Assembly Passes $12M Deficit-Sandy Recovery Bill

The state assembly Tuesday unanimously voted to pass a bill that would allow the City of Long Beach to issue up to $12 million in municipal bonds to help close the city’s $10 million budget gap and pay for Hurricane Sandy-related repairs.

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“Long Beach was one of the areas in the state hit hardest by Superstorm Sandy,” Assemblyman Harvey Weisenberg, D-Long Beach, who sponsored the bill.  “Allowing the city to issue bonds would shift much of the burden off of local taxpayers.”

The Long Beach City Council on March 5 unanimously approved a home rule resolution to request permission from New York state to borrow up to $12 million in serial bonds to close the budget gap, as well as pay for “extraordinary expenses” due to Hurricane Sandy, including flood relief projects in public places and interests on payments for disaster relief funding, according to the resolution. With the assembly’s approval of the bill Tuesday, by a vote of 141 to 0, the state senate and and Gov. Andrew Cuomo must approve the request.

Last year, the city faced a $10.2 million deficit in the general, sewer and water and risk management funds and tried to borrow $15 million from the state that it promised to pay back over 10 years. In June, the home rule bill passed the Assembly by a vote of 134 to 6, but Sen. Dean Skelos, the Republican senate majority leader from Rockville Centre, refused the bill to reach the senate floor for vote.

Skelos later told City Manager Jack Schnirman in a letter that he was “troubled” by his “insistence on borrowing to address” the city’s financial woes rather than finds ways to cut spending. In turn, the city council approved a 6.6 percent deficit-reduction surcharge for three years, bringing last year’s tax increase to 14.5 percent that included a 7.9 percent increase in the $87.9 budget for 2012-13 that was approved last May.

In March, though, both Skelos and Weisenberg filed bills in the senate and assembly in support of the city’s $12 million request for deficit financing. In a statement about the request, Skelos said that in light of Hurricane Sandy’s devastation, “we're looking to give local governments the tools they need to recover. All options are on the table."

If the senate and governor approve the bill, the city would return to a 10-year timeline instead of three years to repay the $12 million.

“Working together with Senator Skelos, I look forward to the Senate’s prompt approval of the bill,” Weisenberg said.