The legislative lull before the storm

From the outside looking in, it would seem that during March the County Legislature reached a lull. While January and February’s meeting agendas contained many hot-button, discussion-generating legislation, March was pale in comparison.

The bulk of agenda items were appointments to committees and boards including the Board of Health, Forest Practice Board, Resource Recovery Agency and others. Much of county government relies on the ideas and volunteerism of experts in the field via committees and boards and one of the roles of the Legislature is to appoint members.

Among the appointees was District 25 resident Dave Tetor as a reappointment to the Industrial Development Agency. Tetor has a lifetime of agricultural experiences that he brings to this influential board and I was happy to have a role in returning him to this position. On the executive side of things we approved the appointments of the new county attorney, Jim Fedorchak, and the new planning commissioner, Kealy Solomon.

An issue that came before us — perhaps hastily — was the establishment of a policy for legislator mileage reimbursement. County legislators each receive a monthly salary of $1,077.61 (after taxes). To level the playing field as some legislators live in remote areas of the county and thus have to travel further than others, it has long been the standing policy to reimburse legislators for travel expenses to and from meetings. For those of us who represent large geographical districts with multiple municipalities (I represent five, or one-sixth, of the county’s 30 municipalities) from an equitable point of view this mileage reimbursement policy makes sense.

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In the first quarter of 2010, I accumulated just under 500 miles in legitimate meetings (more than half of these miles were for representation at town board meetings). At the current rate of 50 cents per mile, my annual mileage reimbursement would be about $1,000. Granted, I represent the largest legislative district in terms of size, and towns that are among the furthest from Poughkeepsie, but multiply this rate by 25 legislators and mileage reimbursement can be a hefty sum for the taxpayer to pay.

As it appears that one legislator has been abusing the mileage reimbursement system (charging political and social activities), the Legislature sought to codify a reimbursement policy. On the one hand I felt the draft version was too narrow in that it excluded town board meetings from reimbursable expenses (I really find it mutually beneficial for legislators to attend town meetings to hear what is going on in the town as well as report on the county).

On the other hand I think that travel expenses comes with the privilege to serve as a representative of the people, and that we legislators as a whole should decide to absorb travel expenses from our paychecks by doing away with reimbursement altogether. For both reasons I voted against the proposed reimbursement policy.

March’s agenda was in fact light. In part the meager agenda is due to legislators focusing in small task forces on important county business ranging from solid waste management, shared services to Board of Election matters. When considering the complexities of the topics ahead perhaps then March should rightfully be considered the lull before the storm?

Michael Kelsey (R-25) represents the towns of Amenia, Washington, Stanford, Pleasant Valley and the village of Millbrook in the Dutchess County Legislature. Write him at KelseyESQ@yahoo.com.