Dramatic money worries are in the air today. In the Daily Freeman, Ulster County Executive Michael Hein has a plan to save Ulster County $8.6 million with a hodgpodge of measures, including shutting down some local healthcare offices:
Among Hein’s cost-savings plans is the elimination of Health Department satellite offices in Saugerties and Highland and on Broadway and in Midtown Kingston. The offices, which Hein said are underutilized, would be replaced with scheduled mobile clinics held in those areas.
Also in the Freeman, rising health care costs are threatening the labor contract for Kingston teachers, even as the director of the union's health insurance trust fund has seen his paycheck grow from zero to $193,593 in the past two years. And the Saugerties Board of Education is raising taxes by a shocking 21 percent. Yes, really.
Meanwhile, in Monticello, the Monticello Casino & Raceway was ordered by a judge to pay its bondholders $65 million, according to the Times Herald-Record. The company had filed a lawsuit in an attempt to avoid paying the notes.
