"Owlish, quiet Assembly leader Silver wields great power in NY"

By MICHAEL GORMLEY, Associated Press

Last updated: 5:13 p.m., Wednesday, April 9, 2008

ALBANY -- The owlish, quiet man in glasses who speaks in a low, almost inaudible monotone is easy to overlook.

But in New York's power politics, he's impossible to ignore.

This week, New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver is being blamed for derailing the nation's most visible pilot of a plan that would limit urban traffic and reduce choking air pollution for generations.

He wouldn't even bring the issue of a traffic congestion fee to a floor vote, citing what he said was overwhelming opposition by his Democratic members, led by those from the outer boroughs and suburbs.

It was another defeat delivered by the Democrat over the Republican-led Senate, the new Democratic governor, and billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

And it was widely viewed as symbolic of a spineless state Legislature that operates behind closed doors and cedes all its power to just three men, including Silver.

Bloomberg, the independent nonpartisan mayor known for holding back public political vitriol, had a hard time with this latest loss to Silver.

"It takes courage to ask people to change," Bloomberg said.

Bloomberg tried to deflect reporters' questions on whether Silver should be blamed directly, then added:

"I do not think that any one person should decide what is right."

Meet Shelly Silver: One of the three most powerful men in New York state politics; lower Manhattan rainmaker, trial lawyer, and perhaps the most inscrutable and criticized member of a state Legislature that is easy to hate.

He's the quintessential Manhattan trial lawyer in pinstripes; yet he lives much of the time in his home in the Catskills mountains where he's an avid golfer.

At 64, he's small and bookish; yet he was a basketball star at Yeshiva University and holds New York Rangers season tickets.

He's an orthodox Jew, a modern Tevia-like character, who won't violate the Sabbath even for pressing state business, but who was also questioned in an investigation of lobbyists for his Las Vegas casino trip.

He deals in billions of dollars in the state budget, and was singled out Wednesday by Billy Easton of the Alliance for Quality Education for being the key to a record increase in school aid approved Wednesday.

"I would call him a master negotiator," Easton said.

Silver has also personally directed tens of millions of dollars in pork-barrel spending to the district he represented since 1976, and -- rumor has it -- represents several bold face names in a lucrative law practice he scrupulously keeps secret under attorney-client protections.

Yet he resoles the toes and heels of his shoes to make them last, and keeps a beat-up pair for wet weather in the trunk of the older model sedan he drives himself.

Perhaps his most notable physical feature: Silver has the thickest of skins, seeming to the point of uncaring that he's routinely seen as an obstructionist.

While he has many allies, few call him a close friend.

He's not known as a great orator, but he delivered Albany's most impassioned speech immediately after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, speaking of the view from his apartment window that overlooked what would forever be called ground zero.

Unlike most political leaders who form deep alliances, Silver's position on issues is usually hard to predict and his the last perspective known.

He's blocked the Senate's Republican majority repeatedly and, days later, sided with GOP senators to override hundreds of vetoes by former Republican Gov. George Pataki.

Silver has also rebuked former Democratic Gov. Eliot Spitzer, most notably in choosing a new comptroller.

Polls show few New Yorkers know Silver, even though he has led the Assembly since 1994 and was the driving force behind such major initiatives as universal pre-Kindergarten, tax-break zones for employers, the revival of lower Manhattan after Sept. 11, and a nanotech research center in Albany.

But polls also show that most of those who do know him, don't like him.

"I certainly wouldn't consider him a friend, and he wouldn't consider me one, but I've known him since the mid-'80s," said Steven Greenberg, a former spokesman for Democrats.

He respects Silver as smart and savvy.

Silver's opponents blame him for elimination of a commuter tax that could have brought the city $5 billion and counting since 1999.

He's also blamed for the loss of the 2012 Olympics by opposing a huge development plan for Manhattan's west side that would have included a stadium for the New York Jets.

The New York Daily News on Wednesday derisively called this graveyard of opportunity "Shell's Kitchen."

Silver's opposite number, Republican Senate leader Joseph Bruno from upstate, has long had a tolerate-hate relationship with the Manhattanite.

In thorny legislative and budget negotiations, Bruno says Silver just crosses his arms, sits back, and waits.

And waits.

Usually, it works.

"He's got great timing," said Democratic Assemblyman Richard Brodsky of Westchester.

"He sits and waits for things to come to him."

"Most people don't have that kind of patience."

"NY budgets $46 million to boost AMD microchip factory plan"

By MICHAEL VIRTANEN, Associated Press

Last updated: 4:12 p.m., Wednesday, April 9, 2008

ALBANY -- State officials have budgeted $46 million to help Advanced Micro Devices Inc. build new factories in upstate New York even as the No. 2 chip maker announced this week that first-quarter sales were lower than expected and it plans to cut its global work force by 10 percent.

State, town and company officials said site planning and other advance work is continuing for the new Luther Forest Industrial Park in rural Saratoga County.

Capital funding was included in the fiscal 2008-09 budget, which state lawmakers were approving Wednesday.

"At this point in time it's full bore ahead ... with the expectation that sometime around next January they'll be able to start construction," said Malta Town Supervisor Paul Sausville.

About $32 million in bids for a 5 1/2-mile road project for the industrial park were let this week, while the county is building a water system that will also serve the site and a sewage treatment plant is being upgraded, he said.

Gary Silcott, spokesman for Sunnyvale, Calif.-based AMD, said the job cuts and upstate New York project, which would provide "additional capacity" instead of replacing an existing facility, are unrelated.

"We have not yet committed to the plan."

"We have until July 2009 to commit."

"But the New York plan has always been a long-term commitment," Silcott said.

The site plan envisions up to three factories, and construction won't begin this year, he said.

"That won't happen until after the agreement is signed and a commitment is made," Silcott said.

AMD said Monday sales for the three months ended March 29 were closer to $1.5 billion, a 22 percent jump over last year but 15 percent lower than the fourth quarter.

It said job cuts, which amount to more than 1,600 workers out of 16,800 worldwide, were expected to start this month and end by September.

Kris Thompson, spokesman for state Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, said state and local officials are in constant communication with the company.

"AMD's moving forward and developing and implementing the necessary measures to ensure the plant will be one of the largest economic development projects in New York state history," Thompson said.

"We have no reason to believe it will be sidetracked."

Bruno, whose district includes the site, joined in the June 2006 announcement of more than $1 billion in state funding and tax incentives for the planned $3.6 billion plant.

Meanwhile, state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo in January announced an investigation into AMD's chief rival, Intel Corp., for possible violations of state and federal antitrust laws.

Cuomo said his preliminary review showed a need for a full investigation.

Subpoenas sought information on whether Intel coerced customers to exclude AMD from the market for a specific computer processing unit, including data about pricing strategies and whether it improperly paid computer makers for exclusivity.

John Milgrim, spokesman for Cuomo, said Wednesday the investigation is ongoing.

There is no connection between the probe and AMD's New York project, he said.

In 2005, AMD filed a lawsuit claiming Intel bullied major customers -- PC makers like Dell Inc. -- into exclusive deals and offered secret rebates.

Intel, which commands three-quarters of the worldwide microprocessor market, has denied AMD's allegations and defends its business practices as legal and beneficial to consumers.

In July, the European Union charged Intel with violating antitrust rules by selling its chips below cost to strategic customers, among other practices.

"Highlights of the 2008-09 NY state budget"

Associated Press

Last updated: 7:02 p.m., Wednesday, April 9, 2008

ALBANY -- There is a lot in the $121.7 billion state budget for the 2008-09 fiscal year that will pinch New Yorkers' wallets, help their communities, and likely puzzle a few taxpayers as the state heads toward recession.

The budget, which could be approved Wednesday, is also notable for what was left out.

SPENDING HIGHLIGHTS:

--"Enhanced driver's licenses" to help New Yorkers comply with the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative.

The new, optional driver's licenses will allow New Yorkers to travel outside the country without needing a passport or birth certificate.

The new, 8-year licenses will add $30 to the $50 cost of reissuing a license with part of the $66 million in revenue going to the state's general fund and to counties.

--An additional $20 surcharge on most motor vehicle offenses and a $170 surcharge in sentencing for driving while intoxicated.

--A record $1.75 billion increase in school aid, to about $20 billion.

That includes extra funding sought for New York City and suburban Long Island school districts, and a guarantee that no district will receive less than a 3 percent increase.

State legislators say that should be enough to ease increases in local school taxes.

--A restoration of $273 million in measures sought by Gov. David Paterson to reduce the growth in spending in health care, mostly for hospitals and nursing homes that lobbied hard for the funding.

--A weakening or at least a delay of the long-range plan by former Gov. Eliot Spitzer and Paterson to cut health care spending that has forced state spending increases of two or three times the inflation rate in recent years.

For example, for the five fiscal years ending in 2006-07 before the effort, Medicaid spending grew an average of 8.3 percent.

In 2006-07, in the first year of the effort pushed by Spitzer, spending decreased 1.9 percent.

Under the current budget, spending will increase 1.1 percent.

In addition, further cuts will now require input from the hospitals and health care industry that would lose funding.

--Creation of a discount prescription card for income-eligible New Yorkers.

The cards will provide discounts on average of 30 percent off brand-name drugs and 60 percent off generic drugs for about 400,000 New Yorkers 50 to 64 years old and the disabled.

--State lawmakers will keep almost 100 troopers in schools, instead of putting them along the border, but redeploy more than 100 troopers now covering video slot machine centers authorized by the state Lottery Division.

The redeployed troopers will go to cities with rising crime rates, many of which are upstate.

--$25 million to provide health coverage for about 400,000 uninsured children from low and moderate income families.

--$15.6 million to provide loan repayments, grants and other incentives to place more physicians in rural and urban areas without enough medical providers.

--A $1.25-per-pack increase in the cigarette and small cigar tax to raise $268 million, mostly for health care programs.

--A bolstered anti-fraud office with 75 more workers to recover more misused Medicaid funds.

--A revamped detoxification system sought for years that will provide more effective and less expensive care.

--Provides $6.6 million to pay for legal services for some civil cases brought by New Yorkers who can't afford a lawyer.

--Provides $200,000 for a state witness protection program to fight crime.

--Increases the mandatory surcharges in criminal cases.

The measure raises the fee to access a criminal history record from $3 to $55, and increases the crime victim assistance fee from $5 to $25.

--$95 million to improve state parks.

--The Environmental Protection Fund will be increased to $255 million, a $5 million increase.

The program pays for land that will be protected from development, as well as environmental programs such as $1 million for a Pollution Prevention Institute, and public health programs including $450,000 for a Breast Cancer Environmental Risk Factor Program.

--Other environmental funding includes $400,000 for the Cornell University Community Integrated Pest Management Program, $200,000 for a Road Salt Study in the Adirondacks and $1.5 million for the Marine Diseases Pathology Consortium to be administered by SUNY Stony Brook.

--Cuts 9 percent, or $12 million, from the state Lottery, but authorizes allowing investors to pay for the right to operate the lottery in exchange for a trust fund worth billions of dollars.

--Provides $250,000 for the French and Indian War 250th Anniversary events.

------

SPENDING REJECTED BY THE LEGISLATURE:

--Paterson's plan to cut 2 percent in the growth in aid to municipalities, leaving many with about an 8 percent increase in aid over the previous fiscal year.

But the cut in state aid could contribute to higher local property taxes for those cities.

Paterson had sought 2 percent cuts in state agencies, too, to combat a deficit estimated at nearly $5 billion.

--A proposal to increase the income tax on New Yorkers making over $1 million a year.

--A proposal to increase the $291 basic monthly welfare grant for a family of three by $29.

--A "car tax" proposed in the executive budget that would have permanently raised the motor vehicle law enforcement fee from $5 to $20.

Instead, they're proposing extending the current fee of $5 for one year only.

--A nearly $5 million plan to expand broadband Internet access in New York.

Senate Republicans say they support making broadband available to more people, but the additional money isn't urgently needed because $5 million that previously had been allotted for that purpose was just released last month.

--Spitzer's cost-saving plan to close four of New York's 69 prisons, where the inmate population has dropped by 9,000 in a decade to about 62,000 with a staff of 31,000.

That keeps open Camp Pharsalia in Chenango County, Camp McGregor in Saratoga County, Camp Gabriels in Franklin County and Hudson Correctional Facility in Columbia County.

--A raise for the 1,250 state-level judges, sought after 10 years of falling behind counterparts nationwide.

Despite widespread support for the idea, the chances of the bill passing dimmed when public pressure forced judges' raises to be uncoupled from legislators' pay raises.

That's how senators and Assembly members have gotten past raises.

------

SOURCES: The state Budget Division, the Senate and Assembly majority offices.

"Big money for schools, shaky revenue sources in state budget"

By VALERIE BAUMAN, Associated Press

Last updated: 6:53 p.m., Wednesday, April 9, 2008

ALBANY -- The state Legislature passed a $121.7 billion budget Wednesday that will include $1.5 billion in new taxes, $205 million in new fees and $200 million in member items -- or pork barrel spending -- that politicians can direct back to their own districts.

Legislators expect the state to raise $66.4 million for an optional new driver's license or ID card that would add $30 to the current $50 license fee and give the user the ability to cross some borders, including Canada's.

Another $28 million is expected to come in from a new surcharge on traffic tickets and another $70 million will come from a new assessment on health insurers.

For New Yorkers, this means they'll have to spend more on identification if they want to go to bordering countries, and if they drive too fast along the way it could cost them $20 more for a ticket and $170 more if they drive under the influence.

State officials don't think the extra fee they've applied to insurance companies will be passed on to customers, but it remains a possibility.

The budget doesn't include new personal income taxes and it cuts local assistance programs -- except for school aid and most entitlement programs -- by 2 percent to save $270 million.

"In the economy, we're in the worst of times," Gov. David Paterson said Wednesday of the difficulty in getting out the budget -- which was nine days past the state's constitutional deadline.

He described the economy and the unique circumstances that made him governor less than a month ago as "twin storms" complicating the budget.

Paterson took over March 17 because former Gov. Eliot Spitzer resigned after being linked to a prostitution ring.

New York state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli questioned Wednesday if the revenues lawmakers are counting on to cover the state budget will turn up.

"Albany should keep an eraser handy," DiNapoli said of the 2008-09 budget proposal.

Budget planners come up with a spending plan in part by anticipating revenue from the previous year, and 2007-08 was "a volatile year," he said.

"Spending and revenue projections were a moving target all year and significantly deviated from what was estimated," DiNapoli said.

"The economy is in rough shape and the worst may still be around the corner."

DiNapoli's preliminary revenue and spending results for the last fiscal year pointed to lower than expected business taxes, and general fund tax receipts $120 million below estimates.

With that trend, the Legislature may have to reevaluate their spending plans throughout the year.

In past years when revenues plummeted, the Legislature had to return to Albany to cut the budget, including school district funds.

"It's a concern of mine, like it is of everybody in New York state," Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno said Wednesday.

"I don't think it will happen."

"I'd rather be optimistic and expect that pretty much the worst of what we have to do budget-wise and the challenges that we've overcome here in getting the budget done are behind us."

"What the future brings, no one can tell."

The budget, which was due April 1, increased spending 4.9 percent and included $1.6 billion in capital projects statewide.

An upstate revitalization initiative will pump $700 million into the struggling region.

Education advocates said kids are the real winners in the budget and that the historic $1.75 billion increase in aid will help more students perform better in the neediest schools.

"We were able to keep a promise to the children of our state," Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said.

But the bloated budget and reliance on questionable revenue sources at a time when the economy is on a downturn could mean higher taxes and even bigger budget gaps in the future.

Elizabeth Lynam, deputy research director for the Citizen's Budget Commission, said the spending in Albany is out of control, and in the long run New Yorkers will be paying for it.

"Eight months from now they're going to be wrestling with a $5 billion-plus budget gap, in a situation where it's likely to be worse because the revenues won't be there," she said.

"The tax burden New Yorkers face is already the second highest in the country, and unless their elected officials take stock of the situation and get the pocketbook under control, the taxes will be even higher."

The state will get additional revenue through a number of new business taxes, including $429 million from closing what lawmakers called tax "loopholes."

Lawmakers expect to raise $250 million in taxes to put video slot machines into the Aqueduct Racetrack and other developments that could include hotels.

Another $268 million will come in from increases in taxes on cigarettes and small cigars, both of which are going up $1.25.

State officials couldn't provide the exact budget deficit they had to fill for fiscal year 2008-2009, but it's projected at $4.6 billion.

"Push for ethics reform falls flat - Law's mandates, aimed at improving oversight of lawmakers, are unmet"

By IRENE JAY LIU, Capitol bureau, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Wednesday, April 9, 2008

ALBANY -- More than a year after state leaders passed what they called "landmark" ethics legislation, the commission that is supposed to make sure legislators aren't breaking the law is itself not following the law.

The legislation called for reorganizing the Legislative Ethics Committee into the Legislative Ethics Commission, as well as appointing a nine-member board of legislators and non-legislators, building a Web site and posting generic advisory opinions of the commission to the Web, among other things.

On nearly all fronts, the commission has so far failed to implement the law.

In passing the legislation, lawmakers agreed to appoint a commission that would be composed of four legislators and five "independent" members who were not part of the Legislature.

This was a key change -- in the past, all members were legislators.

After the legislation was passed, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, Assembly Minority Leader James Tedisco, Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno, and Senate Minority Leader Malcolm Smith each appointed two members to the commission -- a legislator and an "independent" member.

The ninth, "tie-breaker" member is a joint appointment by Bruno and Silver.

So far, that position has not been filled.

"They haven't sat down to discuss the appointment," said Silver spokesman Sisa Moyo.

Bruno spokesman Scott Reif said the focus right now is on finalizing a state budget.

"Senator Bruno will meet with the speaker to discuss this appointment at the appropriate time," he said.

Neither Moyo nor Reif would say when an appointment would be made.

Under the terms of the ethics reform agreement, all nine appointments were supposed to be made within 30 days of the bill's passage on April 26, 2007.

None of the appointments were made within the deadline.

The law also said the commission must launch a Web site within 120 days of the bill's passage.

A bare-bones Web site was launched in late March, nine months after the deadline.

It included only an annual report but no advisory opinions.

The commission's executive director, Melissa Ryan, said difficulties in coordinating with the Assembly and Senate, and changing decisions about whether to have the Web site built in-house or by an outside designer contributed to the delays.

The law mandates that the commission publish generic advisory opinions on the Web site, answering ethics questions frequently asked by legislators.

When legislators want clarifications about ethics rules, they can request formal advisory opinions of the commission, but the requests and formal opinions are secret and not subject to Freedom of Information laws.

The commission hasn't started working on the generic opinions.

"We haven't discussed it yet, but we will be addressing it very soon," Ryan said.

The legislative ethics committee has long been considered the least transparent of the state's ethics watchdog agencies.

"Historically, this has been a committee that has operated in secret, the information they do make available to the public is not of any use, the key information useful to the public is redacted," said Russ Haven of the New York Public Interest Research Group, which fought for the legislative reforms last year.

Neither the committee nor commission has ever issued a notice of probable cause or assessed a penalty for wrongdoing, according to Ryan, who served as executive director of the committee as well.

In several instances the commission never took action against lawmakers who had been accused or convicted of crimes:

Assemblywoman Diane Gordon, D-Brooklyn, who was convicted Tuesday of trying to have a private developer build her a $500,000 home for a dollar in exchange for arranging a $2 million land deal.

Sen. Efrain Gonzalez, D-Bronx, who is awaiting trial on federal charges that he funneled nearly half a million taxpayer dollars through a charity to finance his cigar company, buy Yankees tickets and pay his daughter's tuition.

Former Sen. Guy Velella, R-Bronx, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges for steering public works contracts to favored bidders for kickbacks.

Haven said the changes to the legislative committee were the weakest part of the ethics reform bill, and the result is "there doesn't appear to be any difference."

"Nothing in terms of public activity that would indicate that things have improved."

When asked why Haven and his colleagues haven't filed complaints to the commission as allowed by the new law, Haven replied, "In some areas, we've largely thrown up our hands and said until we reform this entity, we're not going to get real investigations or stringent rulings."

"After a while you sort of give up a little bit," he said.

Irene Jay Liu can be reached at 454-5081 or by e-mail at iliu@timesunion.com.

"Veterans protest inaction on health concern - Advocates vent at Capitol as plan to test for toxins remains unfulfilled"

By RICK KARLIN, Capitol bureau, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Wednesday, April 9, 2008

ALBANY -- It's been 16 months since lawmakers approved a plan to help veterans get tested for war-related toxins, including radioactive particles from tank-killing depleted uranium shells used in the Persian Gulf.

But with just two members of the 11-person panel that's supposed to oversee the effort actually appointed, testing has yet to start, say veterans.

"That's why we're frustrated," said Joe Franklin, vice chairman of the National Disabled Veteran Business Council.

Franklin and other advocates on Tuesday called for a number of measures to help veterans, including the stalled effort to test for toxins.

According to the legislation, the Assembly speaker and Senate majority leader each appoint two members to the panel, while the minority leaders each appoint one and the governor names five.

So far, Speaker Sheldon Silver and Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno have made one appointment each, with Bruno naming SUNY researcher David Carpenter and Silver putting Phillip Landrigan of Mount Sinai medical center on the board.

But without the other nine members, little if anything has been done.

And there seems to be little communication among lawmakers, the governor's office and government agencies that would be working with the new task force.

"That information is not reported back to us," said Michelle LaRock, deputy director of administration and budget for the state Division of Veterans Affairs, which has nonvoting representation on the task force.

"They are going through the appointment process right now from what we know," she added.

One advocate said she thought the lack of action by the governor's office may be the result of former Gov. Eliot Spitzer's battles with Bruno last summer over a travel records scandal, followed by Spitzer's sudden resignation last month in a prostitution scandal.

Joan Walker, a retired teacher in Woodstock who helped promote the toxin law, recalls asking Spitzer's former secretary, Richard Baum, about progress on the bill last year, but said, "he was a little bit busy."

She said she called as the travel records scandal was developing.

Depleted uranium, used in the first Gulf War, has a high density that allows it to penetrate tank armor.

But when it explodes or catches fire, the uranium is released as microscopic particles, which can be inhaled or ingested.

Since the particles are radioactive, some fear anyone exposed to them could contract cancer years later.

Activists draw parallels to the problems that arose from Agent Orange, a defoliant which used during the Vietnam War and linked to illnesses among some veterans exposed to it.

"This whole scenario is playing out much like Agent Orange," said Assemblyman Dan Burling, R-Warsaw, and a Vietnam veteran.

Rick Karlin can be reached at 454-5758 or by e-mail at rkarlin@timesunion.com.

"Wrap near for state budget - Work appears done on $121.7B package in time of turmoil"

By JAMES M. ODATO, Capitol bureau, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Wednesday, April 9, 2008

ALBANY -- A state budget is expected to pass today that provides for more than $1.2 billion in capital project borrowing, including about $47 million for Advanced Micro Devices, according to state officials briefed on the deal.

Both the Senate and Assembly are set this morning to review and wrap up the $121.7 billion budget for 2008-2009, up 4.9 percent from last year's all-funds budget.

"I think it's a done deal," said Assembly Majority Leader Ron Canestrari, D-Cohoes.

Several senators concurred.

The budget is expected to raise state operating funds, which don't include capital and federal dollars, to $80.5 billion, up 4.5 percent from last year's budget, said Jeffrey Gordon, a spokesman for the Division of Budget.

He said the budget is the first in a decade to come in lower than the executive budget plan.

Gov. Eliot Spitzer called for $124.2 billion in all funds, and $81.6 billion in state operating funds.

According to officials who have been briefed, Senate Republicans were willing to close down talks after winning "sunsets" on two key taxes.

One involves real estate investment trusts, the other a corporate income tax that will particularly hit financial services and manufacturing industries.

They will expire in three years.

The tax on REITs, affecting banks, is expected to raise about $65 million this year, while the increased corporate income tax will raise about $98 million, officials said.

The economic development package includes $350 million each for Assembly and Senate priority projects and about $500 million for Gov. David Paterson, according to two legislative officials familiar with details of the deal.

Paterson needs about $115 million to cover commitments the former governor made to revive various urban areas upstate in his "City-by-city" initiative.

Funds to support AMD's proposed computer chip fabricating project in Saratoga County, amounting to about $47 million for infrastructure, also are to be part of the package.

The state previously committed $1.2 billion in incentives for AMD.

Although money for a football stadium at the University at Albany isn't in the plan, funds for a new school of business and a campus center project made the list, Canestrari said.

The budget bills being prepared also were to include a line item for $48 million to increase judicial pay, but without the funding to back it up.

The budgeting scheme is known as a "dry appropriation" -- serving as a placeholder should funds be found later in the fiscal year.

Canestrari said the plan was seen as a "good faith" gesture to judges, who have gone more than a decade without a raise, as have the Legislature and top state officials whose salaries are set by law.

Lawmakers, who are up for re-election this year, typically link judges' pay to their own pay hikes.

Lawmakers are having their checks withheld while the budget is late.

It was due April 1.

The education bill, which will provide $1.8 billion in extra funding for schools over last year's number, is expected to have attachments for pork that does not involve schools.

For instance, $37.2 million will be split equally between the Senate and Assembly for discretionary health projects.

The funds are on top of the $45 million in member items -- discretionary funds for pet projects.

The Assembly has already itemized its discretionary health spending -- for AIDS programs, the American Red Cross, family planning and other programs.

The Senate is expected to identify specific hospitals as recipients.

A problem holding up the final budget bills, involving the sums to be spent fixing up public colleges, was expected to be resolved.

A person briefed on the situation said the stumbling block was over the plan to break up capital funds so that the state university system received 65 percent and New York City's system received 35 percent of the higher education money.

Advocates for New York City wanted the historic shares of 40 percent for CUNY.

A tenure battle for teachers appeared to be resolved Tuesday, apparently to the liking of the teachers union.

Negotiators agreed to block the attempt by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and other school district leaders to use test scores to evaluate teachers, a person close to the talks said.

A key revenue-raiser, a $1.25-per-pack tax increase on cigarettes, was projected to raise $265 million.

Also, $250 million in revenues is earmarked from a proposed Aqueduct Race Track video lottery terminal operator.

Three teams vying for the development rights at the Queens track -- Delaware North, Capital Play LLC and SL Green -- must submit their final bids on Friday.

James M. Odato can be reached at 454-5083 or by e-mail at jodato@timesunion.com.

"Budget built on borrowing, fees - $121.7B spending plan also depends on taxes and one-time revenues"

By JAMES M. ODATO, Capitol bureau, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Thursday, April 10, 2008

ALBANY -- Lawmakers completed a $121.7 billion state budget Wednesday that includes substantial borrowing and that budget critics say is precariously balanced on one-time revenues and more than $1 billion in increased taxes and fees.

The budget raises spending 4.9 percent from the $116 billion spent last year.

The Legislature and Gov. David Paterson agreed to split $1.28 billion for big-ticket items that will likely be supported through bonds, including $46 million for the proposed Advanced Micro Devices chip fab in Malta.

Some of the new revenues close loopholes affecting businesses, but some will hit consumers directly, such as a $1.25 increase on the per-pack tax on cigarettes and $70 million more in assessments on health insurance policies.

Paterson said the budget is imperfect and spending habits will have to change drastically, given the nation's faltering economy.

Laura Anglin, his budget director, could not provide many details -- state work force numbers, new debt estimates or the size of the budget gap that will need to be filled next year.

The state earlier pegged it at $3.6 billion, according to an analysis by rating agency Standard & Poor's.

Critics said not only will there be an imbalance in 2009-2010, a midyear correction may force lawmakers back this year to cut programs, find emergency revenues, or both.

"It's a concern . . . I'd rather be optimistic," said Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno.

Education spending rises by $1.75 billion.

Paterson agreed to strip tenure requirements for certain education aid from the budget deal, saying it wasn't fair to base job security on student test scores.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said Paterson did "an extraordinary job leading us to this," given that the governor has been in office just 23 days after Eliot Spitzer's resignation.

The Legislature did well, Silver said, to deliver a budget "only nine days late."

Assemblyman James Hayes, R-East Amherst, said the measure needed more paring.

"The money is simply not there," he said, predicting "a crushing blow that will come later."

The budget includes $200 million for community projects for the Senate and Assembly, and for Paterson using unused "member item" funds from past years rather than new money, said Anglin.

She said it isn't feasible to ask the Legislature to reprogram such discretionary funds for more essential needs.

As a result, the final budget bills are laden with member items for such things as Little Leagues, gay and lesbian organizations, food pantries, circuses and ethnic programs.

More and bigger member items are possible: The capital budget includes $350 million for the majority conferences of each chamber to use for economic development.

Silver identified some his projects, such as $25 million for the University of Rochester's Clinical and Transitional Science Building and $15 million for the developing Marcy NanoCenter.

The Senate did not produce a list.

Bruno did tease that an international business will be moving its operations to the Capital Region.

Paterson said he will hold off on spending his $585 million, but ruled out using it on "pork."

Much of his money is already committed under projects announced by Spitzer.

Some of it also is wrapped up in a huge deal set up by Gov. George Pataki in 2006 for Advanced Micro Devices.

The new budget calls for $45 million to fix up Luther Forest Technology Campus with infrastructure upgrades and $1 million for the economic development corporation that runs the campus.

Bruno said the money supplements the $1.2 billion in Pataki-era incentives to lure AMD.

The financially ailing chip manufacturing company proposes a $3.2 billion plant at the Luther Forest site.

Bruno said some of the Senate capital will be for GE Healthcare's move to North Greenbush, for which $10 million is committed.

Another $200 million is earmarked for affordable housing programs and $40 million is set up for grants to the agriculture industry.

The sums are less than Spitzer proposed.

Moreover, Spitzer's $1 billion upstate revitalization initiative was shrunk to a $700 million program.

To support the budget, one-time revenues known as "one shots" are included in $1.52 billion in new funds.

It assumes $250 million from a vendor willing to pay for develop Aqueduct racetrack and run video gaming there.

James M. Odato can be reached at 454-5083 or by e-mail at jodato@timesunion.com.

"Albany lobbyists enjoy golden year - Record amount spent in 2007 seeking to affect legislative action"

By RICK KARLIN, Capitol bureau, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Thursday, April 10, 2008

Albany has been very, very good to the lobbying industry, with a record $171.2 million spent in 2007, up some $20 million from the previous year.

All told, 5,357 lobbyists -- about 25 for every legislator -- reported their expenses to the state Commission on Public Integrity.

For the 11th year running, the top lobbyist by income was Wilson, Elser, Moskowitz, Edelman & Dicker, which took in $9.6 million, followed by Patricia Lynch & Associates at $6.7 million and Bolton St. Johns Inc. with $5.7 million.

Wilson, Elser's clients vary from health care concerns like Albany Medical Center to utilities like National Grid to other organizations, including Norwegian Cruise Line and Catskill Off-Track Betting.

Lynch's clients include Cablevision, the Albany Port District and Coca-Cola.

Bolton's roster includes the SEIU health care workers union and Verizon Wireless.

Health care led interest groups in spending on lobbyists with $26.7 million in expenditures, followed by real estate and construction at $21.3 million.

Education took third place at $13.2 million.

Among individual clients, Verizon spent $3.2 million, followed by the Columbia University trustees at $2.2 million and New York State United Teachers with $2.1 million.

These clients, or interest groups, don't limit their spending to lobbying.

An analysis by the New York Public Interest Research Group, for example, indicated that NYSUT was one of the state's largest campaign contributors, doling out $714,047, followed by the Greater New York Hospital Association at $543,516.

Verizon also gave $157,620 to political candidates.

As a result, Verizon topped the list in combined contributions and lobbying, with almost $3.4 million, followed by NYSUT at $2.8 million.

Also on NYPIRG's so-called "Fat Cat" list of big donors and campaign contributors were the hospital association and the Healthcare Association of New York State, the Medical Society of the state of New York and the New York State Trial Lawyers Association.

NYPIRG Legislative Director Blair Horner noted that these big spenders almost always have business before state lawmakers or regulators, who operate under rules set by the lawmakers.

NYSUT, for instance, was in the news Wednesday for its effort, through the state budget process, to successfully beat back a proposal that would have allowed student test scores to be among the considerations school boards could use in making tenure decisions.

While lawmakers overwhelmingly approved the budget bill that prevented using test scores, a few who favor using the measure spoke their mind.

"No one else brought this to the floor" other than the teachers union, remarked Assemblywoman Barbara Clark, D-Queens, who favored the tenure/testing plan.

Lobbying money is often spent not to make something happen but to block proposals that companies or groups don't like.

Verizon, for example, is among several telecom firms to have fought proposals to let people more easily cancel cellphone contracts.

Such proposals have been debated for several years but have yet to become law, noted Bill Ferris, legislative representative for AARP, which has pushed for such regulations.

Karlin can be reached at 454-5758 or by e-mail at rkarlin@timesunion.com.

"NY's chief judge is suing state over colleagues' pay"

By SAMUEL MAULL, Associated Press

Last updated: 6:33 p.m., Thursday, April 10, 2008

NEW YORK -- The state's chief judge sued the state Thursday over its failure to increase judicial salaries.

The lawsuit by Chief Judge Judith Kaye was filed in Manhattan's state Supreme Court.

It says that because the state's judges have not had a pay hike since January 1999, their salaries have in effect shrunk by 27 percent.

Kaye's lawyer, Bernard Nussbaum, said it is illegal to reduce a sitting judge's salary, and that is in effect what has happened.

The state budget approved Wednesday by the Legislature includes $48 million for pay raises that would include the judges.

But while that funding is available in the budget, the money can't be spent until the Legislature agrees to a bill that would authorize the raises.

Nussbaum said the state's 1,250 judges sometimes make less than freshman associates in New York City's larger law firms.

The jurists' annual average pay, ranging from $108,800 for a full-time city court judge to Kaye's salary of $156,000, ranks 49th in the nation, the lawyer said.

Nussbaum, a former counsel in the Clinton White House, said he wants state judges to earn the same as federal judges, $169,300 a year.

He said he is asking for a trial on May 14 and has said that he will try to have Gov. David Paterson and other state leaders summoned to testify.

"We're asking for an order that the money be paid," Nussbaum said.

He said this means the court would issue a judgment directing the state treasury, through the comptroller, to pay the judges.

Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno, a Republican, issued a statement saying that rather than suing, judges should step up pressure on the Assembly to act on either of two pay increase bills already approved by the Senate.

A spokesman said Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a Democrat, supports pay raises for judges, agency commissioners and legislators.

While state leaders agree judges' raises are overdue, the issue has been stalled because lawmakers linked it to politically sensitive raises for themselves.

Other state employees have had at least cost-of-living bumps.

Kaye spokesman David Bookstaver said salaries for nonunion court employees are frozen at a maximum of $115,000 so they won't make more than the judges.

Nussbaum said lawmakers in each legislative house have tried to put blame on members of the other, but they are all to blame.

"It's their fault," he said.

He said the lawmakers' linkage of judges' pay to salary hikes for themselves is illegal and has blocked the judges' wage boosts.

Nussbaum, who says he is working on the case for free, said the difference between this lawsuit and two others brought by judges is that this one is being filed by "a separate branch of government," not by Kaye as an individual.

The lawyer said Kaye was able to file it in state court, before a judge who will be affected by the outcome, because of the 500-year-old "rule of necessity."

He said this means that if every available judge would normally be disqualified, then any judge other than the one filing the lawsuit can hear the case.

"NY town judge faces censure in ticket fix for Army buddy's wife"

By MICHAEL VIRTANEN, Associated Press

Last updated: 5:03 p.m., Thursday, April 10, 2008

ALBANY -- A divided New York Commission on Judicial Conduct has agreed to merely reprimand an upstate town justice who dismissed a speeding ticket for a deployed soldier's wife, but another commissioner called it "a distorted vision of patriotism" and said the judge should be removed.

Eight commissioners agreed that Farmington Town Justice Morris H. Lew fixed Lori Gilmore's 2005 speeding ticket soon after he received an e-mail from Martin Gilmore in Iraq wondering what could be done.

The men had been in the Army Reserves together.

Afterward, Lew sent Martin Gilmore an e-mail, which said in part:

"The ticket has been dismissed."

"Please consider it a very small token of thanks for your efforts in uniform."

The commission majority said ticket-fixing was a widespread problem across the state in the 1970s before 140 judges were disciplined, and it was "egregious conduct" in this case that would normally warrant a judge's removal.

According to the commission, Lew had quietly taken the case from a fellow town judge and scheduled it quickly without notifying that judge, the ticketing state trooper or Lori Gilmore.

He told the trooper, who happened to be in court that evening, he would dismiss it unless the officer objected.

Six commissioners cited mitigating factors to warrant the lesser punishment of censure: Lew's otherwise umblemished record and his patriotism.

"It is apparent that respondent was motivated in significant part by the desire to provide 'a very small token of thanks' to an acquaintance in the military who was then serving in Iraq."

"While this does not excuse respondent's actions, it appears that his judgment was clouded by that fact and by his desire to make what he viewed as a patriotic gesture," the majority concluded.

The six were Judge Thomas Klonick, attorney Stephen Coffey, Colleen DiPirro, attorney Paul Harding, Judge Karen Peters and Judge Terry Jane Ruderman.

Two commissioners, Judge Jill Konviser and attorney Richard Emery, said Lew should be removed, which had also been the recommendation of commission counsel Robert Tembeckjian.

In his dissent, Emery wrote that Lew simply fixed a ticket for a friend's wife "and removal is the only sanction that is commensurate with the corrosive effect of judicial decision-making perverted by a judge's personal interests."

He also criticized Lew's decision to consider honoring his friend's military service ahead of applying the law evenhandedly and questioned the majority's rationale.

It not only failed as a mitigating circumstance, Emery wrote, it made the action worse.

"What Judge Lew forgot to consider is that his friend in Iraq, as well as many in the armed services, likely believe they are fighting to protect their country and the freedom guaranteed to each of its citizens by the Constitution of the United States," Emery wrote.

"By intentionally violating the basic precepts of due process and equal protection, the judge may have done a favor that even his distorted vision of patriotism should abhor."

Lew could challenge the commission finding before the state Court of Appeals, which could then impose a greater or lesser discipline, Tembeckjian said.

If he doesn't challenge it, the commission's finding will become final in 30 days.

Lew said Thursday he disagrees with the commission finding, but challenging it wouldn't serve any purpose.

"I want my constituents to know I didn't fix any traffic tickets," Lew said.

"The trooper who wrote this ticket chose to dismiss this ticket totally of his own volition without any coercion of any kind."

"I didn't make any attempt whatsoever to influence his decision."

The only similar case recently, where patriotism was the defense, resulted in the removal of a town judge who went to Iraq to work as a contract truck driver for several months in 2005, Tembeckjian said.

The commission unanimously concluded North Hudson Town Justice Glenn Fiore had abandoned the office.

"NY budget alters construction law that drove up local taxes"

By VALERIE BAUMAN, Associated Press

Last updated: 5:23 p.m., Thursday, April 10, 2008

ALBANY -- New York lawmakers have reformed a decades-old law that drove up local property taxes by requiring state and local governments to pay for multiple construction contracts on most public works projects.

The change included in the budget adopted Wednesday will cut New York City's long term construction costs by more than $200 million and upstate governments are also expected to save millions, supporters said.

The Wicks Law dates back to 1921 and was updated in 1961 for state contracts and 1964 for local governments.

It required governments with construction projects valued at $50,000 or more to divide the job into several contracts.

The law, which was intended to protect subcontractors from billing fraud, drove up construction costs, which were then passed onto taxpayers.

The new threshold for triggering the law is $3 million in New York City, $1.5 million in downstate suburbs and $500,000 in upstate New York.

It's the first time the law has been adjusted for inflation since the 1960s.

But Andrew Rudnick, president and CEO of the Buffalo Niagara Partnership, says the change is not enough.

The partnership is a regional chamber of commerce in western New York and a member of the Unshackle Upstate coalition, which opposes Wicks.

"We were terribly distressed that it was included in the budget bill that was finally passed," Rudnick said.

"The thresholds are very, very low and to create a level for upstate that is two levels lower than that of metro New York is an insult."

Unshackle Upstate would rather see Wicks abandoned altogether, or at least have a threshold of $10 million across the state before it went into effect, he said.

Until that happens the issue will still affect taxpayers, he said.

More than 70 percent of New York's public works projects will be exempt under the new Wicks reforms.

There was a previous deal to change the Wicks Law.

Almost a year ago, legislative leaders and former Gov. Eliot Spitzer publicly agreed to changes as part of a deal involving several issues.

But that deal unraveled as the Democratic governor became embroiled in a political conflict with Senate Republican leader Joseph Bruno.

In March, Spitzer resigned in a prostitution scandal and was succeeded by his lieutenant governor, Democrat David Paterson.

Other budget developments include:

--Higher Education: The budget authorizes $15.5 billion of capital funding for State University of New York and City University of New York System senior colleges and community colleges.

It also authorizes the creation of an endowment for SUNY and CUNY that would provide a permanent source of recurring revenue, but lawmakers haven't figured out how to pay for it yet.

Lawmakers didn't include a tuition increase for SUNY and CUNY schools this year.

--Economic development: The budget allots $1.6 billion in economic development funds, with $700 million going to upstate regions.

That includes projects to develop region-specific techniques to boost local economies.

It also means that $180 million will go to upstate cities to end the gridlock on critical economic development projects.

State parks will get $70 million to help draw residents, tourists, and private investments to natural resources.

--Housing: Affordable housing could be easier to find in New York after a historic $300 million increase in funding for housing programs.

The new funds will help build and preserve affordable housing all across the state and improve state programs that serve the population that most needs housing assistance.

--Mortgage crisis: In an attempt to take on the mortgage crisis that has the national economy reeling, the state budget provides $25 million in grants through the state Division of Housing and Community Renewal.

The money will be dedicated to legal services and financial counseling for homeowners facing default and foreclosure due to unscrupulous practices in the mortgage industry.

------

On the Net: http://www.budget.state.ny.us/

"State canceling tax breaks on local projects - Agency that runs Empire Zone program says Troy developer, First Niagara don't meet program criteria"

By LARRY RULISON, Business writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Thursday, April 10, 2008

SCHENECTADY -- Two local real estate projects are getting their Empire Zone status revoked as part of an effort to hold participants in the state economic development program more accountable.

Empire State Development Corp., the state agency that administers the Empire Zone program, has notified First Niagara Financial Group and Troy developer David Bryce that projects they own in the area face decertification.

Created in 1986, the Empire Zone program provides tax breaks to companies that expand or that create jobs in poor areas with high unemployment.

When former Gov. Eliot Spitzer took office last year, his economic development advisers made it a priority to clean up the program, which consumer advocates had criticized for giving away tax breaks to companies that did little to create new jobs.

The government has also pursued that policy under Gov. David Paterson.

Last summer, the state sent letters to about 3,000 companies across the state, including 230 in the Capital Region, saying that they had fallen short of their Empire Zone commitments.

Earlier this week, ESDC announced that it was moving to decertify 26 companies across the state, including two locally.

The companies have 30 days to request an administrative hearing.

However, it appears that neither Bryce nor First Niagara are fighting decertification.

Bryce's Troy project, known as Hudson River Place LLC, received nearly $200,000 in Empire Zone benefits between 2003 and 2005, according to ESDC records.

Contacted Wednesday, Bryce said that Hudson River Place was a project that ended up being the renovation of just one building at 295 River St., although he originally planned to include more buildings.

He says that he was able to get sales tax breaks by having Empire Zone certification, but he thought the $200,000 figure sounded higher than the benefits he remembered receiving.

He says he isn't fighting the state's move, but he also didn't want to explain exactly what led to his project being curtailed.

"The program is a great program to me," Bryce said.

"I did what I thought I was supposed to do."

"I certainly have no problem with what they are doing."

The state is also moving to decertify a firm in Schenectady known as First Niagara Centre Inc.

That firm is actually the name of a building at 251 State St. owned by First Niagara, which is located in Lockport, a suburb of Buffalo.

First Niagara also has a branch in the building.

First Niagara acquired the building when it bought Hudson River Bancorp in 2005.

Hudson River had received Empire Zone certification for the building in 2001.

ESDC records show that the building's owners received nearly $250,000 in tax benefits between 2003 and 2005.

Steve Strichman, the Empire Zone coordinator for Schenectady, said Wednesday that Hudson River was originally supposed to create three jobs to operate and manage the building, but only one was ever created.

First Niagara has decided to sell the building and has found a buyer, said bank spokeswoman Leslie Garrity.

She declined to name the buyer or the purchase price, but she said the branch would remain in the building.

"We agree that the property no longer qualifies and are comfortable with, and support, Empire State Development's decision," Garrity said.

She added that the buyer will likely not pursue Empire Zone certification.

ESDC spokeswoman Patricia Pitts said that the state will not try to recoup the tax credits decertified companies already claimed under the program, but they will no longer be able to claim them in the future.

Rulison can be reached at 454-5504 or by e-mail at lrulison@timesunion.com.

"Knapp attorney gets adviser role - 'Serpico' case resulted in shake-up; too soon to tell in trooper probe"

By RICK KARLIN, Capitol bureau, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Thursday, April 10, 2008

ALBANY -- It's too early to say whether Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's recently-launched probe of possible political meddling by the State Police will resemble the Knapp Commission, said Michael Armstrong, the veteran prosecutor who served on the 1970s-era panel that uncovered corruption in the New York City Police Department.

"It really depends on what we find," said Armstrong, who, along with fellow-lawyer Robert Fiske, was named by Cuomo on Wednesday as a volunteer adviser on the State Police probe.

The Knapp Commission in 1972 issued a report outlining systemic corruption among police in the Big Apple.

Prompted in part by testimony from former city cop Frank Serpico, it led to changes, including increased accountability by commanders.

Last week, Gov. David Paterson asked Cuomo to investigate whether members of the State Police have been involved in political interference.

The request came after former Gov. Eliot Spitzer resigned in March amid a prostitution scandal, and followed months of accusations by Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno that Spitzer had used troopers to keep tabs on him.

Armstrong, a partner at the Howrey firm, was chief counsel to the Knapp Commission.

Fiske, a partner at law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell, was the first independent counsel in the 1990s Whitewater investigation into land deals involving Bill and Hillary Clinton.

"No two lawyers are better qualified in the country than Robert Fiske and Michael Armstrong," Cuomo said in a statement.

"They have decades of experience and wisdom investigating corruption at the highest levels of government."

Bloomberg News contributed to this report.

Rick Karlin can be reached at 454-5758 or by e-mail at rkarlin@timesunion.com.

You must live in NY...
your understanding, and interest in the minutia...is overwhelming
to a country-boy like me. I know it's the center of The World...but
it's hard to keep up. If I may ask...every now and then offer the rest of us
your opinion on the national macro situation. It's a viewpoint I can not approach.

I live where I have lived since 1949, Indianhead ....

With some time out to be in different places from time to time, like Viet Nam ...

And the long journey home after that ....

And when I was in the Army and someone asked me where I was from, I would invariably answer either "upstate" or "from the country" ....

Because if you said you were from New York, automatically people assumed that that meant New York City ....

And I am about as far from New York City in my mind that a person could be ....

And so ...

That serves to define me in here a bit, I hope ....

My point of view on things ....

As I said back in the beginnings of this particular thread, this is about citizenship in here, in part ....

Or more properly, maybe it could be said that it is about an older country person from upstate New York pondering and musing about citizenship in America these days out here in the vastness of CYBERSPACE ....

And so ....

Back in 1969, Indianhead, in Viet Nam, where I started out as an infantryman near the Cambodian border north and west of Saigon, south of Tay Ninh, I was called in one day before a board of NCO's for a promotional board ....

And they were asking me questions such as WHO was the Chancellor of Germany at that time ....

And when I heard that question, I said WHAT?

The Chancellor of Germany?

You have to be kidding me ....

But they weren't, of course ...

It was their belief that as an American citizen and an NCO in its Army, you should know something about the world that you are in and how you might fit into it ....

Or not ....

Since that is really a big part of what wars are all about ....

Somebody not fitting into somebody else's belief system, and then doing something about it through force of arms, instead of merely bitching ....

And I couldn't disagree with them, Indianhead, because that is how I was brought up myself ....

To know about the world that we are a part of and how it might have come to be the way that it is at any given moment in time ....

And by that logic, even though I was an infantryman, I should have had an idea who the Chancellor of Germany was back then ....

And so ....

All I can say in here, Indianhead, is that in some way, these posts in here are relevant as background to something that is on-going around me up here, or else I would not have posted them ....

And this all goes back to that book The Power of Many by Christian Crumlish that I make mention of at the beginning of this thread ....

And it is a question of BACKGROUND ....

What is it that is going on around me here in the world that has me thinking the way that I am thinking in here in what is an international forum read by not only people in America, but Europe and Japan as well?

And so ....

That is why the minutia about life in a particular place in upstate New York in the north-east of the United States of America is in here ....

To paint a permanent backdrop that I can keep coming back to in the future as more things yet unfold, to connect that future logically to a preserved past in here that is public record, and not merely my unsupported opinion ....

WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, and WHY ....

And so ...

Believe me, Indianhead, I am having trouble keeping up in here as well, with the pace at which things have been developing, not only here in NYS, but in America at the same time, and in the world, as well, all of which is interconnected in a way like never before ....

And it is certainly interconnected today in ways totally unlike anything that existed back in the times of the GREAT DEPRESSION ...

And so ....

In that regard, you have company, which is me ....

And I'm up here where this stuff is happening ...

And I still can't keep up with it ...

And so ...

And New York certainly is not the center of the world, Indianhead ....

Far from it ....

Although bankers and politicians like the PROSTITUTE USER and ex-governor of New York Eliot Spitzer would like all of us to believe that New York City is the CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE and FINANCIAL CAPITAL of the world ....

Which I think is HUBRIS ON THE HOOF, Indianhead, with my more conservative upstate country values where you don't brag, and you keep your advantages concealed, rather than flaunt them in your neighbor's face ....

And so ...

I think myself that New York City has gotten above its raising, as we countryfolks would say ...

Everyday, it breaks its arm vigorously patting itself on the back over how great a city it is supposed to be ....

And in the meantime, it is just a big city going to seed ....

Past its prime ....

Like Rome after Constantine departed .....

And so ....

WALL STREET has become a very dangerous place, Indianhead, when the DELUSIONS OF GRANDEUR and EXCESSIVE GREED of a handful of lawyers and bankers on a short street only a handful of blocks long down in lower Manhattan can jeopardize the lives of countless thousands of people all over the world who were not GAMBLERS themselves and did not invest in the FOOL'S GAME known as the stock market ...

And so ....

Since Wall Street and what goes on in the world today are so interconnected, of necessity, a part of that story is being told in here ...

And a part is being told in Life in OUR America ....

And sometimes those parts intertwine and intermesh ....

And sometimes they appear to be separate .....

And in many cases, it is only the passge of further time that allows me to draw all the connections ...

Since I don't really engage in speculation on the internet ....

And so ....

I wish it were that easy, Indianhead ....

One time in 1969, in Viet Nam, I was sitting on a rice paddy dike, and there was a small Vietnamese boy sitting there with me ...

And out of the clear blue, he asked me, "What is it with you Americans?"

And we ended up having ourselves a conversation about that very question .....

And this was over in Viet Nam ....

And the boy, well, he was serious .....

He wanted to know why we slept out in the mud like animals .....

And why we never had enough to eat .....

And why we were even there, living like that .....

What kind of conquerors live worse off than those they have conquered?

That is what this small boy wanted to know .....

And I had no answer back then, Indianhead ....

No answer at all ....

And I still don't .....

And so ....

"AMD's chief technology officer resigns"

By JORDAN ROBERTSON, Associated Press

Last updated: 4:22 p.m., Friday, April 11, 2008

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Advanced Micro Devices Inc.'s top technology executive is stepping down as the world's No. 2 microprocessor maker tries to recover from a sales slump triggered by prolonged product delays and tougher competition.

The Sunnyvale-based company said Friday that Chief Technology Officer Phil Hester's resignation is not connected to AMD's financial woes or its recently announced 10 percent reduction of its global work force.

Hester joined the company in 2005 after working for more than two decades at IBM Corp. and was responsible for crafting AMD's technological roadmap over the past three years.

Spokesman Rob Keosheyan declined to give further details about Hester's departure, except to say the position won't be filled because each of AMD's key business units now has its own chief technology officer -- a structure Hester helped establish.

Hester's exit comes as AMD battles to reverse steep losses and fend off a resurgent Intel Corp., AMD's much-larger rival which lost substantial market share to AMD a couple years ago as customers demanded more energy-efficient chips, but has since regained its competitive footing.

AMD continues to be hurt by Intel's new product lineup, technical glitches that have delayed its own products, and heavy costs related to its $5.6 billion acquisition of graphics chip maker ATI Technologies.

AMD's stock has reflected investors' souring sentiment, falling from over $40 in 2006 to around $6 today.

AMD shares fell 26 cents, or 4.2 percent, to $6.01 Friday, a down day for many technology stocks.

One of AMD's biggest problems over the past year has been getting its new Opteron server chip -- a key to its financial recovery -- into the hands of customers.

The company's first Opteron chip in 2003 gave AMD an entrance into the lucrative server market and helped AMD steal customers from Intel.

Technical glitches in the latest generation of the chips, however, delayed their full rollout by about 8 months after their official September launch.

The new Opteron chips only became widely available this week, when AMD announced that Hewlett-Packard Co. had started shipping machines with the chips inside them.

Keosheyan said Hester's office did not oversee product development -- which is the responsibility of the individual business units, which report to the CEO through different executives -- so he was not responsible for the Opteron delays.

Hester was instrumental in developing AMD's strategy around so-called "accelerated computing," or teaming the microprocessor, or brain of personal computers and servers, with specialized processors to boost performance for certain tasks.

Keosheyan said that initiative will continue.

AMD lost more than $3 billion in 2007 on $6 billion in sales, and warned earlier this week that first-quarter sales were lower than expected across all business lines.

AMD also announced that it planned to cut 10 percent of its global work force, or about 1,600 workers out of 16,800 worldwide, in a major restructuring that's expected to be completed by September.

Intel, meanwhile, has fared better, in part because its larger size has allowed it to better absorb deep price cuts and it has made the quicker transition to a manufacturing process that lowers the cost of making each chip.

Last year the company earned almost $7 billion on more than $38 billion in sales, as it completed a major restructuring of its own triggered by the intensifying competition with AMD.

Intel cut about 10,500 jobs, or 10 percent of its work force, in a move to save about $3 billion a year.

"Fed worried in 2002 about deflation"

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, Associated Press

Last updated: 4:12 p.m., Friday, April 11, 2008

WASHINGTON -- Just-released transcripts show the Federal Reserve was worried about the threat of deflation when it decided to cut a key interest rate by a half-point in November 2002.

Then-Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan called the prospect "pretty scary."

Those transcripts, released Friday, showed that Greenspan and his colleagues were focused on what should be done about a sluggish economy and the threat that the country could tumble into a period of deflation, something the country had not experienced since the Great Depression.

While the Fed strives to achieve low inflation, it does not want to see the economy enter a period of serious deflation with the value of real estate and other assets dropping because that sets off destabilizing forces that can have serious consequences.

The United States was battered by deflation during the 1930s and Japan experienced a lost decade of growth in the 1990s after its real estate bubble burst, causing a severe bout of deflation in that country.

Some critics have argued that there was never a serious threat of deflation in the United States in the period of the 2001 recession and that the extremely low interest rates engineered by the Fed created a housing boom that drove prices and sales up to record levels only to burst in 2006, sending shock waves through the economy that are still reverberating.

The transcripts released Friday show that Fed officials at the time were not that worried about the effects low interest rates might have, arguing that if inflation started rising, the Fed could reverse course and start raising rates but that a bout of deflation would be harder to combat.

The Fed did cut the federal funds rate, the interest that banks charge on overnight loans, by a half-point at the November 2002 meeting, moving it from 1.75 percent down to 1.25 percent, the lowest level in 41 years.

That was the only rate cut the Fed made that year.

During the discussions, Greenspan expressed concern about the country falling into a "deflationary hole."

"It's a pretty scary prospect and one that we certainly want to avoid," Greenspan told other members of the Federal Open Market Committee, the Fed panel that meets eight times a year to set interest rates.

The Fed would cut the funds rate one more time the next year, pushing it to a 45-year low of 1 percent on June 25, 2003.

The central bank left the funds rate at that level for an entire year until it began a gradual move to raise rates in June 2004.

While Greenspan was hailed when he left the Fed in early 2006 after 18 1/2 years as chairman for safely guiding the U.S. economy through a number of dangers, the bursting of the housing boom that year and a resulting severe credit crunch have prompted a reassessment of those actions.

But in an interview on CNBC this week, Greenspan said he had "no regrets" about Fed policy during his tenure and said there was little Fed officials or other regulators could have done to avert the housing crisis.

In the interview, Greenspan blamed the housing crisis on "egregious lending practices" in the subprime mortgage market.

Critics charge that Greenspan pushed rates too low and left them there too long, fueling a housing bubble that has now burst, causing severe troubles including the possibility that the country has fallen into a recession.

But at the time, Greenspan and his colleagues clearly saw the biggest dangers coming from weak growth and possible deflationary forces.

On the possibility that a half-point cut might be too much, Greenspan said at the November meeting, "It's a mistake that does not have very significant consequences."

"On the other hand, if we fail to move and we are wrong, meaning that we needed to, the costs could be quite high."

William McDonough, president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, argued that if the Fed cut rates by only a quarter-point, financial markets would consider Fed officials "a bunch of wimps, which is not an attractive assessment for a group that is supposed to be a very important public body."

Current Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, a former Princeton economics professor who had joined the Fed earlier that year as a board member, supported Greenspan's recommendation to cut rates by a half-point.

Bernanke said the country seemed to be experiencing the same type of "jobless recovery" that had occurred for a prolonged period after the 1990-91 recession and that a cut in rates was needed to boost growth.

While the Fed releases minutes of its closed-door discussions three weeks after the meetings are held, the full transcripts are only released with a lag of five years.

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On the Net:

Federal Reserve: http://www.federalreserve.gov

AND SPEAKING ABOUT THE TIMES THAT WE FIND OURSELVES IN UP HERE IN THE CORRUPT EMPIRE OF NEW YORK ....

WHERE OUR RECENTLY-RESIGNED-IN-DISGRACE GOVERNOR ELIOT "STEAMROLLER" SPITZER WAS PROTECTING A PROSTITUTION RING IN THE STATE OF NEW YORK SO THAT HE COULD THEN AVAIL HIMSELF OF ITS SERVICES, WE HAVE ...

"NY legislature boosts budget for teacher sex investigations"

By MICHAEL GORMLEY, Associated Press

Last updated: 7:32 p.m., Friday, April 11, 2008

ALBANY -- The Legislature has restored funding to bolster an understaffed investigative unit in the state Education Department to cut into a backlog of hundreds of cases involving teachers and administrators accused of having sex with students.

The unit will be able to hire eight investigators and attorneys to dig into more than 800 pending cases of "moral misconduct" against teachers, administrators and applicants for certification.

Most cases involve sex with students.

The state budget adopted Wednesday restores the $500,000 that former Gov. Eliot Spitzer sought to cut from the unit's funding and added another $600,000 to hire more investigators and attorneys to reduce the backlog, said Senate Education Committee Chairman Stephen Saland, a Poughkeepsie Republican.

"This will move these people out of the classroom environment more quickly," Saland said.

"It's money well spent."

"In fact, it's a bargain."

The funding will speed prosecution of cases against the certificates of teachers with criminal accusations, according to the education department.

In February, Saland blasted Spitzer from the Senate floor, accusing the governor of calling "open season on children" for sex predators in schools.

He read passages from 2007 stories by The Associated Press that showed the number of "moral conduct" accusations against teachers, administrators and aides had doubled in five years.

In all, 485 misconduct cases were reported over five years, most involving sexual misconduct.

"This will be fixed," he said then of the cut made over the objection of Education Commissioner Richard Mills.

The Spitzer administration wanted to cut the funding, saying automation could accomplish the same thing and provide savings against a nearly $5 billion state budget deficit.

The $1.6 million total budget for the unit is up from $1 million last year and triple the $500,000 Spitzer proposed, according to the department.

The increase was supported by Gov. David Paterson, who succeeded Spitzer.

Spitzer resigned in March after he was implicated in a prostitution scandal.

"Nothing is more important than the safety of our children," said Johanna Duncan-Poitier, senior deputy commissioner of education.

"We want to thank the governor and the Legislature for enhancing our ability to ensure a safe and healthy environment for New York's schoolchildren."

"Analysis: NY's special interests well-fed by your tax dollars"

By MICHAEL GORMLEY, Associated Press

Last updated: 11:32 a.m., Saturday, April 12, 2008

ALBANY -- The Legislature took a lot of heat last week for its secret budget negotiations, its abandonment of public conference committees required by its own 2007 reform law, and its refusal -- with Gov. David Paterson -- to release details of how they would spend New Yorkers' money until the bills were already passed.

But it wasn't a complete secret.

The unions and other special interests that have poured $171.2 million into lobbying over the last year and gave candidates millions more for campaigns were in on it.

In the hectic final days before New York's $121.7 billion budget was adopted Wednesday, lawmakers debated bills for hours in televised sessions.

But most of the decisions had already been made behind closed doors, sometimes with lobbyists at the table.

The public, who pays for it all, was shut out.

Take Verizon Communications, a major employer in New York.

The company spent $3.2 million to lobby lawmakers and tossed another $157,620 at their campaigns, according to a report released last week by the state Public Integrity Commission.

One of Verizon's interests in Albany is a cell phone bill of rights measure that would bar companies from requiring a customer to renew his or her service plan when adding a new phone, and prevent a company from making the period of a contract longer.

The industry is fighting this consumer-friendly bill, which remains stuck in committee.

Sometimes the money is not spent to block, but to get.

The New York State United Teachers and United Federation of Teachers unions spent almost $3 million lobbying in 2007, the year the report examined, and contributed $841,703 to campaigns.

On Wednesday, the Legislature provided a record $1.75 billion increase in state school aid despite a gaping deficit and falling revenues.

In addition, the powerful unions secured a legislative change among thousands of pages of budget bills that prohibits school districts from using student performance on test scores as a basis for denying teachers tenure.

And most of the gush of education cash will go to salaries and hiring more teachers and administrators, said E.J. McMahon of the Empire Center for New York State Policy, part of the fiscally conservative Manhattan Institute.

Adding more teachers and staff is often masked by saying the money will pay to reduce class sizes, a more popular notion for the public.

"It feeds the bottom line and increases the union argument for paying them more," he said.

The result of taxpayers providing a big increase in state aid this year?

Big increases in local school taxes next year.

"Because there's no cap on school taxes, when you feed the bottom line with a big increase in one year, it usually translates to bigger property taxes in coming years because the state aid increases aren't sustainable," he said.

He said last week's haul for public schools in the state budget proved this about the school unions: "There is no question they are the tail that wags the whole dog."

But others are helping.

Health care and hospital groups spent more than $3 million lobbying and kicked in $931,091 to campaigns as they fought back efforts by former Gov. Eliot Spitzer to shift more money from institutions to outpatient care, which is cheaper.

The Trial Lawyers Association also spent $959,733 in lobbying and $585,134 in campaign contributions while they fought "tort reform," which could force lower judgments in lawsuits.

It's all legal.

The U.S. Supreme Court calls its freedom of speech.

"In Albany's pay-to-play culture, those with the bucks speak with a megaphone, while the rest of us are reduced to a whisper," said Blair Horner of the New York Public Interest Research Group.

His group put out its "Fat Cat Factor" annual list of top lobbyists and how much they paid to influence legislation and legislators.

The top 10 lobbyists alone made $2.8 million in campaign contributions last year.

"If the average member of the public wonders why things have gotten so bad in Albany, one reason is the way the system is run," Horner said.

"The reason often is that the interests of the status quo are deeply entrenched, and moving any kind of reform is daunting."

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Michael Gormley is the Albany, N.Y., Capitol editor for The Associated Press. He can be reached by e-mail at mgormley(at)ap.org.

"New state worker contract includes higher pay, better health care"

Associated Press

Last updated: 8:22 p.m., Friday, April 11, 2008

ALBANY -- Members of the New York State Public Employees Federation will get more pay, additional health care benefits and extended educational programs under a new four-year contract with the state.

The union says the contract was ratified with a nearly 97 percent approval rating and about two-thirds of its 58,000 members voted on the new deal.

They'll get a 3 percent raise retroactive to April 2007, another 3 percent raise retroactive to April 1 of this year, a 3 percent raise next April and a 4 percent raise in April 2010.

The new pact includes health insurance with additional benefits and modest copay increases, extended educational programs and cost-of-living increases for members who live in high-cost areas of the state.

"Bruno's finance secretary out - Lobbyist anger over budget process played a role in veteran policy specialist Jeff Lovell's removal"

By JAMES M. ODATO, Capitol bureau, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Sunday, April 13, 2008

ALBANY -- State Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno dismissed his finance secretary Friday, cutting Jeff Lovell just two days after the $121.7 billion state budget was completed.

Bruno's spokesman did not return a call to explain why Lovell, 51, of Brunswick, was removed from his $180,000-a-year post.

Bruno announced the veteran policy specialist's departure on Saturday, calling it a resignation.

He said he wished Lovell well.

Friends and government officials said Lovell's career came to an end involuntarily for a mix of reasons, including the feeling some special interests and lobbyists had of being disenfranchised from the budget process.

The top fiscal post involves being a traffic cop for numerous lobbying groups trying to influence the final budget.

For instance, the budget almost didn't get wrapped up because of controversies surrounding a term in the budget that blocks the ability of school districts to use student test scores in teacher tenure evaluations.

"There were contentious discussions on tenure," said Alan Lubin, executive vice president of the New York State United Teachers.

He said as NYSUT fought to make sure test scores could not be used in deciding tenure, the union dealt with Bruno and Bruno's lawyer, Michael Avella, rather than with Lovell, whose expertise is in education financing.

"We felt very comfortable dealing with Joe and Avella," Lubin said.

Lovell could not be reached.

He joined Bruno's team as the finance secretary in late 2006 after a lengthy career as a top adviser to then-Gov. George Pataki.

He had been an aide in the Senate before working for the governor.

As a leading Senate voice in budget negotiations, Lovell was one of many officials dealing with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's strong push for teacher tenure based on student performance, including test scores.

Bloomberg, a generous donor to Senate Republicans, was upset that the tenure issue was settled to the liking of the teachers unions.

Typically when top staffers leave it is after the legislative session and when they have something else lined up.

Bruno did not name a replacement, but said he is sure Lovell will succeed "in whatever he chooses to do."

Bruno, R-Brunswick, said Robert Mujica will continue to serve as deputy finance secretary and managing director of the finance committee.

"Work stoppage for labor panels - Backlog of disputes grows due to conflicts of interest, vacancies on state boards"

By RICK KARLIN, Capitol bureau, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Sunday, April 13, 2008

ALBANY -- A pair of quasi-judicial statewide panels have for more than a year been backlogged on labor complaints because they either don't have enough people to make rulings or they're so small that a single conflict of interest can bring their deliberations to a halt.

Observers blame the disputes and upheaval in state government under Eliot Spitzer, who resigned in March amid a prostitution scandal after months of feuding with Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno.

"The board can't take any action on a case," said Barbara Deinhardt, of the State Employment Relations Board, which hears charges of unfair labor practices and mediates disputes between unions and employers.

With just two of its five seats filled, SERB has been hobbled since December, said Deinhardt, who as chairwoman holds one of the seats.

Deinhardt also expressed frustration that the board can't do the kind of work that aims to defuse labor disputes before they escalate into impasse situations or even strikes.

"In part because we are not up to full strength, we are not able to do the outreach that we would like to do," she said.

Also backlogged is the Public Employment Relations Board, which has had a vacancy on its three-person board since December 2006.

With two members, PERB still can certify, or give its stamp of approval to unions wishing to represent public employees.

Recently, for example, PERB certified that the Teamsters could represent highway workers in the Delaware County town of Colchester as well as Cazenovia in Madison County.

But PERB's two board members, Jerome Lefkowitz and Robert Hite, have had to recuse themselves from some cases because of their prior legal work, leading to backlogs.

Lefkowitz has had to step aside in about 12 certifications because he previously worked for CSEA, one of the state's major public employee unions, confirmed Anthony Zumbolo, PERB's executive director.

He's also had to step aside in a handful of cases in which the union alleged an employer engaged in an improper labor practice.

"We'd like to get them resolved," said CSEA spokesman Steve Madarasz.

While the number of cases being held up isn't overwhelming, some have been delayed for about a year, he said.

Additionally, Hite used to work for Council 82 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, and has had to recuse himself in those cases.

The backlog also has led to one union dispute going to a vote rather than a PERB ruling.

In 2006, the 5,000-member State Police PBA launched an initiative to represent the approximately 1,300 investigators in the force's Investigators Association.

But there were flaws in the PBA's process, contended Matt Tynan, the Investigator Association's president.

But since Hite had done some police-related work he had to recuse himself, said Tynan.

With no PERB ruling, Tynan said, his union is holding a vote on whether members should join the PBA or stick with their own representation.

Ballots in that vote will be counted next month, said Tynan.

All of those involved concede that the last year has been a tumultuous one in state government: first with Spitzer's public feud with Bruno, and then with Spitzer's sudden resignation last month.

So it isn't a surprise that some boards and panels have gone empty, they say.

"We understand the circumstances here, particularly at the moment with the changeover in administration," said Madarasz.

Shortly before his departure, Spitzer nominated Rosemary Queenan as PERB's third board member, although even if she is appointed, that might not solve the State Police dispute as she has performed legal work for the PBA.

That nomination, supported by Gov. David Paterson, is awaiting Senate confirmation.

Rick Karlin can be reached at 454-5758 or by e-mail at rkarlin@timesunion.com.

"Bay State offers lesson on tax cap"

By FRED LeBRUN

First published: Sunday, April 13, 2008

New Yorkers pay some of the highest property taxes in the nation.

Nothing, but nothing hits the general public's irritation button like our high tax burden, especially school taxes, whenever I hear a discussion of what's wrong with New York.

It's astounding how often I hear that discussion.

We are quite a negative bunch here in the Empire State.

So it's a fair guess that Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi's recommendations concerning a proposed property tax cap, due to be made public May 22, are greatly anticipated.

Yhey aren't his recommendations, but rather those of a seven-member commission.

But he was the one singled out by then-Gov. Eliot Spitzer to head a commission to look into the matter, a handy way to deflect an unpleasant and deeply controversial issue.

But there's no question Suozzi seems to have embraced the subject eagerly.

Although from a strictly political perspective, it could be argued that Spitzer gave brash up-and-comer Suozzi the Godfather's kiss with this assignment.

He's doomed either way.

If the commission decides not to recommend a property tax cap -- which is highly unlikely -- he will be assailed by Republicans, conservatives and lots of taxpayers who have made passage of such a cap a perceived necessity.

The unions, on the other hand, and especially the powerful teachers unions, are dead-set against most property tax caps because they inevitably slice deeply into the ability of school districts to raise needed revenues.

Of course, the devil will be in the details of the likely recommendations.

Suozzi has been visiting editorial boards and promoting in broad form options being considered, either singularly or together.

They are three: an actual property tax cap of one sort or other (there are many options), restrictions on state mandates to localities and a "circuit breaker" that would limit what a homeowner would pay in taxes based on income and resources rather than the assessed value of the property.

Suozzi, who challenged Spitzer in 2006 for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, is politically ambitious, and this will be his moment in the sun.

So it is likely he will attempt a bold stroke whether one is needed or not.

How far any recommendations will survive through the legislative process depends, again, on those details.

All of this, though, begs the primary question: Do we really need a property tax cap?

Last year, in better economic times, Spitzer negotiated record amounts of school aid, and got arm-twisted for even more for highly taxed Long Island school districts.

After taxpayer rebates are factored in, school taxes went up statewide an average of 1.5 percent.

That is well within any of the existing property tax caps in the nearly 30 states that have them.

There isn't a single state that stands out as a success when it comes to property tax caps, no matter what you may have read about neighboring Massachusetts.

Many caps are dismal lessons in senseless feel-good politics, notably California's Proposition 13.

And the unions have a point: Across the spectrum it's the schools and education that take the worst hit, but so do public safety, libraries, parks, even snow plowing.

The only way you can judge Massachusetts' 2.5 percent cap, in place since 1980, a success is to look strictly at how the state ranks among others on tax levy.

It has gone down, no question.

But talk to any teachers or cops or firefighters in the Bay State and they'll tell you about the schools and fire stations that have closed, the increases in class sizes and the loss of school art, music and athletic programs.

And the heavy lift every time a community, especially a poor one, needs a new building, or wants to spend a little money on an enrichment program.

It's one local referendum after another, and the poorer the school district, the more likely it won't pass.

Education is held hostage by the naysayers.

"Property tax caps do nothing to change the main drivers behind higher property taxes," writes the liberal Washington-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in "The Problems With Property Tax Revenue Caps," which is a national analysis.

"They cannot slow the increase in the cost of health care or fuel, for example, which reflects forces outside the control of local officials."

"Nor do they change the demand for local public services, such as quality kindergarten-grade 12 education, public safety and good roads."

As the study shows, property tax caps for the most part don't work because ultimately they don't save taxpayers from paying somehow.

Sales taxes and other local taxes, user fees and so on become alternative resources, and especially impact poorer citizens, communities and school districts.

Besides, if you believe politicians will stop spending ever higher amounts just because the revenues have been capped, well, just look at the recently concluded state budget.

Our state revenues have been capped by natural economic forces and that didn't stop a nearly 5 percent increase anyway.

So property tax cap is senseless.

Just another set of rules that will do more harm than good.

Fred LeBrun can be reached at 454-5453 or by e-mail at flebrun@timesunion.com.

"Betting $350M on ethanol"

First published: Sunday, April 13, 2008

ALBANY - Corn's getting expensive, and that could complicate financing for a massive new ethanol production plant at the Port of Albany.

The $350 million project, announced late last month, would cover an 18-acre parcel.

But the partners who will own the plant -- Albany Renewable Energy LLC -- face a confluence of challenges that will make financing difficult, some in the industry say.

The Albany Port District Commission, which oversees port operations, selected a proposal by the partnership to bring trainloads of corn from New York state and the Midwest to the port to be converted to ethanol.

The fuel then would be loaded on barges at the port to be taken to so-called blending terminals up and down the East Coast, where it would be combined with gasoline.

Demand for ethanol climbed sharply in 2006 after refiners began substituting it for methyl tertiary butyl ether, an additive that helps gasoline burn more cleanly in summer months, reducing smog.

But MTBE, as it is known, is also a carcinogen.

Thus the switch.

Lately, though, construction of new ethanol plants has slowed.

Higher energy and other commodity prices, tighter lending standards and stagnant ethanol prices are some of the other challenges.

"Banks are particularly concerned with the thin margins in the ethanol business today," said Brian Jennings, executive vice president of the American Coalition for Ethanol, a trade group based in Sioux Falls, S.D.

"Banks are very cognizant that construction costs are significantly higher than just a couple of years ago."

But Jennings also said a recently enacted energy bill will require oil companies to use more ethanol -- 9 billion gallons this year, and higher amounts in the future -- while nationwide plant capacity currently is just above 8 billion gallons.

A number of plants coming on line during the year will make up the difference.

Ethanol production also requires a lot of natural gas and electricity.

Each gallon of ethanol takes 35,000 BTUs of natural gas to produce, as well as 1.1 kilowatt-hours of electricity, according to figures from the University of Nebraska.

A kilowatt-hour costs 15.27 cents in New York state on average, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

That's one of the highest rates in the country.

At $1.05 per therm, or 100,000 BTUs, the 35,000 BTUs cost roughly 37 cents.

And a bushel of corn yields about 2.9 gallons of ethanol.

Corn for October/November delivery to the ethanol production plant in Fulton, Oswego County, was bid Friday at $6.162 a bushel, according to Troy-based Interstate Commodities Inc.'s Web site.

Interstate has the contract to supply corn to the Fulton plant, near Syracuse, which will open in June.

That works out to $2.12 per gallon of ethanol.

So the three biggest inputs together cost $2.65, while ethanol currently sells at a bit less than $2.50 a gallon.

Ed Stahl, who is president of BioPro Resources in Huntersville, N.C., the proposed Albany plant's developer, says the equipment to be used there is more efficient.

Each gallon produced will consume a maximum of 30,000 BTUs of energy, and 0.75 kilowatt-hours of electricity.

That lowers the cost of producing a gallon to $2.54.

And there are other considerations.

A byproduct is dry distillers grain, which can be sold to farmers for use as feed.

The plant would produce up to 500,000 tons of distillers grain annually, which it could sell.

Carbon dioxide also is produced and can be captured for sale to bottling companies.

Stahl said the company supplying the equipment, ICM Inc. of Colwich, Kan., is exploring other sources of energy to power the plant, including biomass.

The plant would consume about 60 million bushels of corn a year, about what New York farmers now grow.

But rising prices for corn and other crops could encourage local farmers to plant more acreage.

"There is a lot of fallow ground in New York, millions of acres, so there is room to plant more corn," said Peter Gregg, a spokesman for the New York Farm Bureau.

He said farmers have about 2 million acres of idle land.

With each acre producing 100 bushels, that would yield another 200 million bushels of corn per year.

But farmers may not want to use all the land for corn.

"It's a balancing act between corn and soybeans," said Greg Oberting, president of Interstate Commodities.

Corn is a resilient crop, but takes nitrogen, a nutrient, from the soil.

Farmers have to either rotate crops or fertilize to replace the missing nitrogen.

And fertilizer has doubled in cost over the past year.

Soybeans, on the other hand, restore nitrogen, said Oberting and others.

And soybean prices also are very high.

Ethanol benefits from a number of subsidies, while tariffs on imported ethanol protect it from overseas competition.

Blenders get a 51-cents-per-gallon credit for each gallon of ethanol they mix with gasoline.

State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli last week announced a $500 million fund to make "green" investments in such areas as renewable energy and clean technology.

"All of the investments are subject to the same due diligence as any investment" the comptroller's office makes, said spokesman Jim Fuchs.

One investment it previously made is a $10.5 million stake in Northeast Biofuels' new ethanol production plant in Fulton.

That plant occupies a former Miller brewery, and much of the infrastructure was already in place.

BioPro Resources' Stahl said the Albany plant also has some advantages, including rail service from CP Rail and CSX Transportation.

The port already handles 90-car unit trains of ethanol operated by CSX, said Matt Hartwig, a spokesman for the Renewable Fuels Association in Washington, D.C.

"Albany was one of the first ports that had the capacity to unload unit trains of ethanol," he said.

The ethanol was then loaded on barges here for shipment to the blenders.

The Port of Albany ethanol plant is "what we call a destination plant, because it's closer to the end use of ethanol than the feedstock source," Hartwig said.

It's a business model that up to now hasn't gotten much study.

But Stahl expects the savings that result from being able to ship ethanol by barge instead of both barge and rail will give the Albany plant an advantage.

Dave Peters, an assistant professor of agricultural economics at the University of Nebraska who deals with rural economic development issues, has created a computer model that calculates ethanol plant profitability given different prices for corn and ethanol.

The model -- based on plants in the Midwest and Great Plains -- also takes into account federal tax breaks and revenue from the sale of distillers grain.

A 100-million-gallon plant can make 3 cents a gallon in profit when corn costs $5.75 a bushel and ethanol costs $2.50 a gallon.

But if the ethanol sells for just $2 a gallon, the plant will lose nearly 50 cents for each gallon it sells.

Another concern: While energy regulations call for the nation's fuel supply to include 15 billion gallons of ethanol a year, "my belief is we will never get to the 15 billion gallon mark," Peters said.

That would put upward pressure on overall food prices, he said, leading the government to back away from the goal.

The increased demand for corn was one goal of farmers, said the Renewable Fuels Association's Hartwig.

Another, of course, was to reduce demand for oil, which at the end of last week had set a new record price of $112 a barrel.

Stahl, meanwhile, said he continues to work on the financing for the Albany ethanol plant.

"We're certainly aware of the market and the challenges we face," he said.

"Energy in New York can and will be more expensive."

"We think we'll have one of the most efficient plants operating."

Eric Anderson can be reached at 454-5323 or by e-mail at eanderson@timesunion.com.

"Local news loss focus of new commission"

By JENNIFER C. KERR, Associated Press

Last updated: 12:22 a.m., Monday, April 14, 2008

WASHINGTON -- As people turn increasingly to the Internet for their news, there is concern whether they are learning enough about what goes on in their communities.

With "the thinning down of newspapers and local television in America, there is measurably less local, civic information available," said Alberto Ibarguen, president and chief executive of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

"So what are the consequences of that?"

The foundation and the Aspen Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, hope to find out.

They are setting up a commission, funded by the foundation, to analyze whether people are getting the local news they need to make decisions in their communities.

The panel will make recommendations that might include actions by the Federal Communications Commission or tax policies aimed at helping communities better meet their information needs, said Ibarguen, former publisher of The Miami Herald.

The commission will be led by Theodore Olson, former solicitor general who represented George W. Bush before the Supreme Court in the contested 2000 presidential election, and Marissa Mayer, vice president of search products and user experience at Google.

The foundation said Olson was selected for his expertise in First Amendment issues and Mayer for her experience with new media and technologies.

About a dozen other members, including those with a journalism background, will be chosen.

The latest Pew Research Center Poll on the changing news landscape found 31 percent of people in the United States regularly got their news online in 2006, compared with 23 percent in 2000.

The poll said newspaper readership slipped, from 47 percent in 2000 to 40 percent in 2006.

Creation of the commission comes as the newspaper industry faces some of the toughest economic times in years.

Print advertising revenues have taken a major hit, as advertisers follow readers to the Internet.

Last year, newspaper print advertising fell 9.4 percent, according to the Newspaper Association of America, marking the biggest percentage drop on record.

Circulation also is down, most recently declining 2.6 percent at major U.S. daily newspapers, leading to buyouts or layoffs in recent months at some of the biggest papers -- The New York Times, USA Today, The Seattle Times, the San Jose Mercury News, The Oakland Tribune and the Contra Costa Times in California.

TV stations have cut jobs, too.

This month, CBS laid off dozens of staffers at several stations it owns in cities including Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, San Francisco and Boston.

CBS News, run separately from the company-owned local stations, also said it would cut about 1 percent of its 1,500 employees.

The commission, expected to run for about a year, will be funded by $1.7 million in grants from Knight.

The foundation compared the new commission to ones from the 1960s, such as the Kerner Commission and the Carnegie Commission on Educational Television.

The Kerner Commission report in 1968 looked at racial conditions in the United States, concluding that the nation is moving toward "two societies, one black, one white -- separate and unequal."

In 1967, the Carnegie Commission concluded that an educational television system, bigger and more effective than the one that existed must be created.

The report set the course for today's public broadcasting system.

The Knight Foundation, based in Miami, is a nonprofit philanthropic organization that promotes excellence in journalism and invests in 26 communities where the founding Knight brothers owned newspapers.

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On the Net:

Knight Foundation: http://www.knightfoundation.org

The Aspen Institute: http://www.aspeninstitute.org

"Probe of school 'payroll padding' widens - Investigation of districts that listed lawyers as staff hits Capital Region"

By RICK KARLIN, Capitol bureau, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Friday, April 11, 2008

ALBANY -- Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has subpoenaed 90 lawyers, including 70 in upstate, in his expanding probe of school districts that improperly, and perhaps fraudulently, listed their outside legal advisers as employees to give them taxpayer-funded pensions.

"It is egregious conduct, and there is no excuse for the fact that it went on as long as it did," Cuomo said Thursday.

He added that the investigation, which started on Long Island about two months ago, is now spreading to school districts in Albany County and the greater Capital Region.

So far, more than 180 New York school districts, including 150 upstate and 30 on Long Island, are suspected of listing their outside attorneys as employees for the sake of benefits.

He also said he is looking at 11 BOCES organizations across the state.

"This is basically a payroll padding scheme," said Cuomo, who didn't name the districts or BOCES being subpoenaed.

If attorneys are found to have improperly been listed as employees and are collecting pensions, Cuomo said his office could seek to recoup the money.

Criminal penalties could also follow.

The probe began in February after a Long Island lawyer, Lawrence W. Reich, who had once worked for the state Education Department, was found to be listed as an employee at five different school districts, giving him a pension of almost $62,000 and health benefits.

Since then, state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli has said Reich should refund the money.

The IRS and FBI also have begun investigating, according to published reports.

The attorney general's office earlier said the abuses could extend to other school district advisers such as engineers or architects.

To be considered an employee, a person needs to meet certain conditions, such as having an office or assigned workplace, direct supervision and a regular work schedule.

Lawyers who work for law firms but advise school districts usually have none of those.

Millions of dollars could be involved, Cuomo said.

He cited one lawyer who collected more than $700,000 and said another person who collected a pension had died.

"It's a great scam that has gone on for many, many years," Cuomo said.

Cuomo's inquiry has so far hit 20 upstate counties including Albany, Broome, Delaware, Erie, Madison and Monroe.

Several school and BOCES officials in the Capital Region who were contacted said they hadn't listed their outside lawyers as employees.

School officials in Schenectady said the district's lawyer, Shari Greenleaf, was a full-timer who didn't work at an outside firm.

"It's strictly retainer-based," said Matt Leon, spokesman for Bethlehem school district.

The same was true of the Albany district, which spokesman Ron Lesko said retains the Girvin & Ferlazzo firm.

Albany, Bethlehem and Troy also use Girvin & Ferlazzo for legal advice.

Still, Cuomo is seeking information from Girvin & Ferlazzo.

"The New York State Attorney General's office has sought information relating to our firm's relationship with school districts and BOCES."

"We have been cooperating and will continue to cooperate with the inquiry," Girvin & Ferlazzo lawyer Jeff Honeywell said in a prepared statement.

Attorneys at Whiteman, Osterman and Hanna, another Albany firm that advises about 15 districts, are independent contractors, said Beth Bourassa, a lawyer at the firm.

"We are not employees of any of our school district clients," she said.

Representatives of the Capital Region's three BOCES said they didn't believe their lawyers were listed as employees.

"We essentially have an informal clearance from him right now," John Stoothof, superintendent of Washington- Saratoga-Warren-Hamilton-Essex BOCES, said of DiNapoli.

Cuomo said the pension padding could also extend to other government entities, of which there are about 10,000 in the state including villages, towns and special districts.

"The more we dig, the worse the situation gets," he said.

Rick Karlin can be reached at 454-5758 or by e-mail at rkarlin@timesunion.com.

"Cuomo widens pension probe - Attorney general plans to target municipal governments that gave lawyers taxpayer-funded benefits"

By JAY JOCHNOWITZ and RICK KARLIN, Capitol bureau, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Tuesday, April 15, 2008

ALBANY -- Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is poised to announce today that he is broadening his probe into alleged abuses of the state pension fund to include not just school districts, but towns and villages as well.

Cuomo already was looking into how some school districts have put outside contractors, particularly lawyers, into the state retirement system.

That's allowed some attorneys to rack up significant retirement credits, which Cuomo said could be illegal because, in his estimation, these outside lawyers aren't employees.

Now, Cuomo is turning his attention to local governments, which, like many school districts, also use lawyers on a retainer or contract basis.

One of the lawyers who benefited from that system, James Roemer, accrued a taxpayer-funded pension worth more than $80,000 a year working for various cities, towns, counties and villages in the Capital Region, in addition to being in private practice.

Roemer, according to a person familiar with Cuomo's investigation, is among the dozens of lawyers who has been subpoenaed.

The Albany-based Roemer also represents several school district attorneys who have been named in Cuomo's investigation.

Roemer, who wouldn't comment Monday, was the subject of a 1997 Times Union article outlining how he acquired his pension credits.

At the time, then-state Comptroller Carl McCall said the deal was bothersome but not illegal as far as he could see.

Cuomo last week said he has subpoenaed 90 lawyers, 70 of them from upstate, in the school district probe.

The attorney general is also looking at more than 180 school districts, including 150 upstate and 30 on Long Island, as well as 11 BOCES organizations, that may have put their outside attorneys in the pension system.

IF GEORGE W. BUSH CONSIDERS A SCHOOL TEACHER TO BE "HIGHLY QUALIFIED" SIMPLY BECAUSE THE HAVE A BACHELOR'S DEGREE, I WONDER WHAT HE DEEMS TO BE "QUALIFIED", THEN ....

AN EIGHTH GRADE DROP-OUT, PERHAPS, WHO HASN'T A CLUE AT ALL?

"Number of 'highly qualified' teachers increases in NY schools"

Associated Press

Last updated: 5:33 p.m., Monday, April 14, 2008

ALBANY -- State education officials say New York raised the percentage of core academic classes taught by "highly qualified" teachers in all subjects between 2005-2006 and 2006-2007.

The State Education Department says New York City has shown major improvement, with nearly 91 percent of core classes taught by highly qualified teachers in 2006-2007.

That's up from 87 percent in 2005-2006, and 79 percent in 2004-2005.

Science is the subject area still most lacking, with over 16 percent of earth science classes in the state taught by teachers who aren't highly qualified.

The federal No Child Left Behind Act defines highly qualified teachers as teachers who have a bachelor's degree, meet state certification requirements and can prove they know each subject they teach.

"Intel 1Q profit meets subdued forecasts, revenue hits record - Intel 1Q profit matches Wall Street's subdued forecast in sign core business remains healthy"

By JORDAN ROBERTSON, Associated Press

Last updated: 6:42 p.m., Tuesday, April 15, 2008

SAN FRANCISCO -- Intel Corp.'s first-quarter profit matched Wall Street's subdued expectations, a sign the company's core microprocessor business remained healthy amid fears of a broader slowdown in technology spending.

The stock jumped about 7 percent in after-hours trading Tuesday after the technology bellwether forecast higher profit margins in the second quarter and signaled that it is thriving while its smaller rival, Advanced Micro Devices Inc., continues to stumble.

Santa Clara-based Intel said Tuesday that its net profit for the three months ended March 29 was $1.44 billion, or 25 cents per share.

That represents a 12 percent decline from the year-ago period, when Intel earned $1.64 billion or 28 cents per share.

But it was in line with the average estimate of analysts polled by Thomson Financial.

Intel's sales of $9.67 billion -- a 9 percent improvement over last year and a record for the first quarter -- came in slightly higher than Wall Street's estimate of $9.63 billion.

Intel's chief financial officer, Stacy Smith, said the results reflect the company's ability to overcome slumping prices in some segments of the semiconductor market with a new chip-making process that lowers the manufacturing costs for each chip.

"What we're seeing is the strength of the core business is offsetting that weakness," he said in an interview.

Intel warned in March that a steeper-than-expected drop in prices for a type of memory chip called NAND flash -- commonly used in digital cameras and MP3 players -- hurt profits more than anticipated.

Analysts lowered their estimates.

Memory chip prices have been under pressure because of oversupply and fierce competition, a trend that has cut deeply into the profits of companies like Samsung Electronics Co., the world's largest memory chip maker.

It was a surprise that Intel, whose primary business is making microprocessors -- a different type of chip that acts as the brain of personal computers and servers -- was hurt so badly.

Intel is the world's No. 1 maker of microprocessors with about three-quarters of the worldwide market.

AMD, which has been dragging under the weight of heavy acquisition costs and fierce competition, is No. 2.

Intel began making NAND flash in 2006 under a joint venture with Micron Technology Inc. to cash in on growing demand for the most popular type of memory for consumer electronics, a move that some analysts now say was ill-timed considering the price plunge for those chips.

Intel Chief Executive Paul Otellini said the joint venture is rethinking how much factory space it wants to devote to making NAND flash and has delayed construction on its new factory in Singapore for the memory chips as a result.

He added that economic jitters didn't appear to have harmed Intel in its major markets during the latest quarter.

Microprocessor prices were flat in the first quarter and unit sales declined from the fourth quarter.

Smith said those results were in line with seasonal trends in the semiconductor industry.

The company forecast second-quarter sales of between $9 billion and $9.6 billion, which was in line with analyst expectation.

Intel's gross profit margin -- a key measure of its ability to control the cost of making its chips -- is expected to be 56 percent, plus or minus a couple percentage points, higher than the gross profit margin of 53.8 percent in the first quarter.

Intel and AMD have both been hurt by their intensifying competition.

AMD is scheduled to report first-quarter results Thursday.

The Sunnyvale-based company warned last week that sales across all business units were lower than expected and that it plans to cut 10 percent of its global work force, or about 1,600 workers.

Analysts are expecting a loss of 51 cents per share on $1.51 billion in sales.

Intel finished cutting about 10,500 workers, or 10 percent of its own work force, last year in a move to shore up profits amid fierce competition with AMD.

Intel shares rose $1.51, or more than 7 percent, to $22.42 in after-hours trading.

They closed Tuesday up 22 cents at $20.91 before the results were released.

"NY senate plans to confirm new state police superintendent"

By JESSICA M. PASKO, Associated Press

Last updated: 6:03 p.m., Tuesday, April 15, 2008

ALBANY -- The New York Senate is expected to confirm Gov. David Paterson's nominee for superintendent of state police on Wednesday.

Harry Corbitt, 60, would replace acting superintendent Preston Felton, who played a role in a political scandal involving former Gov. Eliot Spitzer.

Felton resigned in March shortly after Paterson became governor following Spitzer's resignation amid accusations that he'd patronized a high-priced prostitute.

Corbitt, a former deputy superintendent of internal affairs for the state police, retired as a colonel with the agency in 2004.

In his 26-year career, he also held command positions with Troop E in central New York and with the Thruway troop, and was once in charge of the Basic School at the State Police Academy in Albany.

Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno said he expects Corbitt's nomination to be confirmed when it goes to the Senate Wednesday.

He would be the state's first black state police superintendent.

His annual salary would be $136,000.

Felton became embroiled in scandal when two of Spitzer's executive aides were accused of misusing state police records to embarrass Bruno.

Felton, 49, was criticized for having state police recreate records to provide information about the Senate Republican leader's use of state aircraft on trips that involved GOP fundraisers.

Corbitt told the Senate Crime Victims, Crime and Corrections Committee Tuesday that he would take steps immediately to prevent similar things from happening again.

He said he'd conduct an extensive audit of the executive security detail, and make sure state police continue to cooperate with Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's investigation.

"I think we are going to be issuing some protocols as a result of the final investigation of executive services," said Corbitt, who was unanimously confirmed by the committee.

New York State Troopers Police Benevolent Association President Daniel De Federicis said the organization looks forward to working with Corbitt again, and they feel he has the potential to be a great superintendent.

"Paterson gains some support in call for true spending cuts - Gov. Paterson makes expanded bottle bill a goal to generate revenue for tight New York budget"

By MICHAEL GORMLEY, Associated Press

Last updated: 5:52 p.m., Tuesday, April 15, 2008

ALBANY -- Just a week after the current state budget was passed, Gov. David Paterson is pushing his idea to cut next year's state budget by 5 percent to 10 percent.

The Democrat in just his fifth week in office said declining revenues in a recessionary economy will force "serious cutbacks" in a year.

The $121.7 billion state budget passed by the Legislature last week, much of it agreed to by Paterson, increases spending more than 4 percent and adds a record $1.75 billion to school aid despite a projected deficit this election year.

He said last week that the "hard-core cutting" will mean a 5 percent to 10 percent cut "off the top."

That's rare even for a pledge in Albany, where "cuts" usually refer to reduced growth in spending.

Some recent budgets included spending increases near 10 percent.

"It's an ambitious target," said E.J. McMahon of the Empire Center for New York State Policy, part of the fiscally conservative Manhattan Institute.

"If you don't propose an ambitious target and you don't propose an actual budget reduction, you will not have the kind of spending restraint you need to avoid big increases in taxes."

McMahon said former Republican Gov. George Pataki proposed cuts in his first two executive budgets in the mid- to late-1990s.

That forced cuts or negligible increases even after the Legislature acted on the budget.

Since then, however, state spending has often been at two or three times the inflation rate.

"I think the signals a governor sends are very important," McMahon said Tuesday.

"So far, he's sending the right signal and he's sending it consistently."

The Democratic governor met behind closed doors Tuesday with the Senate's Republican majority and found a partner in taking a rare, hard look at how the budget is spent, said John McArdle, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno.

"We're going to do something in the next several weeks to focus on the spending side," McArdle said.

He said that will involve following the money to see if there is waste and duplication of services.

"We're going to work with the governor," McArdle said of Paterson, the former Democratic leader of the Senate.

The Democrat-led Assembly will also consider Paterson's call for cuts.

"We'll have to look and see what the economy does," said Assembly Ways and Means Committee Chairman Herman "Denny" Farrell, a New York City Democrat.

"And then we'll deal with it."

On Tuesday, Paterson also gave some hints as to who would -- and who wouldn't -- pay the price for the drastic pledge in worsening fiscal times.

Paterson told cheering environmental activists Tuesday that he would make a goal of passing a bigger bottle bill that would require consumers to pay deposits for non-carbonated beverages such as bottled water.

The anti-littering bill would also provide millions of dollars to the state revenues by collecting unredeemed nickel deposits.

"We want to pass a bigger, better bottle bill this session," Paterson said.

The legislative session is scheduled to end June 23.

Although the proposal has been blocked for years by the bottling industry and the Republican-led Senate, Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno said that might change.

"Some people will say all it does is increase prices, it doesn't clean up trash, and others say it gets some of the trash out of the landfills and recycled," Bruno said Tuesday.

"So it's one of the issues we have to consider."

The Democratic governor also made it clear Tuesday that Albany's powerful unions wouldn't be targeted.

"We are going to have to address what has been mismanagement and, at times, recklessness in the assembling of our budget," Paterson said.

"We are going to have to make some serious cutbacks."

"We are going to have to address these issues to save our economy."

"But we cannot do it by balancing it on the backs of individuals who go to work every day."

He was drowned out by cheers from hundreds of members of the Transport Workers Union and who Paterson called its "great leader," President Roger Toussaint.

Tussaint and his union marched off the job in 2005 in an illegal strike, halting buses and trains in New York City at the height of the Christmas shopping season.

A judge fined the union $2.5 million and Toussaint spent 3 1/2 days in jail for contempt.

Workers were docked six days' pay.

Paterson wouldn't explain his plan further on Tuesday.

For the second straight day, he refused to answer reporters' questions.

He refused to respond to questions before, after and as he walked between meetings with the lobbyists on why he contributed just $150 of his and his wife's $269,815 salary to charity in 2007.

The disclosure was made Monday as part of the tradition of statewide elected officials releasing their income tax returns.

"It may be that that he's ridiculously busy," said Blair Horner of the New York Public Interest Research Group.

"It's only a concern if it's a pattern."

------

AP Writer Jessica M. Pasko contributed to this report from Albany.

"Cuomo expanding pension fraud probe to all local governments"

Associated Press

Last updated: 2:22 p.m., Tuesday, April 15, 2008

ALBANY -- Attorney General Andrew Cuomo says he's expanding an ongoing pension fraud probe to include all local governments across the state and all types of professional consultants.

The investigation started with findings that some Long Island school districts were listing outside lawyers as employees, allowing them to qualify for public pensions while their private practices collected millions of dollars in legal fees.

Now Cuomo is seeking information from more than 4,000 of the state's county governments, villages, towns, and special districts about their employment arrangements.

"State: North Greenbush ignored overruns"

By LAUREN STANFORTH, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

Last updated: 2:36 p.m., Tuesday, April 15, 2008

NORTH GREENBUSH -- A new state comptroller's audit slams the town government for providing little oversight on a water district project that is expected to be more than $800,000 over budget.

The audit, released Tuesday by the state Comptroller division of local government and school accountability, said costs on the $7.1 million project to bring water to District 14 began to exceed what was approved in 2005, but the costs were never conveyed to the Town Board, nor did the Town Board inquire about project updates.

From the beginning of the water project in 2003, town officials didn't properly plan and manage the construction project and there was little if any coordination between the Board, town comptroller's office or the building department in monitoring the project's budget, the audit states.

"Unfortunately, this project was mismanaged almost from the beginning,'' state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli in a written statement.

Costs began to stretch past the $7.1 million mark when there was additional rock excavation, difficulties in obtaining property easements and a wetter than normal season that required additional backfill.

The additional costs were allegedly discussed with the former town comptroller in 2005, but there was no indiciation the Town Board was ever advised or approved the additional costs.

The changeover that resulted from a new supervisor, several town board members and a new comptroller in January 2006, in addition to the resignation of the comptroller in September 2006, made town officials unsure of their legal duties and responsibilities over authorizing expenditures, the audit says.

"Fed: economy weakened further in the spring as shoppers buckled under multiple strains"

By JEANNINE AVERSA, Associated Press

Last updated: 5:05 p.m., Wednesday, April 16, 2008

WASHINGTON -- The country's economic health deteriorated further in early spring as shoppers buckled under the strains of the housing and credit debacles and a weaker employment climate.

Manufacturers and others businesses, meanwhile, were walloped by zooming prices for energy and other raw materials.

However, their ability to jack up retail prices to customers was mixed, with some companies restrained by competitive pressures, according to the Federal Reserve's new snapshot of nationwide economic conditions released Wednesday.

"Economic conditions have weakened," the Fed report stated.

Many analysts believe the economy has fallen into a recession, predicting that economic activity contracted in the first three months of this year and is still ebbing.

Even Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke recently acknowledged for the first time that a recession was possible.

That was a rare utterance of the "r" word for a Fed chief.

The government later this month will report on the economy's first-quarter performance.

Janet Yellen, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, said in a speech Wednesday that the economy "has all but stalled and could even contract over the first half of the year."

On Wall Street, investors -- buoyed by upbeat earnings reports from JPMorgan Chase, Intel Corp. and Coca-Cola Co. -- looked past the downbeat economic news.

The Dow Jones industrials jumped 256.80 points.

The Fed report underscored the challenges facing Bernanke and his colleagues as they fight to keep the economy from sinking into a deep recession, while at the same time avoiding a flare-up of inflation.

The report will figure prominently when the Fed meets April 29-30 to decide its next move on interest rates.

The Fed, which has been cutting rates since September to bolster the economy, turned much more forceful in January, when conditions took another turn for the worse.

Many economists believe the Fed will lower rates yet again at the April meeting to help shore things up.

The Fed snapshot "either portrayed a slowdown in already subpar economic growth or a deepening recession," said Michael Gregory, economist at BMO Capital Markets, who predicted a quarter-point rate reduction.

Even with the rate reductions, though, consumers have turned more cautious, the Fed report suggested.

Consumers are major shapers of the economy because their spending accounts for such a big chunk of overall economic activity.

"Consumer spending was characterized as softening across most of the country, with some districts reporting year-over-year declines in retail and or auto sales," the Fed report said.

Merchants -- other than auto dealers -- reported sales were "sluggish or declining" in 10 of the Fed's 12 regions, the report said.

With inventories of unsold goods starting to pile up, retailers in the Richmond, Va., and San Francisco regions have canceled orders, the report noted.

Lofty energy prices are squeezing businesses' profits and pinching consumers, leaving them with less money to spend on other things.

That is putting a damper on economic growth and adding to inflation pressures.

Oil prices briefly topped $115 a barrel for the first time Wednesday.

Gasoline prices have soared, too, marching toward $4 a gallon.

Businesses must cope with higher prices for food, fuel and energy products and many raw materials, the Fed report said.

"Most manufacturers have or are planning to increase prices" in response to such rising costs, the Fed said.

However, the response of companies in the service sector has been more mixed, the Fed said, "in part due to differences in competitive pressures."

Overall, most of the Fed's regions reported "little change in retail price inflation," the Fed report said, suggesting that producers -- and their profits -- are getting hit by rising energy and raw material prices.

The government reported Wednesday that consumer prices went up by a relatively modest 0.3 percent in March.

Producer, or wholesale, prices, meanwhile rose a lot faster -- by a whopping 1.1 percent.

On the manufacturing front, activity varied across the country.

The Fed regions of Chicago, Boston and Richmond, for instance, reported factory activity was rising -- but not substantially.

But the regions of New York, Kansas City, Philadelphia and Dallas all reported weakening factory production.

The regions of St. Louis and Cleveland saw activity hold steady, while the regions of Atlanta, Minneapolis and San Francisco said it was mixed.

Nonetheless, most Fed regions saw a "continued slide" in demand for goods related to housing construction, the Fed said.

Uncertainty about economic conditions, the Fed added, is leading to a "generally subdued" outlook for manufacturers.

In a separate report Wednesday, the Fed said big industry production nationwide rose 0.3 percent in March, an improvement from a drop of 0.7 percent in February.

The housing market remained stuck in a rut.

Home building stayed sluggish throughout the nation, although "there were few signs of any quickening in the pace of deterioration," the Fed said.

Declines or downward pressure on home prices were reported in many Fed regions.

And the regions of New York and San Francisco noted "some incipient price declines in areas that had previously shown resilience."

The Commerce Department, in yet another report Wednesday, said home building sank in March to its lowest point in 17 years, fresh evidence of the depth of the housing market's woes.

The Fed's survey is based on information supplied by the Fed's 12 regional banks.

The information was collected before April 7.

"Archivists are seeking more records from former New York Gov. George Pataki"

By KAREN MATTHEWS, Associated Press

Last updated: 5:06 p.m., Wednesday, April 16, 2008

NEW YORK -- Any time former Gov. George Pataki feels like turning over correspondence from his 12 years in office, archivists will be happy to receive it.

Fifteen months after leaving office, Pataki has handed over press releases and files relating to legislation but not letters and e-mails, state archivist Christine Ward says.

"We're always hopeful," Ward said Tuesday.

"Normally at the end of an administration, records are transferred to the archives."

"We would be happy to have additional records transferred."

Prior New York governors dating back to the 19th century turned over their official correspondence, said James Folts, chief of reference services at the archives.

A spokesman for Pataki, David Catalfamo, said the former governor was reviewing what additional materials he may turn over to the archives, which are used by scholars and journalists.

Ward said state law is unclear regarding what documents a governor must make public.

"We do not have a statute in New York that defines clearly what governors' records are public records," she said.

"We need to have a statute that makes that clear."

A bill to clarify a governor's obligations to provide records has passed the Democratic-controlled state Assembly several times but stalled in the Republican-controlled Senate.

The bill would empower archivists to take control of documents considered of historical value and would require the release of documents concerning appointments and other privileged information no later than 15 years after a governor leaves office.

"It would bring the standards for the governor's papers to the level of the Library of Congress," said Assemblyman Sam Hoyt, the Buffalo Democrat who has sponsored the legislation.

Hoyt said he hopes the bill passes this year.

Ward said Pataki, a Republican, delivered press releases and bill jackets, or folders with letters and memos pertaining to the history of bills that he signed or vetoed.

In Pataki's first month in office, in January 1995, he signed extradition papers returning convicted murderer Thomas Grasso to Oklahoma, where he was executed within weeks.

In his second year, he signed a bill into law requiring that the mothers of infants who test positive for AIDS or HIV be notified of the test results.

In 2003, he signed a bill sent him by the Legislature to ban smoking in virtually all workplaces in the state.

The next year, he signed a bill easing the harsh Rockefeller-era drug laws.

Pataki also was in office during the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attack on the World Trade Center and when, three years later, the cornerstone was laid for the new Freedom Tower at ground zero.

Much of the correspondence from Pataki's three terms consists of e-mails, and Ward said state law is not clear about how to determine what materials out of the volume of e-mail should be made public.

"We need to have in New York state a better way of identifying what of all that e-mail that's created is a record," she said.

"We're working on that."

Pataki left office on Dec. 31, 2006.

He abandoned a campaign for the Republican nomination for president in the spring of last year.

"Capital Region foreclosures jump in quarter - Mortgage lenders file 646 notices, up from 162 in year-ago period, as homeowners struggle with debt"

By CHRIS CHURCHILL, Business writer, Albany, New York Tims Union

First published: Wednesday, April 16, 2008

The number of Capital Region households facing foreclosure continues to increase as more families struggle with debt and rising mortgage payments.

Lenders issued 646 foreclosure notices during the first three months of the year, up from 162 during the year-ago quarter and 467 in the fourth quarter last year, according to RealtyTrac, an online marketplace for foreclosure properties.

The numbers don't surprise bankruptcy lawyers and housing counselors, who say they are busier than ever helping families struggling with credit and mortgage payments.

"It seems like every third day we have to drop everything in order to prepare a petition to stop a foreclosure," said Guy Criscione, a bankruptcy attorney in Albany.

The RealtyTrac numbers, released Tuesday, also are consistent with a February report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which warned many holders of subprime loans in the Capital Region were dangerously behind on payments.

The report said many of those loans contained adjustable rates that would demand more of borrowers in 2008 and 2009.

In the face of rising foreclosures, the Legislature and Gov. David Paterson last week included $25 million for housing counseling and legal services in the state budget.

But to the chagrin of some housing advocates, that amount was far lower than the $180 million plan initially proposed by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan.

The original plan would have set aside $150 million in grants to homeowners facing foreclosure, and Ellie Pepper, assistant director of Better Neighborhoods Inc. in Schenectady, said she was disappointed the money was not allocated, as it could have helped homeowners needing a temporary boost.

Others, though, argue that borrowers who made poor mortgage decisions don't deserve taxpayer-funded assistance.

Existing state programs for distressed homeowners don't seem to be helping.

The state has made $100 million available to help homeowners facing foreclosure refinance their mortgages.

But only three households have reworked their mortgages under the program called Keep the Dream, said Philip Lentz, spokesman for the State of New York Mortgage Agency, known as SONYMA, which administers the program.

Lentz said four other loans are in the works.

But with 5,088 foreclosure notices mailed statewide just in March, according to RealtyTrac, the loans made by Keep the Dream seem far less than a drop in the bucket.

Limitations on the program are hindering it, Lentz said.

Rules don't allow aid to homeowners who are "underwater," which means a home is worth less than its mortgage.

And homeowners who are more than 60 days past due on mortgage payments are excluded.

"A lot of people don't come to us until it is too late," Lentz said.

Housing counselors say the same, adding that many homeowners don't seek help until foreclosure proceedings are well under way.

Still, many counseling agencies say they are being swamped by homeowners seeking assistance, leading to hopes the $25 million included in the budget can help the groups expand their services.

"It's been proven, both in the Capital District and nationally, that homeowners are more likely to get a good result from their lender if they're working with a housing counselor or legal-services attorney," said Kirsten Keefe, an attorney at the nonprofit Empire Justice Center in Albany.

Though the RealtyTrac numbers show foreclosure filings in the Capital Region on the rise, the company also says the rate of such filings here is relatively low compared to other metropolitan areas.

Foreclosure filings are defined as default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions.

RealtyTrac reported 15,192 such filings statewide in the first quarter, up from 13,411 the same period in 2007.

Foreclosure filings in New York rose 37 percent in March alone from a year ago and fell 3 percent from February.

The state ranked 30th overall in the rate of filings, RealtyTrac said, with the worst of the problem concentrated in states such as Florida, Nevada and Ohio.

Nationally, 691,337 foreclosure filings occurred during the first quarter, up from 437,497 for the same period a year earlier, RealtyTrac said.

Chris Churchill can be reached at 454-5442 or by e-mail at cchurchill@timesunion.com.

"Layoffs planned at Travelers - Insurance company to cut 325 jobs, including some in Warren County"

By ALAN WECHSLER, Business writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Wednesday, April 16, 2008

GLENS FALLS -- The Travelers Cos. office in Warren County is one of four being hit by layoffs as the insurance company consolidates operations amid declining profit margins.

Travelers, a St. Paul, Minn.-based insurer of homes, cars and businesses, is cutting 325 jobs across four offices and states: Queensbury/Glens Falls; Marlton, N.J.; Fall River, Mass.; and Houston, said spokeswoman Sheila Trauernicht.

Details about specific cuts in the Queensbury/Glens Falls office were not available Tuesday.

But the Hartford Courant newspaper reported that the company also will consolidate work from Fall River to Syracuse, and from Marlton to Glens Falls.

That consolidation and other changes will result in about 100 new jobs in New York, Texas and Tennessee, the paper said.

The trade publication Insurance Journal said Tuesday the new jobs will be found in Syracuse, Houston and Knoxville when the consolidation plan is completed.

Trauernicht said the layoffs are in the business that covers individuals' homes and cars.

Travelers joins Allstate Corp. and Zurich Financial Services AG in eliminating jobs.

Allstate, the largest publicly traded U.S. home and auto insurer, said last week it was cutting 109 information technology positions in Northbrook, Ill., where the company is based.

Zurich, based in the Swiss city of the same name, is eliminating about 400 positions in the unit that sells commercial coverage in North America.

The Travelers cuts were made "to maintain a competitive structure" and will take effect by June, Trauernicht said.

The insurer will shut its so-called business centers in Marlton and Fall River, but continue to employ 80 people in the New Jersey office and 365 people in the Massachusetts office in jobs including sales, marketing, finance and technology, she said.

The company employs about 33,000 workers overall.

In February, Travelers signed a 10-year deal to take space in downtown Glens Falls in what's known as the CNA building on Glen Street.

CNA Insurance Co. once occupied the 10-story structure, the tallest in Glens Falls.

It's now known as Monument Center.

Travelers, housed at Northway Plaza in Queensbury, is expected to move its 150 workers downtown in July.

Merlin Development Co. of Saratoga Springs bought the building in 2005 and has been renovating it.

Bloomberg News contributed to this story.

"Colonie tax may come in January - One-time deficit-cutting assessment needs approval from the state Legislature to be collected earlier"

By JORDAN CARLEO-EVANGELIST, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Wednesday, April 16, 2008

COLONIE -- Town leaders said they'd be willing to wait until January to collect a proposed one-time tax designed to erase a multimillion-dollar deficit.

They may not have a choice.

Levying the midyear "deficit correction tax" -- which officials said would average about $250 for homeowners -- would require special state legislation, spokesmen for the state comptroller's office, Assembly and town said Tuesday.

Without it, the town would have to wait to add the tax to its January annual bills, which would only require the approval of a majority of the seven-member Town Board.

Officials earlier said they hoped for a fall tax collection, if they decide to go forward.

Because Supervisor Paula Mahan, a Democrat, wanted to move quickly in hopes of restoring Wall Street's confidence in town finances before October when $16 million in short-term debt comes due, the news may be a setback.

The Legislature will likely break for the summer in late June.

Even if time were not a factor, it's uncertain that the Democrat-led Assembly or Republican-led Senate would approve the measure when the Town Board appears divided along party lines over whether the tax is a good idea.

Residents' reaction has so far been mixed.

Many have expressed their displeasure, at the same time acknowledging it may be necessary.

Mahan floated the idea last week and got a cold response from the three-member GOP minority, which called it a "terrible idea" and proposed its own plan it said would generate a surplus with little or no tax increase.

Democrats are skeptical of the numbers used in the GOP plan, among them a deficit figure of $14.7 million.

Mahan uses a February state comptroller's office audit to peg the number at $18 million.

Peter Gannon, Mahan's director of operations, said Tuesday that officials were aware from the beginning that the plan might require some sort of state legislative green light -- though that possibility wasn't mentioned at a public meeting last Thursday at which Mahan discussed the tax.

Gannon acknowledged the need for approval could affect the town's timeline and said officials have yet to even decide whether to pursue the tax.

He said completing the process correctly was a higher priority than getting it done quickly.

Even if the town cannot collect the money until January, Gannon said including it in next year's budget, with ongoing cost-cutting measures, may be enough to show Wall Street the town is making efforts to stop its overspending.

"Ideally, we'd like wire transfers here by Friday, but that's not going to happen," Gannon said.

"This is a significant endeavor that we're taking with the taxpayers here in town and we want to make sure it's done properly."

He said the town is preparing to meet with state lawmakers, including Democratic Assemblyman Robert Reilly, in the coming weeks.

Calls to state Sen. Neil D. Breslin, a Democrat who represents Albany County, and Republican Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno of Brunswick were not immediately returned Tuesday.

Reilly's office said it was premature to comment on the proposal until it is formally presented.

Jordan Carleo-Evangelist can be reached at 454-5445 or by e-mail at jcarleo-evangelist@ timesunion.com.

"Water project $800,000 over budget - State comptroller's audit faults North Greenbush officials' lack of oversight"

By LAUREN STANFORTH, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

First published: Wednesday, April 16, 2008

NORTH GREENBUSH -- The town supervisor says greater oversight of capital projects will result from a new state comptroller's audit that slammed town officials for being unaware that a new water district would be $800,000 over budget.

The audit, released Tuesday by the state comptroller's division of local government and school accountability, said costs on the $7.1 million project to bring water to District 14 began to exceed what was approved in 2005, but that the costs were never conveyed to the Town Board and the Town Board did not inquire about project updates.

Final construction costs will likely amount to $7.9 million, according to the audit.

The project is about 99 percent done, said Town Board member Ernest Kern.

However, the town has not released the final payments on the project because of legal matters Kern said he couldn't elaborate on.

Costs increased for additional rock excavation, difficulties in obtaining property easements and a wetter-than-normal season that required additional backfill.

The audit says additional costs were discussed with the former town comptroller in 2005, but there was no indication the Town Board was ever advised of or approved the additional costs.

The audit says there's no indication that the Town Board requested specific budget information about the project until November 2006.

"Unfortunately, this project was mismanaged almost from the beginning," state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said in a written statement.

From the beginning of the water project in 2003, town officials didn't properly plan and manage the construction project and there was little if any coordination among the board, town comptroller's office and the building department in monitoring the project's budget, the audit states.

A 2006 leadership changeover left town officials unsure of their legal duties and responsibilities over authorizing expenditures, the audit says.

In January of that year, a new supervisor, several Town Board members and a new comptroller took office.

The comptroller resigned in September 2006, and a successor was not appointed until March 2007.

"We were all brand-new at the time," said Kern, who was elected in November 2005 after being a vocal supporter of the water district.

However, "I can't say we aren't at fault for not asking."

A response letter from Supervisor Mark Evers, who was elected in November 2005, was attached to the audit.

Evers agreed in his letter that changes in administration caused problems.

He says the town will establish a utilities committee to review projects monthly and appoint a project coordinator to report each month to the Town Board.

Evers could not be reached Tuesday for further comment about the audit.

Lauren Stanforth can be reached at 454-5697 or by e-mail at lstanforth@timesunion.com.

"State worker accused in credit card fraud"

By BRIAN NEARING, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union

Last updated: 3:56 p.m., Wednesday, April 16, 2008

BETHLEHEM -- A state worker was arrested Tuesday in connection with more than $4,400 in charges on a state-issued credit card.

David Plume, a 48-year-old Albany resident, was charged with felony grand larceny, defrauding the government and official misconduct in Albany City Court, according to the state Inspector General's Office.

A database analyst at the Department of Environmental Conservation, he was accused of making 55 improper charges on the credit card from December through March for rental cars, hotel rooms, gasoline, beer and cigarettes.

He was on leave without pay today from his $71,732-a-year position, according to DEC.

Plume was arrested during an appearance in Bethlehem Town Court on an unrelated matter and was sent to the Albany County Jail, according to the Inspector General's Office.

"AMD 1Q loss as deep as Wall Street expected as chip maker hurt by sales slowdown"

By JORDAN ROBERTSON, Associated Press

Last updated: 6:02 p.m., Thursday, April 17, 2008

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Advanced Micro Devices Inc.'s first-quarter loss matched Wall Street's lowered expectations, with the slumping chip maker hurt by its inability to unload older products amid economic turbulence that tamped down domestic consumer spending.

The Sunnyvale-based company said Thursday that it lost $358 million, or 59 cents per share, during the first three months of the year, its sixth quarterly loss in a row.

AMD lost $611 million, or $1.11 per share, in the same period last year.

Stripping out 8 cents per share in one-time charges connected to AMD's acquisition of graphics chip maker ATI Technologies, the company lost 51 cents per share in the latest period, matching the average estimate on the same basis from analysts polled by Thomson Financial.

Sales of $1.51 billion were 22 percent higher than last year and in line with analysts' expectations.

AMD warned earlier this month that sales across all business lines were lower than it earlier anticipated.

It also announced plans to jettison 10 percent of its global work force, or about 1,600 workers, by September.

Chief Financial Officer Robert Rivet blamed the first-quarter loss on seasonal weakness, the economy and lower-than-expected sales of old products.

He added that the company expects to become profitable on an operating basis in the second half of 2008.

AMD has racked up more than $4 billion in losses in a skid that stretches back to the last three months of 2006, when intensifying competition from larger rival Intel Corp. and the costs of the ATI acquisition began to take their toll on AMD.

Lengthy product delays have also hurt AMD's ability to win new customers and steal market share from Intel.

AMD's new Opteron server chip -- critical to the company's financial recovery -- was delayed for 8 months after its official launch in September because of technical glitches.

They didn't roll out in force until this month, when Hewlett-Packard Co. began shipping servers with the new chips.

Wall Street was bracing for more bad news from AMD, so the fact that its losses weren't any deeper than analysts feared helped lift the stock 11 cents, or nearly 2 percent, to $6.30 in after-hours trading.

AMD shares closed up 12 cents, to $6.19, before the results were reported.

The stock is still way off its recent high of $42.10 in early 2006, when AMD was steadily stealing market share from Intel with chips that were seen as more energy-efficient.

After Intel fired back with a powerful new lineup, AMD's stock began sliding.

Meanwhile, Intel's profits are improving because it has made a speedy transition to a new chip-making technology that lowers the cost of production.

AMD lags Intel in making its own transition to the 45-nanometer manufacturing process, which means the chips' circuitry is shrunken to an average size of 45 billionths of a meter.

Smaller circuitry means chips cost less to make and they can hold more transistors.

AMD said its 45-nanometer products are expected in the second half of 2008.

In reporting first-quarter results Tuesday, Intel kept its profit-margin expectations for 2008 intact, a sunny forecast that indicates the company is tightly controlling its pricing and manufacturing costs while AMD continues to stumble.

"Attorneys' retirement benefits revoked in NY pension probe - New York revokes attorneys' retirement benefits amid fraud probe in school district employment"

By VALERIE BAUMAN, Associated Press

Last updated: 6:02 p.m., Thursday, April 17, 2008

ALBANY -- New York Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli's office is kicking four attorneys' out of the New York state and local retirement system because an upstate BOCES district inappropriately classified them as employees.

The move is part of a broader investigation by DiNapoli and New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo that started with findings some Long Island school districts were listing lawyers as employees.

They were allowed to qualify for public pensions while their private practices collected millions of dollars in legal fees.

"We are reviewing every lawyer in our system," DiNapoli said.

"We will revoke memberships for those individuals who have been erroneously classified as employees."

Officials in the comptroller's office said they didn't know if the lawyers were aware they were getting inappropriate benefits.

It was unclear if they would face criminal charges.

Cuomo said the attorneys, who all work for the Law Offices of Girvin & Ferlazzo, P.C., are part of an ongoing investigation into the issue.

"I think the law is very clear on this area," Cuomo said.

"The law between being an independent contractor and an employee is a highly defined, litigated area of law, because it comes up all the time."

DiNapoli said his office also revoked five years of service credit for another lawyer the Hamilton-Fulton-Montgomery BOCES incorrectly reported as an employee.

The four attorneys whose benefits were revoked are James Girvin, Kathy Ann Wolverton, Kristine Lanchantin and Jeffrey Honeywell.

Service credit from BOCES for the fifth attorney, Salvatore Ferlazzo, was revoked.

In fiscal year 2006-07, BOCES paid the five lawyers a total of $234,000.

That year, Hamilton-Fulton-Montgomery BOCES reported them as full-time who worked a total of 1,157 days at BOCES.

They actually worked a total of 196 days, according to the comptroller's office.

A call to the Law Offices of Girvin & Ferlazzo, P.C. was not immediately returned.

BOCES has removed the lawyers from its payroll and fired the law firm.

DiNapoli said his office will return retirement contributions that local governments paid for the lawyers.

"We are finding these scams and we're exposing them," Cuomo said.

"We're investigating them, and that sends a message across the board that says 'Don't even think about ripping off New York.'"

"Crackdown on NY home care providers moves upstate - Subpoenas issued in Medicaid fraud probe involving home care in upstate New York"

By CAROLYN THOMPSON, Associated Press

Last updated: 5:52 p.m., Thursday, April 17, 2008

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Twenty-seven upstate home health care agencies face questions from the state about aides who provide services paid for by Medicaid.

Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said a round of subpoenas sent by his office this week are part of a widening Medicaid probe that began with reports of fraud downstate last year.

The investigation has so far led to charges against more than 80 patients, aides, nurses, instructors and administrators of home health agencies, 50 convictions and judgments to pay more than $14 million in restitution, the attorney general said.

"We had nurses who never showed up, we had nurses who showed up and abused the patient."

"We have cases of nurses who overbill to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars," Cuomo said during a news conference in his Buffalo office.

"Older New Yorkers overwhelmingly prefer to receive long-term care services for themselves or a family member through home care and community-based services rather than institutional care," said Lois Aronstein, the director of AARP in New York.

The result is an expanding industry in need of more thorough oversight, Cuomo said.

More than 150,000 New Yorkers receive Medicaid-funded home health services monthly.

The bill to taxpayers in 2007 was $3.8 billion, he said.

"The concept is right," Cuomo said.

"We want to clean up the fraud."

The investigation targets not only the aides who provide the services, but the agencies that hire, train and contract them out.

The president of the Home Care Association of New York supported the effort to prosecute those who undermine the system but cautioned against allowing a "broad-brush approach" to impair those trying to deliver quality care.

"Providers of quality home care services have an equal, if not greater, stake in curbing fraud and abuse," HCA President Joanne Cunningham said, "because the misdeeds of a few rogue individuals have the potential to tarnish the entire home care community."

Cuomo pointed to the arrest of an employment recruiter for an in-home health care training company in Buffalo for selling falsified personal care aide certificates.

Melody McKnight pleaded guilty to forgery and bribery charges.

In a Rochester case, nurse Adrian Clements admitted filing reimbursement claims for services that she did not provide, receiving $70,785 from the Medicaid program.

She was sentenced to five years probation and ordered to repay the money.

Other recent cases have exposed aides working without proper training, no-show aides who split their payments with complicit patients and aides billing multiple agencies for 36 hours in a single day.

Of the subpoenas issued this week, 15 went to Syracuse-area agencies, while agencies in Buffalo and Rochester received seven and five, respectively.

Cuomo said the targeted companies are not accused of wrongdoing, but that investigation has warranted giving them a closer look.

Cuomo is also pushing for a statewide registry of certified home health aides as a way to better oversee the industry.

"New York AG subpoenas 18 banks in market probe"

By VALERIE BAUMAN, Associated Press

Last updated: 6:52 p.m., Thursday, April 17, 2008

ALBANY -- Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has subpoenaed 18 banks as part of an investigation into the auction rate securities market, an official familiar with the probe said Thursday.

Cuomo began the industrywide investigation into how Wall Street banks sold the securities after distress in the $330 billion auction rate securities market caused more than 50 student lenders to stop making federally guaranteed student loans, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing.

Cuomo is investigating banks that underwrote and brokered the investments to determine how the risk of auction failure was disclosed to investors.

The problem is an offshoot of the national subprime mortgage crisis.

Here is how it works:

States, student loan agencies and others sell auction rate debt.

They are long-term bonds frequently sold as short term investments.

The interest rates on the securities are reset at regular auctions, but at the end of January many auctions failed when big banks stopped bidding on the securities.

That stuck investors with long-term securities at higher rates that they couldn't sell.

The problem came as a shock to some investors, who were often told that the auction rate securities were as safe as cash.

Cuomo could press criminal charges under New York's Martin Act, which provides criminal and civil enforcement powers for publicly traded companies.

"Cuomo's NY pension probe investigates role of BOCES - Cuomo subpoenas BOCES districts in probe of questionable payments for school district lawyers"

By MICHAEL GORMLEY, Associated Press

Last updated: 3:12 p.m., Friday, April 18, 2008

ALBANY -- New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said Friday that he is subpoenaing BOCES districts statewide because they may have been complicit in listing part-time lawyers as full-time employees to get additional state tax dollars.

Cuomo is targeting the state's 38 BOCES districts, which operate regional services for a number of public school districts.

Cuomo says the BOCES districts appear to have gained more state school aid by providing health and pension benefits to BOCES attorneys who worked part-time for school districts in addition to their full-time private practices.

"The BOCES may not have had clean hands because it appears there was a financial incentive to BOCES to do it this way and there was also an incentive to the lawyers who could also get the health and pension benefits," Cuomo said.

"I don't accept that people were unclear about the law," he said.

"The law on employee versus independent contractor is well settled."

"It is a highly litigated area, there are IRS regulations that are very specific and it comes up very often."

Cuomo's broader investigation of benefits provided to lawyers by school districts and local governments continues.

BOCES districts were created decades ago to help the then-poorer suburban and rural districts pool resources for vocational education, special education and other programs to avoid costly duplication at each neighboring district.

Cuomo said he wants to reform a practice he said has been going on for years.

"There was a clear financial incentive for the lawyers, there may have been a financial incentive for the BOCES, and the person who was paying for this is the taxpayer," he said.

There was no immediate comment from the state Department of Education , to which the BOCES districts report.

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On the Net:

http://www.oag.state.ny.us

Fascinating stuff...the packaging of financial instruments is a web (of greed)
that has spun through everything it seems. Thus, it's no wonder that sub-prime
loans were so pervasive in crashing the big banks balance sheets.

Hiring attorney's parttime to give them benefits is ridiculous...if there are
any consultants...specialists (on $150-$200-an-hour rates) attorneys are same.