GOP Sets Hard Line for Cuomo

 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

 what happened to "the Republicans in the NYS Senate are going to be Andrew's best friend??"  maybe not so much........the state just created a new pension tier..tier 5...looks like tier 6 is on the way..........

By JACOB GERSHMAN

Republicans, poised to take over the state Senate next year, are signaling a harder line on property taxes and pension costs, a stance that could complicate Gov.-elect Andrew Cuomo's budget negotiations.
Sen. Dean Skelos, the Republican leader from Long Island, said his conference would refuse to accept any plan to cap local property taxes that carves an exception for public-employee pension costs, an explosive spending area for the state and local governments.

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Associated Press

Andrew Cuomo

He said Republicans would also push for talks over a deeper overhaul of the pension system, which, historically, has been a third-rail issue for the party.
In an interview on Friday, Mr. Skelos said a pension loophole would be a "deal breaker," drawing a line in the sand that has yet to be marked by Mr. Cuomo, who has been in talks with the Senate leader over budget issues.
As a candidate, Mr. Cuomo said he wants to impose a cap of 2% (or the inflation rate, if it's lower) on annual growth of property taxes levied by local governments and school districts outside the city. While Mr. Cuomo's plan would not allow pension costs to be excluded from the cap, envisioning a stricter system than the tax cap recently approved in New Jersey, he's been guarded about what his administration would consider open to negotiation.
"I think you have to have a hard property tax," said Mr. Skelos, who briefly served as majority leader in 2008, replacing retiring Sen. Joe Bruno, before Democrats seized control of the chamber for a two-year session.
Mr. Skelos's party will enter next year occupying 32 of 62 seats, barring an unlikely reversal of a state judge's decision to certify a GOP candidate as the winner of a contested Long Island race.
The Republican position stands in opposition to that of Assembly Democrats, led by Speaker Sheldon Silver, who says he supports the concept of a cap but shares the concerns of the teachers union and school districts: that limits could starve public schools of tax dollars to pay for teachers and academic programs.
On the broader issue of retirement costs, Mr. Skelos said he would urge the statehouse to start considering the idea of shifting New York away from the current system of guaranteed benefits.
On the heels of a new report projecting accelerated growth in state and local government pension-contribution liabilities, Mr. Skelos said Republicans may be open to adding a new tier to the pension system that could lower benefits or increase employee contributions for future workers.
But he added that an alternative system modeled after 401(k) plans—a change that is potentially cheaper to the taxpayer but riskier to workers—should be "on the table" for discussion.
"It has to be discussed with the governor-elect and the speaker," Mr. Skelos said.
Mr. Cuomo, on the campaign trail, recommended creating a new pension tier. He said he wouldn't rule out a gradual switch to a so-called defined-contribution system, but said little else about his stance. Asked about Mr. Skelos's positions, a spokesman for Mr. Cuomo referred to the governor-elect's past comments.
A report released this week by the conservative-leaning Empire Center for New York State Policy projected that taxpayer costs of contributing to the state's two major pension systems would nearly triple over the next five years.
For school districts and unions, the figures added to their alarm about the consequences of capping school taxes, which make up the bulk of the property-tax levies. For budget hawks, the trend reinforced a need to take more dramatic action to contain liabilities.
"It's probably safe to say that schools would not be able to meet basic personnel expenses under a tax cap given the exploding pension costs," said David Albert, a spokesman for the New York State School Boards Association, which represents nearly 700 districts outside New York City.
Labor leaders, who are vehemently opposed to a tax cap and defined contributions, say they're not ready to talk about a compromise plan.
"It's really early to start talking about exceptions," said the executive vice president of New York State United Teachers, Andrew Pallotta, who said a tax cap "would devastate many school districts."