Albany is in a dangerous and worsening fiscal condition and no one's talking about it, said your correspondent two weeks ago.
I was wrong.
Not about the dangerous and worsening fiscal condition. But there's been a public outbreak of discussion, a good part of it worth hearing. The Once and perhaps Future mayors of our capitol, Jerry Jennings and Kathy Sheehan, took issue, in print, with some of the analysis. While it's mostly best not to respond, this is an opportunity to examine what's going on one day before a big election and that's in everyone's interest.
Both Jennings and Sheehan, the city's current treasurer, are worthy public servants, and interesting personalities. Both bear responsibility for the city's achievements and problems. Both assert they've done good jobs.
I never said otherwise. I did say that Albany, like other cities and counties, is in a downward fiscal spiral, some of it of its own making, some of it caused by outside forces.
Here's the evidence. Albany faces a $15 million to $20 million budget gap next year with no obvious way to bridge it. Albany has been borrowing money to pay operating expenses. It has spent future revenues to balance this year's budget. There's been no public discussion of the accumulated operating deficit. Labor contracts have expired, and there's no money to fund retroactive raises. The state and federal government have cut, and will continue to cut, support for Albany.
Neither Jennings nor Sheehan dispute these facts, to their credit.
The bigger picture is no better. Albany has an enormous amount of property that pays no taxes. Albany has to provide essential services with less and less ability to pay for them.
Albany's tax and government systems are created by the state, which has shown no willingness to address the big issues.
Pointing out the many good things done by the incumbent mayor and treasurer is no answer to these realities. And there are no easy answers to a complicated situation.
But some things can be done: Require a public four-year budget plan; stop borrowing for operating expenses; join the burgeoning effort to get the governor, Legislature and local officials into admitting the size of the problem before we're hit with a spate of bankruptcies.
In the long run, the most important of these is to get a local conversation started about Albany's real problems and a statewide conversation about remedies.
There's an art to bringing bad news and hard choices to voters. It takes leadership and political skill. In Yonkers, newly-elected Mayor Mike Spano took on his own fiscal nightmare by first creating a non-government commission to answer all the basic fiscal questions — the same ones that remain unanswered in Albany. (Full disclosure: I was part of the Yonkers Commission). Not a bad plan for the new mayor.
So congratulations are in order to both Jennings and Sheehan. Not because they're right to blame outside forces for the whole mess or because they've figured out what to do about this mess, but because both were willing to engage in a public debate, in the context of a political campaign where the experts urge you to keep quiet about bad news. That's a good sign for Albany and it took some courage. But it's only a small step on what will be a long and painful voyage to fiscal stability.
Richard Brodsky is a fellow at the Demos think tank in New York City and at the Wagner School at New York University.