Rockland County Takes College Chargeback Costs Back from Towns

Rockland County's controversial decision to push the cost of community college chargebacks to the five towns has been reversed.

The county had passed its responsibility for college chargebacks to the towns in 2012, drawing criticism from town officials. 

The Rockland County Legislature voted Oct. 1 to amend the original resolution, bringing the cost back to the county effective 2013 and going forward, giving County Executive C. Scott Vanderhoef 30 days to respond. Rockland County Deputy County Executive Terry Grosselfinger confirmed that Vanderhoef did not veto the measure, allowing it to take effect when the 30 days passed.

Grosselfinger added that the executive's office has proposed legislation to pay for the shortfall for 2013 with $1.397 million from a legislative reserve account. He added that Vanderhoef did not include that revenue from the towns as part of the proposed 2014 budget. 

The county had not billed the towns for 2013, so that money will stay with the towns. That also allows the towns to budget for 2014 without that expense. 

"We're very pleased with that," Orangetown Supervisor Andy Stewart said. "Now we don't have to pay it. Why? Basically, the town supervisors kept hammering on it. This is something I wanted and the other town supervisors wanted. It's someone else's problem and it should be in someone else's budget."

Clarkstown Supervisor Alex Gromack said while he was pleased to see one of the town's issues with the county resolved, there are still other matters of disagreement.

"We've been battling the county for two years on three issues," Gromack said. "The RCC chargeback is one. The second one is charging us for the Rockland County Board of Elections, which is $550,000 (for Clarkstown). They also eliminated funding for the Rockland County Narcotics Task Force, which is $1 million (for Clarkstown alone). It's good that we got one of the three resolved. The other two issues we still need to resolve. We don't believe they have the right to charge us for the board of elections and we'd like them to reimburse us for the Narcotics Task Force."

Stewart said among the issues involved with the community college chargebacks was that the towns have no influence over the cost, so they should not bear the responsibility.

"If we can't influence the program, we can't troubleshoot or look for cost savings," Stewart said. "Those who do have the authority should take the responsibility."

Stewart included the cost of college chargebacks at $250,000 in his proposed Orangetown budget for 2014. Orangetown has a budget hearing scheduled for Nov. 12 and the final budget must be adopted by Nov. 19. Orangetown paid the county $219,854 for the college chargebacks in 2013. 

Gromack pointed out that the towns must go forward trusting that there will not be another reversal at the county level. Rockland County won't adopt its budget until December. 

The town of Clarkstown budgeted $565,000 for the chargebacks in 2013 after paying $557,020 in 2012. No money was allocated for the chargebacks in the proposed 2014 budget. Clarkstown will hold two public hearings starting 7 p.m. tonight at Clarkstown Town Hall. The first will be on the town board's proposal to override the state mandated tax levy cap. The second is on the town's preliminary 2014 budget of $140,725,325.

"We never included it in the '14 budget," Gromack said. "We were led to believe by a number of legislators that the RCC chargeback number would not be happening again in '14. I'm glad it worked out. If for some reason they change their minds, we'll have to deal with it. It's good news that we didn't' have to add $575,000 to the budget for '14."

The Rockland County Legislature passed the resolution putting the college chargeback cost back on the county by an 11-5 vote. Much of the opposition centered around including 2013 after the towns had collected taxes for budgets including the chargebacks. Read more about that in this report on Patch. Rockland County Legislator Ed Day, now the County Executive Elect, argued that it would be like charging the residents for it twice and said he also voted against the resolution because it did not come with a mechanism to pay for the additional cost to the county for 2013.