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  1. #1

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    State Wants to Zero Out the ORDA Budget!

    The shocking thing about the ORDA cuts
    North Country Public Radio
    Reporter Brian Mann writes that the Senate's proposal to eliminate funding for the Olympic Regional Development Authority came as a surprise.

    http://northcountrypublicradio.org/b...orda-cuts.html

  2. #2
    Adkskier - or anyone - when is the final budget submitted or approved?

    I googled "new york state final budget approval" and found a NYTimes article that said that in 2008 the budget was finalized on April 10.
    Harvey Road: NYSkiBlog.com

  3. #3

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    Budget approval

    The NYS budget could be approved anytime between now and when hell freezes over. Quite literally. I don't recall the record late approval, but I want to say that it has been as late as June or July. Anyone else with a better memory of this?

  4. #4
    Frostillicus's Avatar
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    K/Pico are looking better and better...

  5. #5
    I want to say that it has been as late as June or July. Anyone else with a better memory of this?
    I can recall one year, probably about 5 yrs ago, when it went into August.

  6. #6
    I wonder if that also means that ORDA wouldn't send any money back to the state.

    It would be interesting to see it run a little more like a business....

  7. #7

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    Business

    It would be more interesting to see each ORDA venue run as an independent profit center. However, some of the venues have some overlap when one looks at the economic impacts. Gore's operation and local economic impact is most easily isolated from the Lake Placid venues, but it would be very difficult to separate Whiteface from the other LP venues because so many visitors will visit more than one venue. Without state support for capital improvements, Gore might be stuck where it is today.
    But...the budget is far from approved and lots can and will change before it's adopted.

  8. #8
    This looks like a gut punch, but it's too early to say what will happen. There will be a lot of negotiating and horse trading before the budget is finally adopted, at which point the budget inevitably will exceed what anyone thinks is reasonable. Happens every year.

    Money from the State is only 20% of ORDA's operating budget, but that's a cut that will really hurt. The biggest problem every year is that no one wants to give up anything. The big problem this year is that the people in control in the Legislature have probably never been further north than Saratoga or Lake George, so they don't care or just aren't aware how important these things are to the north country. Let's hope that somebody (a legislator, a protest group) steps up and makes enough noise so that some of the money is restored.

    Closing the Olympic facilities would be devastating to Essex County. Those venues MAKE money for the State, just like the State parks. You can see the horse trading going on with the closure of State parks and prisons (which employ a lot of people inside the blue line). Although the budget "deadline" is approaching, the process is still in its early stages.

    The budget is adopted when the appropriations bills are passed and signed by the Governor. It frequently went into July during the Pataki years (and technically later because the bills were not yet finalized). With Governor Do-Nothing Paterson, we might set a new record.
    The sea was angry that day my friends, like an old man trying to send back soup at a deli

  9. #9
    When I saw adkskier's post and link this am, I sent Mike a note asking him what he thought.

    His response made it seem like he knew the $0 thing was happening before the news broke.

    And he said pretty much what Spongeworthy said above. The budget process can take a while, and often final budgets look very different from original proposals.

    It looks like about $20M of the total $35M ORDA budget is used to operate Gore and Whiteface.

    Sure seems like a $6M dinger would hurt skiing bigtime.

    My two cents.... The Olympic facilities are a core part of NY State's identity. Like the Statue of Liberty.

    I have no idea if the Statue is a positive or negative cash flow as a individual venue. But I'd bet that if it was loosing money, they'd never close it. It's too important for a lot of reasons -and not all of those reasons are easily measured in budgets.

    I hope that lawmakers give the venues in Lake Placid get that kind of consideration.
    Harvey Road: NYSkiBlog.com

  10. #10
    With no disrespect to State Employees, don't know how anyone blames this on Paterson. Yet it is a myth the Legislators hide behind. Paterson is the only one who has done anything. It is the Legislature that HAS to pass a budget not the Govenour. There's still a 2 Billion Dollar shortage in the budget that ends IN ONE WEEK! Legislature has passed absolutely no legislation to deal with it. None! They are the only ones who can fix it- the Executive branch is not empowered to enact laws, budgets, taxes.

    Paterson has begged, pleaded with them to fix this 2 billion dollar shortage. They didn't. Because of this the State was unable to pay it's bills last December. Paterson wisely suspended some payments so the checks would not bounce and cause NY State's credit rating to plummet. This would have cost us tens millions in higher interest rates, hundreds of millions over time!

    Paterson suggested several ways to try and solve it. He also submited a budget for this coming year. The Legislature ignored them and failed and continues to fail to do anything.....except say it the bad Govenour's fault. Behavior like that.....

    Has earned the NY State Legislature the " Most Dysfunctional in the Nation " Award for two years in a row!!! They will most likely win it again this year considering this outrageous afront to democracy....

    They were supposed to fix the Billions shortfall last summer. They wouldn't. So there was a legit, legal vote to change leadership. The vote was held and the ousted people quickly turned off the lights, cleared Chambers, locked Chambers and concealed the Official Record! Then they left town and would not return to fix the budget shortfall, or unlock Chambers so others could fix it or produce the Offical Record - even to the Courts! After weeks, Paterson compelled them to come back and for 6 weeks they still did nothing. This cost well over 100 million dollars to have them there (and they did nothing!) and millions more to lower governments.

    This was a complete hijack of democracy New York Mob Thug style or Third World punk azz bitch style.

    The Executive branch has absolutely no power to enact a budget or taxes. That is the solely Legislature's responsiblity and only they have the power to do it. We need to focus on that so these Legislative morons deal with the 10-15 Billion, maybe 18-20 Billion Dollar shortage for the next fiscal year starting......April 1!!!

    Don't expect them to do it. These malfuncs are strong candidates to not only 3-peat but 4-peat as the Nation's Most Dysfunctional cuz this next fiscal year is going to be a disaster.
    incoming .................DUCK !

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