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Sen. Ritchie's mandate relief working group comes up with more recommendations to help schools

Posted 3/7/12

With ideas such as eliminating second school audits that are often duplicates of a first, state Sen. Patty Ritchie’s Local Mandate Relief Working Group has recommended more ways to cut the expenses …

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Sen. Ritchie's mandate relief working group comes up with more recommendations to help schools

Posted

With ideas such as eliminating second school audits that are often duplicates of a first, state Sen. Patty Ritchie’s Local Mandate Relief Working Group has recommended more ways to cut the expenses of state-mandated programs to schools.

While the state Legislative Executive Commission on Mandate Relief travels around the state examining recommendations, Sen. Ritchie has appointed group of citizens from her district, the 48th, to do much the same thing.

The senator has released a second report from the group that she says includes seven recommendations to provide relief to school districts and school taxpayers, following an earlier set of recommendations that focused on saving money for municipal governments.

The latest ideas include eliminating near-duplicate official budget notices, eliminating some of the government clearance requirements if they have already been done by another agency, at putting off or eliminating a requirement that all schools go to electronic voting in district elections.

Ritchie said she will present the reports to the statewide Mandate Relief Council, which is headed by Lt. Gov. Robert Duffy and is meeting Thursday in Watertown.

Ritchie, a Republican, represents a district that includes the western half of St. Lawrence County and all of Jefferson and Oswego counties.

Her appointees to the working group are all from the district, including St. Lawrence County Legislator Kevin Acres, former county legislator Peter FitzRandolph, and Heuvelton School Board President Jack Zeh.

Copies of both the schools report and the original report of the working group can be found at Ritchie’s website, www.ritchie.nysenate.gov.