On Board Online • Albany Update • May 26, 2008

Joseph Bruno, 79, has represented  Rensselaer County and much of Saratoga County in the state Senate since 1976. A Republican, he has been Majority Leader since 1994. He spoke with NYSSBA Senior Writer Marc Humbert on May 13 at the state Capitol.

Q: Governor Paterson has already said next year is going to be very, very difficult. Do you agree with him?

A: Yeah. I think it’s going to be. We’re presently in fiscal distress in this state, that’s no secret. I’m looking at some of the numbers. We’re down in revenue about half a billion (dollars) over the last three or four or five months, so it’s going to be challenging. We’ve got to get control of spending. And, you can’t keep raising taxes.

Q:How bad is it fiscally? Do you think we could see a budget that won’t grow?

A: I’ve said there is a lot of waste. If we all take a look, all of us, management, labor, working together, recognizing we can’t keep raising taxes because we are driving people out of this state.

You have to control government, you have to control the suppression and over-regulation of people and business and get back to our basics – of doing the essential things for people that people in government ought to do, and that is provide an education for everyone, healthcare that is affordable and accessible, an infrastructure, and provide for the needs of people that they truly can’t do by themselves.

Q: Last year and this year, you were able to manage record increases in school aid. Do you think that will happen again next year or should school districts start getting ready for some belt-tightening?

A: I’m not going to project out what next year is going to look like. But people have to recognize that we have tapped out on creating revenue through taxes. The fact that we are 53 percent in property taxes above the national average per household, that is pretty distressful. We are still the highest taxed people in the United States.

Q:You have probably seen that with the massive infusion of state aid that the projected increases in local property taxes are being held down. You are looking at maybe 3 percent.

A: With record (state aid) increases of way above the inflation rate, why are (local) taxes going up at all?

School boards

Q: How do you think school boards do in general? What kind of job do you think they do?

A: I respect the fact that people will run for the school board, will go on a school board, dedicate their time, their energy, their talent. I respect that a lot, so it’s kind of hard to be overall critical. But I’ll tell you this, I think there is a responsibility on everyone’s part when you look at the property taxes in this state – which I said are above and beyond reasonable levels – all of us have to try to do something about it.

It’s the responsibility of everybody. We’ve just got to get a handle on the costs. Everybody wants to upgrade the test scores, the results. The question is how do you do it best. That is a debate that continues to go on.

Property taxes

Q: If you could just wave a wand and decide how to deal with property taxes, how would you do it?

A: I would do the cap that we are talking about on all (state) spending and I would do a local option (in which local voters can approve spending beyond a cap level). What’s the matter with 4 percent or cost of living?

Q: You think the state can absorb some of the property tax and still cut taxes for business to increase the revenue?

A: Yes. It’s trickle down. It’s Reaganomics. That may be a bad word, but it worked.

To me, it’s like a no-brainer. You gouge a business, you suppress a business, you over-regulate a business, you tax them to where they can’t reinvest in their business, they can’t hire new people, they can’t do research and development. So, what do you do? You stifle them, you choke them, you keep them from growing? So, what do they do, many of them, when they expand? Somewhere else.

School mergers

Q: Stan Lundine, the head of the commission on government efficiency, just came out with a report recommending that the state education commissioner be given the power to force school district mergers, as opposed to the current system where it is done under local option. Any way the Senate would ever go for giving the commissioner that power?

A: Well, I don’t believe in dictatorial power. I’d rather do it by incentives and by persuasion.

The shares system

Q: Every year the legislators talk about coming up with a fairer system, about improving the system for school aid, and we seem to end up with the old shares system. Why?

A: Why? Because it’s fair to drive money from the state to where the students are. That’s what the bottom line is with shares. If Long Island has 14 or 15 percent of the students, you ought to give them 8 percent of the school aid? Why? How? If upstate has 50 percent, you ought to give them 50 percent of the money. New York City has 37 percent, you have to give them that much of the money, don’t you? That’s what drives shares.

Politics

Q: What are the chances of Republicans maintaining the majority in the Senate this fall?

A: It is a given. The people of this state want checks and balances. Former Gov. Eliot Spitzer helped us immensely with that. We are going to increase our majority. Why? Because it’s good government. Ask anybody who’s objective and they will tell you it’s good government. Republicans ought to be in the Senate, controlling it. You’ve got Democrats controlling the other house. A Democrat is chief executive. Good checks and balances. That’s what our Founding Fathers tried to create.

Q: What was your reaction when you heard the news about Governor Spitzer’s involvement with a prostitution ring?

A: It was disbelief. I think John (McArdle, a Bruno spokesman) gave me a blog entry from The New York Times while we were in conference, and I said, “You know this isn’t funny. You better destroy it because it can get out.” I thought someone had put that together as a joke. I really thought like most people, that it was a joke. It’s kind of beyond your power to comprehend something as bizarre and as unlikely as that.