LOCAL VOICES

Governor Andrew Cuomo released his proposed 2011-2012 state budget on February 1st and since then we've done our best to encourage local feedback on the potential impact of the governor's plan.

The Legislature's fiscal committees conducted a series of joint public hearings to pore over the details and assess the consequences of individual sections of the Cuomo plan -- including education, health care, economic development,

I've conducted an online budget survey that's produced some surprising results and that will continue to be valuable as we confront these fiscal and economic challenges for the foreseeable future.  In other words, I remain confident that this year's budget is going to get us on the right track in some key ways, but it's by no means going to represent the end of turning this state around.

And our efforts to seek out this critical local input has included numerous local meetings with county legislators and other officials, school district reprensentatives, business leaders,

Late last week, for example, Assemblyman Phil Palmesano and I conducted one of these critical meetings in Yates County.