Road Chiefs Raise a Ruckus Over Rollbacks

WINDHAM - He has offered his two cents on the matter, hoping a couple of verbal pennies help save $60 million in vital State funding for already strapped local highway departments.

Windham roads chief Gary Thorington has been an especially busy fellow, this week, first traveling to Albany on Tuesday and Wednesday as part of “Advocacy Day” with the New York State Association of Town Superintendents of Highway.

Thorington sits on the executive committee of NYSAOTSOH, representing the six mostly rural counties of Greene, Schoharie Columbia, Hamilton, Montgomery and Fulton as well as Albany County.

He followed up that lobbying campaign with a related trek to the Schoharie County Department of Public Works, on Thursday morning, joined by Assemblyman Chris Tague and a slew of highway compatriots.

Tague was there, stumping not for himself but for the men and women who take care of village, town, county and even sometimes State roads.

Departments are facing severe cuts in the crucial CHIPS funding that are included in Governor Kathy Hochul’s proposed 2024/25 budget.

Passage of that spending plan is slated for April 1 and while the State is notoriously late, the timing isn’t what is most relevant.

Thorington was one of several speakers in Schoharie, and in a phone interview leading up to the gathering, detailed the situation.

“We don’t understand why they’re cutting funds that are important to every community when we already need more than we get,” Thorington said.

“There are studies done on why bumble bees and butterflies can’t fly and here we are decreasing dollars for roads everyone uses.”

Hochul’s slashing totals $100 million, factoring in an additional $40 million for programs that largely impact larger downstate municipalities.

“This week is serious business,” Thorington said. “This could be detrimental to our local road systems and it’s not just about CHIPS.

“If the Governor is willing to eliminate these funds, who’s to say she won’t cut the Extreme Winter Repair and Pave Our Potholes programs?

“Typically we get really good support. We’re not saying they don’t do their jobs in Albany. Political affiliation doesn’t usual enter into it. 

“But we weren’t expecting a $100 million cut. We’re not only asking to keep the $100 million, but to add $150 million more than what we got last year.”

Assemblyman Tague, in a phone interview prior to the Schoharie gathering, said, “it’s pretty evident New York State spends more money than it has.

“The budget was $168 billion when I was first elected [six years ago] and $233 billion is now being proposed. 

“Over that same period, one million New Yorkers have left the State and during Covid, we lost many businesses and other revenue sources.

“At some point, something has to break,” Tague said, “but it can’t be our highway departments and Departments of Public Works.

“They have to be ready to go whenever the call comes and and they need to have the workers and equipment to do their jobs.”

Greene County highway superintendent Scott Templeton, in a phone chat, echoed that dollars and cents sentiment, noting the county stands to lose approximately $225,000 from their projected revenue pool

“This is surprising. They gave us more funding last year, saying it was important. I guess it’s no longer important,” Templeton said.

“I don’t understand what programs they would choose that they’d rather be supporting. This is real money to us. All the money we get is spent on roads and bridges. It’s not like we squirrel it away.”

The town of Windham, with its annual $950,249 highway budget, would be hit hard by the gashing, forced to find over $12,000 elsewhere. Other communities will suffer a more painful pinch.

“We’re pretty fortunate [with a healthy tax base] here, but if you really want to put this in perspective, take a ride through Tug Hill,” Thorington said, referring to the remote, high-snowfall area in northern New York.

“There are towns up there that have almost nothing. I’m not putting them down. I’m just painting a realistic picture. What is this going to do to the towns so small they rely solely on CHIPS money for repairs.

“How do you make that money up? You don’t. We could take a direct hit on this year’s paving and the budget is already set so we can’t generate any more funding,” Thorington said.

“I suppose the town could do a resolution to tap the General Fund but that’s not what that piggy bank is for, so this could really hurt.”

Thorington, noting 87 percent of the roads in the State are either on the village, town or county level, said, “everyone travels a local road.

“It doesn’t matter what you’re doing or where you’re going. Our emergency services couldn’t pass without them. For the life of me, I don’t understand why we have to go to Albany every year to face these budget cuts.”