more issues to tackle and bills to oppose. We must remain vigilant.

Together, we will push our elected officials to do what is right for the taxpayers and job creators of this state. Together, we will reform New York, make it the best place to live, work and raise a family, make it a place with a hopeful future, a place we are proud to call home.

Please do your part. Encourage everyone you know to join our effort and strengthen our voice. Our future is at stake.

Another week begins, and still no state budget.

Granted, we’re not exactly complaining, since we at Unshackle Upstate clearly prefer a late budget to a bad one. Problem is, we remain deeply concerned that we’ll end up with both.

Why? Because that’s the unfortunate history of New York state government, where a tax-and-spend style of conducting business has left us with an unsustainable balance sheet.

But the lateness of the budget – it was legally due April 1 – does present an opportunity to continue to push the Unshackle Upstate message with our elected representatives in Albany.

And that message is: You, state legislator, should not approve a budget with increased or new taxes, new fees or additional borrowing. Because if you do, we at Unshackle Upstate stand ready to vote you out of office on Judgment Day, Nov. 2, 2010.

Now we need you, our partners and supporters, to help us spread the message. Toward that, we’ve created posters and fliers that you can print out to display and share with others – neighbors, friends, organization members, co-workers, employees.

Click here to download these materials.

Then forward this message to others in your network so that our Unshackle Army and our taxpayers’ voice of reason will be heard and noticed.

As always, thank you for your support. Together, we can make a difference in New York state.

There has been a great deal of chatter about property taxes, both within our social media platform and in the NYS Senate. If you follow the media and the blogs, much of the rationale being spouted as to why the budget is late is the need to do something about property taxes. We couldn’t agree more that our property taxes are stifling and need to be fixed.

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?

At its core, Unshackle Upstate is about finding solutions. Identify what the short-term needs are and back them up with sustainable, long-term reform. As the saying goes, “if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.”  Through its policy agenda, Unshackle Upstate has supported wage freezes and payroll lags as they offer immediate, yet temporary remedies to our ongoing fiscal woes. UU has also offered long-term solutions, such as advocating for increased contributions to health and retirement accounts and reform of the Taylor Law.  These solutions could provide  long-term stability in the way that wages and benefits are negotiated and put New York on the road to recovery.

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.

I’d like to take a moment to acknowledge something very special. After intensifying our social media efforts less than a year ago, we have shot past  12,000 Facebook fans and are now approaching 13,000. Since launching our 2010 Challenge last July, we’ve averaged 40 new fans a day. That’s incredible! Collectively, Unshackle Upstate is now one of, if not the, largest on-line political movement in New York. I can’t tell you how excited and thankful we are that so many New Yorkers are now engaged in the political battle to save our state.

The increasing interactions on Facebook is simply inspiring. We’ve been reading and responding to your posts and one thing is clear – you’re fired up about our government’s shameful ways. And rightfully so. Families and businesses are being crushed with sky high taxes while state leaders continue to spend money they simply don’t have. That’s what why we launched our Judgment Day campaign in February.   Rather than endlessly screaming about what is wrong in Albany, we’re actually doing something about it!

Unshackle Upstate is currently fighting against the following 2010-11 budgetary provisions:

• 2010-11 Executive Budget (Spending) – the 2010-11 state budget proposal is $134 billion; that’s an increase of 12 percent in two years.
• The 3-percent severance tax on natural gas from Marcellus or Utica Shale. (S6610 / A9710 – Part A).
• Establishment of a circuit breaker tax credit and a state spending cap, versus a property tax cap, at 2.5 percent. (S6610 /A9710 – Part Q).
• Forcing non-union home-based childcare providers to pay union dues. (S.6607/A.9707 – Part DD).
• Proposed Increase in Local Utility Taxes (GRT) (S6606/A9706 – Part HH).
• Excessive health care taxes, fees and assessments (S.6608/A.9708 – Part B, C, D).
• Continuation of the Waste Tire Management Fee, which was scheduled to sunset on December 31, 2010. (S6609 / A9709 – Part DD).

We also support the reduction of overall state spending and the repeal of onerous budget provisions enacted last year such as:

• A license plate fee increase of $10.
• The utility surcharge (Section 18) which raised fees from one-third of a percent to two percent for most taxpayers.

Unshackle Upstate is  putting legislators on notice that these are the items in the budget that we oppose.  Any legislator that votes for a budget with these items will be judged accordingly through the Judgment Day Scorecard.  We’re advocating at the Capitol for the immediate removal of these anti-taxpayer items.  Our hope is that these Judgment Day Scorecards will serve as a invaluable tool when it comes time for you to cast your ballot in November. That’s what the Judgment Day campaign is all about – educating and empowering voters across New York to make the best decision  possible on November 2.

But our work is not done. We need the Unshackle Army to continue to grow and we need your help to make it happen. Please continue to tell your friends, families and coworkers about our efforts. Our impact in the halls of the Capital grows with every new voice we have on our side. We’re very thankful for your continued support – without it, none of this would be possible.

Judgment Day is less than seven months away!  Let’s keep this amazing momentum going and fight for change in Albany!