State Wants to Zero Out the ORDA Budget!

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

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.
 
Harvey44 said:
Adkskier - or anyone - when is the final budget submitted or approved?
Click to expand...

That's Funny!!! Hehehehe!!! LMAO???

Nothing personal harv.

Budgets in NY lately are never finalized. Usually they are voted on (sorta) very late after April, think Fall. Even then they are an extremely leaky bucket. Some large yearly expenses are not even counted in the " budget " so that they can be concealed. Most NY budgets passed are not even close to being funded and the dinks either pass legislation from the hip, plunder existing funds like the Highway funds, etc. and as is the case this year, just ignore deficits and try to pay for them with next year's money... robbing Peter to pay Paul.

There are some State programs/mandates where NY State simply just quit sending the local municipalities the payroll/expense money it traditionally paid to operate these programs. They never sent a memo, letter, any notification at all to the locals informing them of this a year or so ago when it started. Can you imagine? So far the local Governments are footing the extra cost. So far.

NY is 2 Billion short on this year's budget ending March 31. The unemployment fund is over 2 Billion in the red and growing fast. Many main bridges in populated areas are slated to be immediately replaced - badly need replaced - and there's not enough money. The State has suspended State Income Tax refund checks till April cause it can't pay them and it's bills. It still has 4-5 billion left to refund....they're not gonna have it. Starting April 1, the next year is between 8-12 billion additional dollars short - SO FAR. There's " off budget " annual expense items not even counted towards that budget's deficit but are still very real issues. Last year, Schools around the State were artifically propped up by the Stimulus money. That is running out. You can bet your left Hickory there's much more they don't tell us or have concealed. Toss in a nice helping of default to lower bond ratings and add even more increase to the deficit.

This year's " finalized budget " ends March 31. It never was a workable budget. They fully knew that last summer. They didn't even have borrowing included to cover the 2 Billion dollar deficit!! Nothing! They just said we're spending X amount of dollars and never had anything in place to provide all those dollars. Can you imagine? So that budget was never " finalized "! It will expire unfinalized.

Doesn't it make you feel good to know that we have the Most Dysfunctional State Legislature in the Nation to lead us through this calamity ? All warm and fuzzy like....
 
Harvey44 said:
It looks like about $20M of the total $35M ORDA budget is used to operate Gore and Whiteface.
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Lastly, there's something EXTREMELY fishy smelling about ORDA and the Mtns' financing.

They charge as much as the high price resorts that get zero state dollars and still turn a profit. Plus Gore/Face pays no Mortgage, no taxes, no improvement loans, on and on. That's huge! Why would they be short of money?
 
A quick look at the Gore budge for 09-10 shows revenue of $9.1 M and operating expensed of $8.65 M. But those expenses do not include interest changes, princppal repayment or depreciation (non cash charge). These non operating expenses are lumpped together for all of ORDA so it's impossible how much is allocated to Gore. Assuming 25% are allocated to Gore then it would be over $1M in the red. Thke this with a lot of salt, I'm not an accountant (and the budget is not a financial statement).

It would be interesting to see if they meet they revenue target. Based on the crowds I saw, I would doubt it. Next year they are budgeting for revenue of 9.3M which would seem like wishful thinking unless the economy turns around.

tom
 
There is also $ 1.7M allocated to ORDA administration. That would look like some low hanging fruit for the budget ax.

tom
 
TomCat said:
But those expenses do not include interest changes, princppal repayment or depreciation (non cash charge).
Click to expand...

What interest charges? What principal repayment? When did Gore have a loan, etc? For what? Anybody know? Does ORDA issue bonds? How is ORDA financing their $25M Convention Center?




TomCat said:
These non operating expenses are lumpped together for all of ORDA so it's impossible how much is allocated to Gore.tom
Click to expand...

THAT IS A VERY BAD SIGN!

Before anybody goes off saying " ORDA has accountants, internal audits, etc " let me say so did Enron, Bernie Madof and every other financially corrupt corporation, government body or political campaign.
 
Ya know, I have a hard time feeling sorry for "poor" NYS ski areas since the State may not help out. They are charging as much or nearly-so as VT areas, get great weekend crowds, but still can't make it. I jumped to VT this season and haven't looked back. The conditions have been as good as the grooming would allow with a low-snow year and all the terrain has been available mid-week.
JMHO.
C
 
Thanks TC. Anybody know any answers to these questions?

Snowballs said:
What interest charges? What principal repayment? When did Gore have a loan, etc? For what? Anybody know? Does ORDA issue bonds? How is ORDA financing their $25M Convention Center?
Click to expand...

As far as I know, improvements like BR are paid for with State money from the Legislature not with loans or bonds taken out by ORDA.

Like Cliff, I don't feel bad for ORDA, etc. They're starting to smell like a corrupt Agency. Keep in mind until these last few months there's been no legal requirements for NY State Agencies to have or even submit to outside independent audits. As far as I'm concerned, ORDA screwed me with Gore's poor performance this season. Next season is shaping up to be a real cluster fudge.

People like that do not incur my affection but they do incur my attention.
 
Check out this new outrageous example of New York Mob Thug style politics.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/albany_dems_offer_labor_seats_at_TGhOyP8XHJymnpBLAr7mKO

Pay the democrats $50,000 apiece and maybe you'll get your funding back. Who gets the money... the State's General fund or the Democrats ? The Democrats do.

These clowns aren't even worried about going public with their extortion demands! They actually put it in writing and delivered it out to people. They don't use the US Post Office so as to avoid mail fraud/conspiracy charges. During the Senator Bruno trail, it came out that their Lawyers advised them not to use the Post Office for their shakedowns so they could avoid the Criminal exposure.

There's also a statement that the State pays money to reduce State Employee's Union dues. WTF! Do other Unions get this subsidy?

NY State is headed for one rocky road.

We're screwed.
 
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