Sign this petition if you agree with this letter below signed by four Dutchess County Legislators at the December 4, 2014 meeting of the Dutchess County Legislature-- Alison MacAvery, April Marie Farley, Micki Strawinski, and Joel Tyner (and email all 26 in our county government-- countyexec@dutchessny.gov​, countylegislators@dutchessny.gov!):

Mr. Marcus Molinaro, Dutchess County Executive, 22 Market Street, Poughkeepsie, NY 12601

Dear County Executive Molinaro (Marc):

We, the various undersigned members of the Dutchess County Legislature, know the difficulties you face in developing a budget for our county every year and appreciate the hard work and effort you put into this task.

However, on a regular basis we go to local town board, village board, and city council meetings in the municipalites we represent in our county legislative districts, and all too often we have heard justified complaints being made openly by local municipal officials about the tremendous cut in county sales tax revenue-sharing with Dutchess County’s towns, cities, and villages over the past few years.

The truth is that there are many ways to find the millions of dollars in alternative revenue sources to make sure Dutchess County’s towns, cities, and villages suffer no longer from this massive cut in revenue sharing.

The truth is that many of us for many years now have advocated for different cost-saving, innovative, win-win solutions to our county’s criminal justice system woes, as called for by Newt Gingrich, Jeb Bush, and Grover Norquist in the RightonCrime.com movement now battling prison expansion nationally-- for cost-saving, no-money-down solar power-purchase-agreements for county property and buildings-- to save even more tax dollars by finally moving meaningfully away from incineration towards zero waste-- to stop forcing county taxpayers to pay for government benefits for hard-working employees of immensely profitable large retail chain stores and restaurants-- and finally, to pro-actively keep local at-risk youth out of our criminal justice system by restoring county funding eliminated for proven, cost-saving youth programs (the fact is that each at-risk youth kept out of our county’s criminal justice system $1.2 million, according to the U.S. Department of Justice).
 
Sadly, strangely, our proposals for these cost-savers have been met with indifference, if not hostility at times.

For this reason, we strongly urge you to publicly commit to, as soon as possible, revisiting and renegotiating Dutchess County’s sales tax revenue-sharing agreement with local municipalities.

We thank you for your attention to this matter— as local municipalities will not abide the status quo continuing.

Yours,

County Legislator Joel Tyner, Legislative District 11
County Legislator Alison MacAvery, Asst. Minority Leader, Legislative District 16
County Legislator April Marie Farley, Legislative District 18
County Legislator Micki Strawinski, Legislative District 20

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Info: joeltyner@earthlink.net 845-453-2105/876-2488

Recall: <http://www.rhobserver.com/13541/rhinebeck-rejects-molinaro-plan/>; ;
<http://www.dailyfreeman.com/general-news/20130510/dutchess-county-reaches-new-revenue-sharing-agreement-with-cities-of-poughkeepsie-and-beacon>; ;
<http://wamc.org/post/dutchess-county-executive-cap-sales-tax-revenue-distribution>;

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"Dutchess County Budget Can Be Improved"
by Joel Tyner 2:35 p.m. EST December 1, 2014 Poughkeepsie Journal

<http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/story/opinion/valley-views/2014/12/01/tyner-dutchess-budget/19743753/>;

Speak up at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Dutchess County budget hearing on the sixth floor of our County Office Building at 22 Market St. in Poughkeepsie ­ and again at 7 p.m. on Thursday just before all 25 legislators vote ­ to save $10 million county tax dollars annually these six proven ways:

1. fully funding pro-active, cost-saving youth and drug treatment programs (e.g., our county Youth Bureau's Project Return program should be restored, along with full funding for Nubian Directions).

2. real reform of our county's criminal justice system (Newt Gingrich and Van Jones are right: http://www.JobsNotJails.weebly.com ).

3. no-money-down solar power for county property (as in Schenectady County, Clarkstown, and Esopus).

4. a living-wage law for large retail chain stores/restaurants like Wal-Mart and McDonald's (May 2013 report from the House Committee on Education and the Workforce).
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/31/walmart-taxpayers-house-report_n_3365814.html

5. stopping GOP's proposed welfare for corporate jets at our county airport (stop $2.6 million water pipeline and tax exemption for jets).

6. stopping the inexplicable near-doubling of our county's Tourism budget (to over a million dollars!).

Instead, half of that $10 million should be immediately given back to our county's towns, cities, and villages ­ the $5 million annually our county government has been taking from them the past two years (ever since County Executive Marc Molinaro changed the county sales tax revenue-sharing formula in late 2012 with local municipalities).

The other $5 million should, again, be reinvested in our youth, restoring the five-day week to our county Office for the Aging Senior Friendship Centers, bringing back both our county's Human Rights Commission and Office of Consumer Affairs ­ and revitalizing our local economy with innovative New Economy Coalition/Democracy Collaborative/LOIS (Locally Owned Import Substitution) recommendations from the Omega Institute's Rebuilding the Collaborative Commons conference in October.

Moreover, incredibly, Dutchess GOP legislative members have proposed no increase whatsoever in any chemical dependency services, case management, emergency treatment, or any mental health services to anyone in the county, according to pages 257 through 260 of the Tentative Executive Summary for the County Budget.
<http://www.co.dutchess.ny.us/CountyGov/Departments/budget/2015_tentative_budget/2015_Tentative_Executive_Summary.pdf>;

This, in spite of what Robert Allers, the Dutchess County Commissioner of Community and Family Services, stated Nov. 19 openly and publicly in our County Legislature's Chambers during a county Legislature Budget, Finance, and Personnel Committee meeting ­ that "there's been an increase of 19 percent in kids coming into care because of cuts in mental healthcare."
[view webcast here for yourself: <http://www.co.dutchess.ny.us/CLStreamingVideoLink.htm>; ]

Finally, there is no excuse for the Republicans on our County Legislature's Budget, Finance, and Personnel Committee to have summarily shot down these 5 proposed budget amendments of mine (that, if enacted, would save more than funds invested):

$264,000 to double the current number of youth served by Full Functional Family Therapy [to avoid the county's having to spend literally tens of millions of our tax dollars on placing Dutchess County youth in institutions through our county's Department of Community and Family Services!];

$50,000 to bring back the Green Teen Community Gardening Program in the City of Poughkeepsie through CCEDC;

$43,000 for Food Access and Financial Fitness for Emerging Adults also through Cornell Cooperative Extension;

$36,000 for Hudson Valley Boy Scouts for Inner-City Camp program for Poughkeepsie/Dutchess;

$17,000 to Mental Health America of Dutchess County for their Kids on the Block program.

Fact: Each at-risk youth prevented from life of crime saves $1.2 million, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

That FRAM filter guy from the 1970s is still right ­ we pay now ­ or we pay later.

Joel Tyner is a Dutchess County Legislator representing Clinton and Rhinebeck.
You can email Dutchess County legislators at countylegislators@dutchessny.gov.

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Recall as well what former (and hopefully soon-to-be-again) Co. Leg. Debra Blalock stated on all this in her brilliant Poughkeepsie Journal Valley Views op-ed piece Nov. 23rd-- that fully "Eighty percent of those arrested in Dutchess County have some connection to substance abuse, mental illness or both. Fully half are clinically addicted. There is a strong connection between substance abuse and crime. Most untreated abusers released from jail go on to commit a new crime."   [even county Criminal Justice Council verifies]

More from Debra's op-ed Nov. 23rd-- "According to The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, ³If all inmates with substance use disorders who are not receiving treatment were provided evidence-based treatment and aftercare, we would break even on this investment in one year if just over 10 percent of those receiving such services remained substance and crime free and employed. For each succeeding year that these inmates remained substance and crime free and employed, the nation would reap an economic benefit of $90,953 per inmate in reduced crime, lower arrest, prosecution, incarceration and health care costs, and economic benefits from employment.²  Under the current Dutchess system, most incarcerated persons get minimal treatment and are much more likely to be returned to jail, perpetuating a cycle that aids no one ‹ not the individual, not their families, not their communities and certainly not the taxpayers who are footing the bill."

Indeed-- as Co. Leg. Minority Leader Barbara Jeter-Jackson stated in recent Democratic caucus press release-- "The County Budget is being balanced on the backs of our local governments and the people who rely on mental health services."

Finally-- local GOP need to be held accountable on breaking public
promise made by Molinaro/Weiss in May to fully restore county funding
cut to youth programs (and why GOP vote Dec. 4th against youth center in 2015?...why wait until 2017?)-- including the incredibly cost-effective
Project Return program our county's Youth Bureau had for many years
up until several years ago for at-risk youth- and the Green Teen
Community Gardening program for Poughkeepsie at-risk youth run by
Cornell Cooperative Extension of Dutchess County; recall-- there is
no longer a YMCA, a YWCA, or even a Big Brothers Big Sisters in
Poughkeepsie any more, and at the 20th annual Mid-Hudson Rev. Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. March this past January, Nubian Directions'
Robert Wright stated publicly that there are at least another hundred
at-risk youth locally that could and should be taken off the streets
and put in his programs, but can't do now due to lack of funding;
each at-risk youth kept out of criminal justice system saves $1.2
million, according to USDOJ-- highly ironic that a Conservative/GOP
Dutchess County Legislator (Incoronato) recently wondered aloud during one of our County Legislature's Budget, Finance, and Personnel Committee
meetings why the cost to county taxpayers of dealing with juvenile
delinquents in our county's criminal justice system has skyrocketed
over the last few years-- little wonder when so many youth programs
eliminated:
<http://www.njafter3.org/edu/docs/Statistics-ResearchFindings-Benefits-of-Afterschool.pdf>;
<http://www.epi.msu.edu/janthony/requests/articles/CohenMonetary%20High-Risk%20Youth.pdf>; .