My assembly district is a beautiful part of New York State comprised of several small communities, rural areas and thousands of acres of working forests in the Tug Hill region. The network of roads is a real challenge for our highway superintendents, and they do an excellent job with the limited resources available to them. Our localities need our help because Albany mandates are threatening to force some towns to abandon roads in my district.

Unfunded mandates are programs or policies that are enacted in Albany and paid for by our local municipalities. They are often pricey and divert local resources to things that a community doesn’t necessarily need.

Take, for instance, local roads in rural areas like the Tug Hill Plateau. Current laws give little control to our local highway departments with regard to management and maintenance of the numerous low-volume roads found throughout the region.

Under current law, 70 to 90 percent of the municipal budgets of Tug Hill area communities are consumed by highway departments that maintain these low-use rural roads. This is a huge burden on the departments and the taxpayers. There are ways to safely maintain these rural roads without over-allocating resources like the national and current state standards require.

Sen. Griffo and I have offered up a solution giving local municipalities discretion over how they maintain their roads. More specifically, our legislation would create a new low-volume definition for roadways used by fewer than 400 vehicles a day.

This measure would create reasonable standards that already are recommended by the New York State Local Roads Research and Coordination Council and the Mandate Relief Redesign Team. This new definition would give local highway departments more discretion over maintenance, plowing and grading of low-volume roads.

Considering burdens already placed on our highway departments, this change would help them repair potholes and continue maintenance on the busiest roadways where the need is greatest. Personally, I trust those on the ground, our highway superintendents, to know how to best maintain and manage our roadways.

The Senate already has passed this important piece of legislation; now, it’s time for the Assembly to do the same.

Again, this is a clear example of where the top-down approach fails our communities and our state. The Empire State is greatly diverse and so are its needs. What works for large cities like New York, or even densely populated suburban areas, doesn’t necessarily work for areas such as Tug Hill or other rural regions in the North Country or the Mohawk Valley.

I welcome your input and ideas on unfunded mandates or any other state matter. Share them with me by calling 493-3909 or by emailing blankenbushk@assembly.state.ny.us.