business the first relates to government competition with the private sector various presidential memoranda and federal agency guidance documents over the last year or so have indicated a preference on the part of the federal government to begin to remove commercially available services that have historically been performed by private industries creating jobs in the private sector into the government sector this is harmful to the private sector especially to firms y a couple other ways specifically as it relates to professional services the specialized and innovative design capabilities that are available in the private sector are important to meeting government's needs lifecycle costs can be higher private professionals for that purpose and it certainly can be argued strongly that designing and constructing the infrastructure that we need to support our economy in this country and maintain the standard of living  regulations under the federal acquisitions regulation specifically fair and that's used by individuals that provide services to the government for calculating fees that could potentially costh that could be potentially charged to government government it creates extra work for business and it consumes dollars that we could be putting towards hiring people and putting them to work and being more productive the third example is the hpercent withholding mandate that was put into place under public is frequently our total profit if that not to mention the amount that we owe in taxes it creates a tremendous unfair burden on business first of all we will lose the use of those funds and provide the federal government with an interest  loan for between a year and two years while we go through the reimbursement process and secondly it will create tremendous infrastructure cost and i mean government infrastructure cost to maintain and to administer th alone seventeen dollars billion in order to implement it i find it very difficult to see the logic in a oneyear saving of hbillion being justified by then spending seventeen dollars billion in just one department and that doesn't include the costs that will be required in the state of pennsylvania or in the state of new york in order to collect all this money and forward it onto the federal government who's going to pay to hire those staff who's going to pay for the computer programs that will be necessary to track this who's going to develop the another area that we could use some relief is in securities and exchange commission area the doddfrank wall street reform and consumer protection act created a need or established a requirement for municipal advisors to register engineers were carved out of this requirement consulting engineers that work for government now the sec is writing regulations that will reapply this regulation to consulting engineering businesses that provide services to counties and cities and towns throughout our country effectively it's part of any consulting engineer's job to cost out alternatives to do cashflow analysis to provide financial analysis of those things that they design and oversee the construction  construction contractors do the same improving the environment is another area there have been numerous commissions the latest of which was authorized under safetea lu the previous surface transportation legislation that have come back and recommended streamlining of environmental permitting processes so you were talking earlier about the epa the epa has a very valid mission and needs to make sure that we're paying attention to natural resources nationwide but the reality is that when we have to do a draft environmental impact statement a final environmental impact statement where you have to have state regulatory review city regulatory town regulatory review national review we are superimposing review on review review to the point where we're so buried in review that it takes seven to ten years to build a bridge over a creek out in the country that should take us eighteen months to two years to design and construct and simultaneously degrees in this country that are not necessarily us residents and citizens we need the availability of those people so that we can create additional jobs more economic activity and compete in a global marketplace which is definitely account for varying ecological conditions on nutrient pollution in different water bodies and the use of onesizefitsall technology approaches to address nutrient pollution problems can result in major public expenditures with little or no improvement in water quality sitespecific factors the cost of controls and current economic conditions call for approaches other than mechanical application of outdated command and control methods onondaga county and the city of syracuse like many communities across the country support an aging infrastructure system the combined sewer system that leads to sewer overflows here in syracuse has been in place for over a century and as a result would be excessively costly to completely replace to address this challenge onondaga county has taken a lead role in implementing an innovative and balanced approach to combine sewer overflows and combine elements of tractional gray infrastructure as well as a more practical and the regulatory community is geared toward decades old traditional technology approaches and can be somewhat inflexible or resistant to integrating these new innovative approaches into practical compliance schedules design approvals and compliance regulation however instituting more practical cost effectiveness of regulatory measures would relieve some of the unnecessary burdens that are the result of outcomes which are far beyond the scope of fiscal possibility proper recognition  of these grants come with specific accountability and reporting requirements requirements that cause staff to take time away from the core program to fulfill the temporary assistance for needy families or tanf program is a good poster child of this phenomenon due to federal regulation the district staff spends a huge amount of time on meeting federal requirements for employability reporting to be eligible for federal tanf dollars we must count track and report for every tanf adult t spent in countable work activity we have coding requirements and monthly work verification reporting this is labor intensive and could result in state and local penalties if not done these requirements take away from work we could be doing with the clients it eats up valuable staff complex set of eligible criteria that must be met if all criteria and documents are not found there is loss of funding based on federal audits costs associated with child welfare are huge expenses for the county due to the complexity of the requirements we had to committee look at decreasing the requirements for all federal programs so their staff may spend more time delivering the program services that the taxpayers pay for many times the federal government pushes mandates down to the states and in turn down to the counties many times these mandates aren't as applicable and should not apply to the counties because we're much smaller in cities and states along these lines is the prison rape elimination act while noble in title this act is filtered down to local jails requires additional documentation investigation and reporting that frankly is not necessary at the county level it may be appropriate for larger facilities but in our case will probably require adding an additional staff position to fulfill requirements that we don't believe should apply to us anyway in some counties indian nations have been allowed to sell tobacco products and gasoline exempt from sales taxes in our county the cost is measured in the millions of dollars as well as lost jobs and commerce to businesses that comply with the impose a sovereign indian reservation on the counties which would mean not only land coming off the school town and county tax rolls but the uncontestable opening of class ii electronic bingo parlors thus bringing gambling to counties that do not want it it would also i'd like to mention briefly unemployment somewhat regularly cayuga county decides to not hire when the position may be temporary or seasonal in nature there is a local cost to unemployment the decision to not hire is always driven by our desire eligibility requirement for unemployment or decrease the local share to allow us to put more people to work in closing i would like to thank again the committee for giving me the opportunity to be here today on behalf of cayuga county i thank you for all the support from the federal government and ask that you continue your hard work in finding ways to reduce the federal impediments to the efficient operation of local government thank you all very much and thank you for your testimony this afternoon it's interesting because this morning we had a hearing over in monroe county in irondequoit and we heard from monroe county and the county executive and we also heard from the sheriff of wayne county who many of their issues were very similar to yours but the interesting parth and we even heard it from the panel that preceded youh these rules and these regulations are made without the players being at the table and these unfunded mandates create such a burden on the counties and the local governments and the taxpayers without them having any say in how those programs are going to be executed we got onto the topic of medicaid in monroe county this morning which is a separate hearing my first question is to mister macmurray i'd like to have you explain to us this sec registration municipal advisors are you is not the practice of engineer and construction companies that's the practice of banks that's the practice of financial folks so congress specifically carved out the engineering and construction industry what's happening is that in the  an example of two things one of the congress being wise and carving it out but it's also an example of how even when congress is wise and makes sure that something is appropriate that when it comes to rule making it can get b going to self perform then there are some services that can't be performed by your company so we turn around and possibly subcontract another five or ten thousand dollars of work so the actual work that we would do might be in the neighborhood of sixty thousand or seventy thousand dollars in my example out of a one hundred thousand dollars contract now if we are lucky and we make the average profit on this type of work nationally that's going to be someplace in the five to hpercent range so if we take say sixty thousand dollars and suppose we made hpercent on that that's three thousand dollars that's three thousand dollars in profit our income tax obligation for that three thousand dollars might be hpercent hpercent depending on what corporate rate we're pay income tax and get that refund which will be at least a year and depending on when the services were provided if they were provided at the end of tax yearh you follow me or at the beginning of a tax year it could almost be two years before you get the money back and of course under the feder al acquisition regulations to make things even worse if we do go out and borrow that money so we can meet payroll and pay our light bill the federal acquisition act fair does not allow us to calculate interest as an eligible overhead expense so there within their means have been good stewards of the community are put in a position they really can't get out of the homes they live in because of some of this regulation what bothers me is i know we have these ideas that we think are going to be really great but the unintended consequences really put that chair buerkle referenced earlier that government should not be the driver of jobs and i absolutely agree with that that being said there are going to be jobs that are paid for and come from the government it's frustrating when we have to increase the number of jobs that government pays for that we tax people for for things thath we wonder if it's just jobs that put together a bunch of data that sit on someone else's desk and they check off on their checklist and say okay we got it things must be fine that's not the reality of situation what we wonder sometimes is if we got less money from the federal government the state government pass taxpayers for and we would end up giving more benefit to the intended beneficiaries in order to comply with all of the strings attached of the forty thousand dollars it was going to cost him close to two hundred thousand dollars to administer that regulationh or that grant so the costbenefit analysis is certainly something that needs to be done congress hears from you all and i want you to know that we will take your testimony take the information that you have given to us and bring it back to the full oversight and government reform committee and let them know we'll share with them the concerns and the regulations  the impediments that the federal government puts up so thank you all very much for being here today thank you to those who sat through this hearing and participated today i think it's good for us to hear from the community