The State of New York owes Herkimer County $6.447 million, and Herkimer County Legislator Patrick Russell believes reimbursement from the State is taking way too long.
Luckily, according to Herkimer County Administrator James W. Wallace, Jr., Herkimer County is very fortunate.
“In Herkimer County we are very solid with our reserves, we haven’t had to do any short term borrowing yet like other counties have,” he said.
According to Wallace, Herkimer County is owed $4.9 million from Social Services programs, and $1,334,168 in reimbursements towards public health programs, programs for the physically handicapped, and the Office for the Aging.
Throughout the state, counties are reporting millions of dollars of reimbursements owed to them by the State Government, the majority being from state mandated Social Services programs.
Because of the state mandated programs, Herkimer County must send the state roughly $258,000 a week towards Medicaid, and if they don’t, they can be charged interest up to nine percent.
Additionally, taxpayers are required to pay about 40 percent of the total cost for state mandated programs, and then, because the money is owed, counties also pay the state’s 59.5 percent share, which they can expect to be reimbursed for at least a year later.
Herkimer County Legislator Patrick Russell said of the mandates, “A lot of people don’t realize how much they are paying in just state mandates. We try to tell them all of the time, but it’s just huge. If we did not have the state mandates we could probably run the county off of just the sales tax.”
“It’s just very difficult when we look at our budget and we see that just so much of it is mandated and that you can’t control it. The only people who can control it are the state reps,” said Russell.
Wallace believes that paying the state’s share puts a definite stress on the county’s cash flow.
“If you think of any business that has to wait a year for their money, you know it’s very difficult. These are programs we didn’t initiate, we are doing their programs for them. Welfare programs, pre-school programs—they aren’t funding them, but they are making them mandatory,” Wallace said.
But Herkimer County is better off than many other counties in New York.
Oneida County Executive Anthony Picente told reporters in June that he would be withholding Medicaid payments to the state until reimbursements were paid to them.
Currently, Oneida County is operating without $22 million it is owed by the state.
Other counties awaiting reimbursements include Suffolk County which was forced to borrow $40 million, according to County Executive Steve Levy, to ensure that it can make payroll because the state is reportedly $189 million in arrears.
