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Newsletter

To view previous Community Newsletters (going back until April 2002), click here.

To view May 2005 Senior Update, click here.

To view September 2005 Albany Update, click here.

To view October 2005 Housing Update, click here.

 

News from STATE SENATOR

Liz Krueger

New York State Senate, 26th District

COMMUNITY BULLETIN – May 2006

Message from Liz . . .

 

The current budget situation in New York State highlights the continued importance of enacting real budget process reform.  While the legislature did pass an on-time budget for the second straight year, passage of the budget was followed by over 200 vetoes by the Governor, most of which were promptly overridden by the legislature.  If we had a functional budget process that would be the end of the cycle, but of course we have to do things differently in New York State.  The Governor justified 28 of his vetoes on the grounds that the legislature had acted unconstitutionally in altering appropriations in the Executive Budget, and has suggested that he will simply not appropriate the funds in these parts of the budget despite the legislative action to override the vetoes, unless these budgetary areas are negotiated out at some later point. Organizations impacted by these vetoes have already indicated they intend to sue the Governor if he does not honor the veto overrides.  Whether such a strategy will be successful or not is questionable given recent court decisions upholding the power of the Governor in the budgetary process.  And of course, even if a court strategy ultimately proves successful, it will not resolve this years' budget standoff until long after Governor Pataki leaves office at the end of the year.

 

Among the vetoes I am most concerned with are those impacting health care in New York State.  The governor vetoed approximately $1.27 billion in funding for the Medical Assistance Program, which will have a major impact on hospitals, nursing homes, and low and moderate income New Yorkers in need of health care.  These cuts include severe reductions to prescription drug coverage for low-income seniors and tightening Medicaid eligibility requirements for seniors needing long-term care, which would result in healthy spouses facing financial ruin if their partner needs nursing home care.  Nursing homes and hospitals would also face a variety of damaging cuts to reimbursements, which will have a devastating impact on many institutions already struggling to survive.  If the Governor carries through on his threat to impound these Medical Assistance Program funds, the State will have abdicated its responsibility to deal with the health care crisis in New York State.

 

The larger problem this highlights is the need for continued reform of our State budget process.  Last year I pointed out problems with the State Constitutional Amendment that came before the voters in November, and the voters also rejected this proposal.  While that particular proposal was flawed, we still need to address the fundamental imbalance in the budget process between the Governor and the legislature, particularly with regard to the Governor's ability to place policy-changing language in Budget bills, and the constitutional provision prohibiting the legislature from changing that language.  Fortunately, there is another option on the table.  Another proposed constitutional amendment (S.3195) would impose new requirements on the Governor’s budget that would eliminate the problem of the Governor inserting policy changes in budget bills, and also requires that budget bills be clearly itemized so that the purpose of expenditures can be easily determined.  This bill, which I co-sponsor, passed the legislature last year, and must pass again in the next legislative session, which begins in 2007, before appearing on the ballot for public approval.   Hopefully, in the near future we can develop a more rational budget process that avoids the uncertainly and potentially devasting impacts of the current standoff.

 

Community Spotlight

Head-start on High School Admissions for 6th and 7th graders

Parents of 6th and 7th graders eager to get started on high school admissions may want to attend information sessions to be held in every borough during the month of May. "Choosing a High School" meetings will be run by staff members of the Office of Student Enrollment Planning and Operations, the office that oversees high school admissions. The information sessions all start at 6:30 p.m. and will be followed by Q&A with Tweed officials.

 

Upcoming sessions in Manhattan include:

·         Tuesday, May 16, A. Philip Randolph High School, 433 West 135th Street

·         Tuesday, May 23, Art and Design High School, 1075 Second Avenue

 

With dozens of new secondary and high schools opening, high school admission is more complicated than ever. The Department of Education has designed a pamphlet, Choosing a High School, covering the basics of high school admissions, which is available at the sessions and from middle school guidance counselors. For more information, call 212-374-2363. 

 
Affordable Senior Housing Opportunities in Manhattan:

East Side Senior Housing is now accepting applications for 12 affordable Studio and 1- bedroom rental apartments under construction at 231 East 77th Street on the Upper East Side.  Rents for these units will be $837-895.00 per month depending on unit size.  To be eligible, applicants must be 62 years of age or older at the time of application.  In the case of couples, the applicant must be 62 years or older and the co-applicant must be at least 55 years of age at the time of application. Applicants must have incomes between $35,150 to $45,360, depending on unit and family size.  Applications will be selected by lottery with preference given to New York City Seniors.  Applicants residing in Community Board 8 will receive priority for 50% of the units.  In addition, visual/hearing impaired applicants will receive priority for 2% of the units, applicants with mobility impairment will receive priority for 5% of the units, and applicants who are New York City municipal employees with receive preference for 5% of the units.  One application per household. You may request an application by mail from: East Side Senior Housing L.P., P.O Box 428, Woodmere NY 11598.  Please include a self addressed envelope with your application request.  Applications must be postmarked no later than June 12th 2006, so you should request your application as soon as possible in order to ensure you have time to fill it out and return it by the deadline.

 

Tenant Blacklist Settlement:

Tenants who have been sued in Housing Court could face difficulty finding another apartment because they have probably been put on a tenant blacklist by a tenant screening company. Fortunately, there was a recent victory for tenants in regards to the issue of the tenant blacklist. If you were sued in New York City Housing Court between February 26, 1994 and March 16, 2006, you are potentially a member of a class action lawsuit. There is a proposed settlement related to the inaccurate reporting regarding the status of such Housing Court cases by First Advantage SafeRent, Inc. (FAS). The Class consists of all individuals who were defendant or respondent in a lawsuit in a Housing Court case during this time and were listed in FAS's court records database. For more details and to learn more about your rights under the Proposed Settlement, you can see and download the settlement agreement and related documents at http://www.tenantreportsettlement.com or you can call 1-888-404-0855. Claim forms and information are available on the website. Claim forms must be postmarked no later than May 16, 2006.

 

You may request a copy of the settlement and make specific requests by contacting:

 

Tenant Report Settlement

The Garden City Group Inc.

Claims Administrator

P.O. Box 9000 #6374

Merrick, NY 11566-9000.

 

You may also look at the file for this case, including the Proposed Settlement, during regular business hours at the Office of the Clerk, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Daniel Patrick Moynihan United States Courthouse, 500 Pearl Street, New York, NY 10007-1312. Please do not contact the court directly for information. All information related to this settlement is being handled by the Claims Administrator.

 

Save Energy and Money at Home

(Thank you to Environomental Defense Inc. for these materials)

The energy we use at home accounts for about a fifth of U.S. global warming pollution. That means making smart choices at home matters, both for the environment and for our budgets.

Heating and cooling:  This is a top home energy user, with the average household producing about four tons of heat-trapping pollution a year. It is heavily influenced by weather. For example, a relatively cold 1996 led to an increase in heat-trapping emissions compared to the previous year. But the next year, a warmer winter helped emissions dip a bit. Warmer summers increase greenhouse gas pollution, too, from heavy air conditioning use. Despite the relative warm or coolness of the season, the U.S. emits a harmful amount of global warming pollution.

Even as the weather varies, your choices can help spew less global warming pollution.

  • In summer, keep shades drawn to keep the cool in.
  • In winter, open shades to let the sunlight to help warm rooms.
  • In winter, keep your thermostat cooler at night or when the house is empty.
  • Install a programmable thermostat to heat and cool rooms only when necessary.
  • Plant trees around your house to cut cooling costs in summer.
  • Insulate your walls and ceilings.
  • Install a light-colored or reflective roof.

 

Appliances: After heating, refrigerators and freezers are generally the home's next two big energy eaters. Other appliances follow closely. Together, these items account for nearly eight tons of heat-trapping emissions per household per year.

·         Upgrade to Energy Star products. Not all appliances are equal. Whether you're in the market for a new fridge, toaster or air conditioner, look for Energy Star choices, which offer the best energy savings.

·         Size counts. When in the market for an appliance, make sure you buy what suits your needs. Items too large or too small waste electricity and your money.

·         Unplug. Your electric meter is often adding up kilowatt hours when you don't think you're using an appliance. Unplug toasters and cell phone and other chargers when they're not in use. Don't use air fresheners that have to be plugged in.

·         Use power strips. Cable boxes and video game boxes, and to a lesser extent TVs and VCRs, use almost as much energy when they're off as when they're on. Make it easy to turn them all the way off - plug them into a power strip and turn off the whole strip.

 

Lighting: Lighting accounts for about 21 percent of commercial energy consumption and about 12 percent of home energy consumption. In terms of heat-trapping pollution, that means the lights in the average household produce just over a ton of carbon dioxide each year. Here are a few steps to lower those numbers.

·         Use energy-efficient lights. Changing just one 75-watt bulb to a compact fluorescent light cuts roughly 1,300 pounds of global warming pollution. They also last up to 15 times as long and save you money.

·         Turn off lights. A good chunk of lighting expenses is from rooms that stay unnecessarily lit.

·         Use natural light. Open shades and use sunlight to help light rooms.

·         Install motion-sensors so that lights automatically turn on when someone is in the room and turn off when empty.

How to Pick a Better Bulb:  Though we call them light bulbs, traditional incandescent bulbs are actually small heaters that give off a little bit of light - something you know if you've ever touched a bulb that's been on for a while. These bulbs were technological wonders when they were patented in 1880, but today they are inefficient dinosaurs. They waste energy and money, and they are responsible for millions of tons of global warming pollution.

The next generation of light bulbs:  Fortunately, the next generation of bulbs is here: Compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) now give off high-quality light using a fraction of the electricity. Using CFLs puts less strain on the electric grid and saves you money. If every household replaced just three 60-watt incandescent light bulbs with CFLs, we would reduce as much pollution as if we took 3.5 million cars off the roads!

 

If you were disappointed by CFL bulbs in the last couple years, it's time to try again. The design of the bulbs and quality of light have improved dramatically. Also, though the price of a CFL is higher than traditional bulbs, CFLs save in the long run. They lower your electric bill and last up to 15 times as long as the old-fashioned bulbs. Here's how to make the switch:

Green Energy

Does your electric company sell energy from renewable sources, like wind and solar? More than forty states in the U.S. now offer cleaner energy. Other energy efficient choices for your home

  • Use the energy saver cycle on your dishwasher and only run it when full.
  • Wash clothes in warm or cold water, not hot.
  • Turn down your water heater to 120°Fahrenheit.
  • Clean or replace the air filter on your air conditioner.
  • Install low-flow shower heads to use less hot water.
  • Caulk and weatherstrip around doors and windows.
  • Ask your utility company for a free home energy audit.

 

 

Spotlight on Policy

 

Paid Family and Medical Leave

 

Want a good Mothers Day present?  How about making our workplaces more family-friendly, so that a sick child doesn't mean a crisis for a parent having to beg for time off?  Or, how about providing paid family leave so that a parent can actually afford to stay home with their kids when they're born or can take the time to care for a sick family member?  The New York State Paid Family and Medical Leave Coalition is working to expand New York’s existing temporary disability insurance program to provide benefits for family and medical leave purposes, as defined in the Federal Family and Medical Leave Act.  Legislation providing for paid medical leave has been introduced in both houses of the State Legislature (A.1301 Nolan/S.1501 Morahan), and passed the State Assembly last year.

A.1301/S.1501, the "Families in the Workplace Act," would allow individuals to receive disability insurance benefits during a family or medical leave.  To be eligible, employees would have to work in the public sector, or for a private entity required to participate in the State disability insurance program, which covers employers with ten or more employees.  Workers could take leave to care for newborns or newly adopted family members, care for seriously ill family members, attend meetings with schools regarding their children, or after the death of an immediate family member.  Family and medical leaves would be limited to a maximum of 12 weeks per year.  Because the leave would be paid for through disability insurance, the cost would be quite low -- an estimated $14.33 per worker per year. Furthermore, family-friendly workplace legislation such as this creates a level playing field, where all employers have the same obligations to provide a minimum standard of benefits and therefore aren't placed at a competitive disadvantage compared to their competitors.

The last few decades have seen massive changes in the workplace but public policy has not kept up. Sixty-eight million women now work, including 73% of all mothers with children under 18, yet most workplaces are not designed to provide parents, mothers and fathers, with the flexibility they need to balance work and family.  The shame of the US is that for all our talk of valuing families, among nations the US workplace is almost uniquely hostile to motherhood: in a survey of countries around the world, the only countries which do not have some kind of government policy providing paid leave to new mothers are Lesotho, Papua New Guinea, Swaziland and the United States. Even as the US shares its lack of family-friendly policies with a handful of the smallest, poorest countries in the world, 84 other countries in the world provide at least 14 weeks of paid leave at full pay with other policies that make the workplace more friendly for parents.

Ideally the federal government would take the lead on enacting a paid family and medical leave law, but as with so many issue now facing our nation, we cannot expect such leadership at the federal level.  States are where the action is, and fortunately New York is one of a number of States currently considering such laws.  New Jersey, Massachusetts and Washington State also have pending legislation.  In 2002, California became the first -- and still only -- state in the nation to adopt a paid family and medical leave law.

New York needs to recognize the changing nature of the workforce, and adopt policies that ensure that address the needs of single-parent and dual-income families, which are now the norm rather than the exception.  In such families, paid family and medical leave can make the difference between economic stability and crisis.  I am hopeful that this year the legislature will act on the Families in the Workplace Act.

 

Help America Vote Act

I am happy to report that voter's rights organizations are reporting that New York State's new voting machine standards contain many improvements. 

 

The new standards governing NY State's acquisition of new voting machines are recognized as some of the best (if not the best) in the nation in terms of:

 

·         Public disclosure of the voting machine vendors records of political contributions;

·         Disclosure of prior litigation against the vendor;

·         Vendors must post bond guaranteeing they will pay costs of new elections if equipment fails;

·         Improved requirements for disclosure of security analysis of system;

·         Improved transparency and diligence of the testing process;

·         Public access to the testing process.

 

According to the State Board of Election's compromise resolution accepted by the Federal Department of Justice, lever machines and at least one disabled accessible voting machine may be used in each county for the 2006 elections with full HAVA compliance (no more lever machines) mandated for 2007. 

 

The good news is that there will be NO new DRE's (computer voting machines) used in 2006. The approved disabled access devices for 2006 will be either paper ballot marking devices or a vote by phone system. The decision not to rush toward adoption of DRE technology in New York is extremely important, given the serious problems experienced with DRE machines in other states, as well as the difficulties in implementing such a system and providing adequate training to poll workers in just a few months.  Decisions for 2007 equipment will be made soon.

 

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