""

Conservation Update

Report on 2009-10 Executive Budget

 

Governor Paterson’s $121 billion 2009-10 Executive Budget would have serious consequences for environmental projects and open-space protection across New York, particularly in the Adirondacks and Catskills. It’s not just that the budget would reduce the Environmental Protection Fund (EPF), it would also make the EPF dependent on passage of an expanded Bottle Bill for most of its remaining funding. The budget would also cap state tax payments on Forest Preserve lands at 2008 level. ADK strongly opposes the cap because it threatens ongoing and future open space projects in the Adirondacks and Catskills.

 

EPF and the Bigger Better Bottle Bill

Since it was created in 1993, the EPF has been the state’s main funding mechanism for such things as recycling programs, waterfront development and land acquisition. The program was designed to ensure the state could pay for environmental projects in good and bad times. Legislation approved in 2007 authorized an EPF level of $300 million for the state fiscal year that begins April 1.

The Executive Budget released Dec. 16, sets the EPF level at $205 million for 2009-10, $50 million less than the $255 million approved for the current fiscal year. But the governor’s plan would also make a fundamental change in the way the state finances the EPF. Now, EPF is paid for primarily from revenue from the Real Estate Transfer Tax (RETT). The governor wants to expand the Bottle Bill to include a nickel deposit on water, juice and sports drink containers, which the administration estimates would generate $118 million in revenue from unclaimed deposits. Under the governor’s plan, that $118 million would go to the EPF, not as additional funding for environmental programs, but to replace funding from the RETT.  

If the governor’s budget is approved, the EPF would still get $80 million from the RETT, plus $7 million from miscellaneous sources, but would be dependent on passage of an expanded Bottle Bill for nearly two-thirds of its cash. If the Legislature doesn’t pass the Bottle Bill, there is no provision in the governor’s budget to make up for the lost revenue source for EPF.

ADK has long supported an expanded Bottle Bill, but not as a replacement for the RETT, which must continue as the primary funding source for the EPF. A Bigger Better Bottle Bill would go a long way in reducing litter that threatens the Adirondack and Catskill Forest Preserve, state parks and forests, and other wild lands and waters in New York.

The Adirondack Mountain Club will work with the Paterson administration and the Legislature to find ways to ensure an adequate level of environmental funding in 2009-10.

Tax Cap on Forest Preserve Lands


Under the common law principle of sovereign immunity, codified in the state's Real Property Tax Law, no municipality has the right to collect taxes on state property unless the state gives its consent. In 1886, the year after the Legislature created the Forest Preserve, lawmakers recognized the burden that extensive state land ownership would place on small rural communities and agreed to allow local property tax collections on Forest Preserve land. The state pays full local property taxes on about 3 million acres of Adirondack and Catskill Forest Preserve spread across more than 100 towns and 16 counties. Adirondack communities depend on these payments to maintain roads, operate schools and provide other essential services.

But the proposed budget would cap these payments at 2008 levels. Here’s the reference:

Section 1.  Section 544 of the real property tax law is amended by adding a new subdivision 3 to read as follows:         3. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, all taxes paid  by  the state  after  April  first,  two  thousand nine pursuant to this article shall be no greater than the amount paid by the state during the  fiscal year ending March thirty-first, two thousand nine. For lands acquired by  the  state  after  April  first,  two thousand nine or after the taxable status date of such lands during the  state  fiscal  year  ending  March thirty-first, two thousand nine, the taxes paid shall be no greater than the taxes owed on such lands during the fiscal year in which the state's initial tax payment was due pursuant to this article. 

"For more than a century, the Forest Preserve has provided a multitude of environmental, economic and recreational benefits for all New Yorkers, but Governor Paterson's plan would shift the burden of maintaining these crucial resources to residents of these sparsely populated areas," said ADK Executive Director Neil Woodworth. "This is not only unfair, it is bad public policy that would undermine local support for open space protection in the Adirondacks and Catskills."

The Adirondack Mountain Club joins with state Sen. Betty Little, R-Queensbury; Assemblywoman Theresa Sayward, R-Willsboro; William Farber, president of the Adirondack Association of Towns and Villages; the Adirondack Council; the Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks; the Catskill Center for Conservation and Development; The Nature Conservancy in New York; and Residents' Committee to Protect the Adirondacks in opposing this plan.