Longtime Wellsville resident and writer Dennis Shutt returns
Remember the Wellsville Daily Reporter when Oak Duke was the editor and the now famous( or infamous), John Anderson was the sports writer. If you do, you may have read some columns and letter to the editors written by me or someone named Trout. Well, I have sometime on my hands and Mr. Harris keeps hitting spots that brought me to writing again.
In particular: Polls on what to do with all this money the state just gave Wellsville. What to do to cut county taxes. The list goes on and on but these last two brought me to the keyboard.
New York and California were on the proverbial edge of bankruptcy before the pandemic. Now they are flush with federal money and is it not wonderful they are willing to hand it out. Is it not wonderful Wellsville just got millions. Someone was going to get it, so why not us. Awesome indeed.
Does anyone care that New York state owes the federal government billions of dollars for the unemployment fund that they borrowed during the pandemic. The federal government handed out this money to the states and they hand it out without ever paying back the money they owe the feds.
Oh, they are paying it back though, by increasing every employer unemployment tax. So pass the bill on to NYS business. Sounds great. How about those businesses, either cut their work force or add cost to their products or services that they provide. Then the bill for the unemployment fund is passed onto every consumer.
In case I rambled on too long: We as individuals get to pay back the unemployment fund that the state had the money to pay , but then we would not have been “GIVEN” millions for Wellsville would we.
Onto cutting cost for the county, here is a chart-
Number of legislators: Population Legislator per person
Allegany county- 15 47,000 1 per 3100 people
Steuben county 17 95,000 1 per 5600 people
Cattaraugus county 17 77,000 1 per 4500 people
(population numbers are approx. as these numbers change daily but can be verified by google or call the counties yourself).
Old question: why do we need so many legislators?. When you add in the salary with BENEFITS you do not need a math major to see the savings. You say this is a drop in the bucket on the budget: You are correct, but you have to start somewhere. If we can cut here how many other line items can be curtailed?
Our county keeps telling how medicaid our biggest cost and the state dumped it on us. I am sure it is true. I am also sure the counties around us had it happen to them. Maybe we should look around and find out why we are in such a dilemma when all counties have this huge expense.
Maybe work together on cost cutting. Every person has to live within a budget, we cannot pass it on. How does our county, state, and federal government do it? Answer: by giving us something upfront so we do not see what they are doing behind us
I am aware I have reached the dinosaur age and if I forget, my sons are quick to remind me. The world is going faster than I can but somethings are just full of reason or just plain logical. At least to a dinosaur.
Dennis Shutt, Wellsville
