For the following three Fridays, Sullivan County Legislative Chairman Robert Doherty will talk about the State of the County from his perspective as a property owner, business owner and elected county official.

To the editor:

Early on we [the Sullivan County Legislature] confronted the issue of a nursing home that was underserving its residents while causing the County to hemorrhage valuable resources to the tune of nearly $1 million per month in losses. 

Such losses, considered in isolation, would be hard enough to accept but when factored together with the reality that the facility was underserving its residents, the combination was simply untenable. 

We moved quickly to do two things, shore up the quality of care delivered to the residents, noting that the quality of care was not an employee-centered issue, it was an administrative issue.

We simply did not offer any of those services typically found in a skilled nursing home. Indeed, so difficult is it to flourish as a municipally-owned nursing home that Ulster County recently sold their facility, Orange County attempted to sell theirs and now accepts nearly $8 million in annual losses and Rockland County closed their facility. 

Looking more broadly at the issue, Sullivan County currently is one of only 15 counties statewide who continue to operate a nursing home. [County-owned nursing homes] have become a vestige of a bygone era and one that has given way to privately-owned and-operated homes.     

Everyone hears the 2 percent tax cap bantered about but what does that really mean?

When our county raises taxes by 2 percent that will yield about $1.6 million [in revenue]. 

Past legislatures have gone into debt, taking out loans, for such fundamental purposes as road resurfacing, while proclaiming that they have not exceeded the cap only to saddle the taxpayers with ever-mounting debt. 

Consider the $12-million annual loss at the nursing home and understand that to meet that obligation either other considerations must be shortchanged or just to satisfy that loss the County would be forced to impose a 15 percent tax increase.

[That 15 percent tax increase would be] just for the county and just to feed the nursing home, without providing a penny increase in the wages of any employee and before confronting the ever-mounting cost of retirement and health care. 

Just this year the county received a $1.6 million increase in the cost of healthcare and none of that was passed onto the employees, each of which will continue to receive the same high-value health insurance coverage that they have always enjoyed and they will receive it at no additional cost to themselves. 

Most importantly, because of sound fiscal management practiced and embraced by the majority [of the legislature], that cost will be absorbed without incurring additional debt or borrowing. 

Much attention, and rightfully so, has been paid to the salary negotiations for two major components of the County budget. When department heads – both elected, but from opposite sides of the aisle, representing different genders, and representing very different but very important interests ­– came before the Legislature with their requests we did not play politics.

Instead, we engaged in sound and prudent fiscal management and approved a position in the Clerk’s office at a salary that was commensurate with the job at hand, despite spirited protest. 

Likewise, for the District Attorney’s Office we balanced issues of public safety and the ability to staff the office with competent and experienced prosecutors against the financial realities of Sullivan County in 2021. 

After much debate and some condemnation of myself and my colleagues, a proper balance was struck by a unanimous vote of the Legislature and the Office of the District Attorney will be well positioned to confront the challenges of tomorrow. 

Our Industrial Development Agency (IDA)  has been a favorite target for many of the same detractors that I confront every day.   

The Board of the IDA  brings to our County expertise in business and finance. Individual members provide  a ‘value-added’ to the County with their remarkable credentials recognized across the United States. 

Not content with the status quo, I have commissioned a committee to study the current Uniform Tax-Exempt Programs offered by the IDA to gain greater understanding into the current needs of our County, the economic development plans for each of our municipalities and how that agency can be a more productive partner moving forward. 

Through the process we are soliciting input from every town and village as well as those agencies at the forefront of the economic development issues of the county.