At least for one night, Gary Olsen thought they were so close. It was the early morning hours of the final day of the 1995 state legislative session. Some lawmakers, staff members, and contracting and trade union representatives finally had hammered out a compromise over one of the state's most intractable mandates: the Wicks Law. Everyone was bleary-eyed, wearied by the Legislature's all-night push to pass a bounty of bills at session's end and head home.

 "It was anti-Wicks and Wicks people," says Olsen, government affairs director for the General Building Contractors of New York State, which opposes the Wicks Law. "They shook hands on the bill about 3 o'clock in the morning."

 The compromise would have allowed municipalities to do single-bid contracting for construction projects, which currently is prohibited by Wicks Law, while keeping in place other protections that Wicks supporters wanted. The Wicks Law, in place since the 1920s, requires multiple contracts on most local construction projects.

 Within a half hour, however, the compromise collapsed after certain powerful Wicks supporters made the case that the proposal didn't protect their interests. "The bottom line is the building trades want it in there," Olsen says. "And the building trades are very influential in New York state."

 The Wicks Law is only one of a multitude of mandates—more than 2,600 by some estimates—foisted on local governments and school districts by the state of New York. Yet its longevity—and its apparent invincibility—are telling. Like many mandates, it was born out of well-intentioned motivations: in this case, to prevent corruption in construction bidding. But it now is considered an albatross by local officials who say it jacks up their costs and taxes. And, like many mandates, it constantly is entangled in Albany's warring political dynamics: a Legislature split along party and philosophical lines and, some observers think, too willing to bend to the whims of powerful and deep-pocketed unions. ';The list [of mandates] is endless," says Tompkins County Administrator Scott Heyman. "The attempts to micro manage from Albany are just enormous."

 Each year the legislative fandango follows the same steps. Local officials carp that mandates are overwhelming their ability to provide services and keep taxes in check. State lawmakers appear attentive. The governor, whether George Pataki or his predecessor, Mario Cuomo, makes overtures to mandate relief. Some bills are introduced to ease mandates. Many die a quiet death in committee. Others gain slight momentum, only to be ignored or forgotten in the whirlwind of activity—usually the resolution of the budget battle—at session's end. "In our state it seems everything gets done at the last minute or in the last weeks of the session," says Bill Pape, spokesman for the New York State School Boards Association (NYSSBA). "In that hurly-burly activity, a special interest can often apply a very specific pressure to stop something. It just gets submerged, and no one notices it."

 How long have legislators performed the same ritualistic dance? It depends on the mandate. Some mandates—such as one that requires costlier protections for a local government removing asbestos roofing than private companies confront—have survived a relatively short life of a decade or two. Others, with Wicks again the prime example, have a much longer tenure. The 1938 constitutional convention in New York focused in part on state mandates and how they'd reached crisis proportions. Little was done, however.

 Local officials long have maintained that New York's mandates are more oppressive than those imposed in other states. Research bears out that conclusion.

 Almost two decades ago, Joseph Zimmerman, now a political science professor at the State University of New York at Albany's Graduate School of Public Affairs, worked with the U.S. Advisory Committee on Intergovernmental Relations to analyze the presence and impact of state mandates across the country. For its analysis the committee determined 76 different major functions carried out by local governments. It then set out to see which states mandated how local governments carried out those functions. In almost 80 percent of the categories, New York placed some mandates on local governments, the study concluded.

 "We went through all the statutes and rules and regulations," Zimmerman says. "Of all the states . . . New York had the most."

 When the committee again looked at mandates in 1990, it tallied more than 2,632 individual mandates in New York. It did not, however, determine the cost of mandates.

 The varied mix of Albany's mandates—and the sheer mundane nature of any talk of the issue—makes it difficult for local officials to drum up a public cacophony for mandate relief. Some policy goals—lower taxes, less government—are easy to convey to the public. But mandate relief can be more arcane.

 The costs of mandates are real and legitimate, however. A 1994 study from the Center for Governmental Research, a Rochester-based think-tank, contrasted Monroe County with five similar counties across the country. If Monroe's mandates in a variety of governmental functions—Medicaid costs or prekindergarten handicapped programs, for instance—had been the same as the average mandates for the other counties, Monroe would have needed 35 percent less revenue, the study concluded.

 It is taxpayers who shoulder the burden of mandates with the property taxes, sales taxes and fees localities often must impose to pay for them, local officials say. When Wicks inflates a construction project's cost, which some research says can add from 5 percent to 20 percent to the bottom line, taxpayers must reach deeper into their pockets. New York City saves close to $100 million a year because its school construction program is exempt from the law, Wicks opponents maintain. Trade unions claim the research is flawed and the figures bogus.

 When state-mandated binding arbitration for police and firefighters leads to a greater salary hike than city officials say they can afford, taxpayers pick up the tab. Buffalo financial officials estimate that binding arbitration requirements have cost the city an additional $20 million a year.

 Even on the revenue side, officials complain that the state has bound them in a straitjacket, requiring them to deal solely with commercial banks for investments when they could get a greater return from other banking avenues. "We've got 32 states in the country allowing municipalities to invest in money-market mutual funds," says Thomas Milner, executive director of the state Government Finance Officers Association. "They're extremely safe.

 "This is extremely frustrating," he says. "We're being mandated to not do something that makes sense."

 The anger over the state's seeming unwillingness to tackle mandates is clearly bubbling to the surface. When Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno recently addressed the New York State Conference of Mayors and Municipal Officials (NYCOM) at its annual gathering, he found himself the target of heated barbs and accusations. Suddenly, Bruno became the embodiment of all that local officials see wrong in Albany, and years of pent-up ire were unleashed, turning a typically sedate conference nasty. "You talk out of both sides of your mouth," New Hyde Park Village Mayor Warren Tackenberg told Bruno, according to press reports.

 What's clear this year is that the clamoring is growing louder. NYCOM and the New York State Association of Counties (NYSAC) continue to be among the few voices urging wholesale reduction in state mandates. But now, the Business Council of New York State and its research affiliate, the Public Policy Institute, have joined the refrain. "There is no question state mandates play a role in our high property taxes," says Public Policy Institute Research Director Robert Ward. ' We have identified high property taxes as a major problem, and mandate relief is one of the things that needs to happen to address that problem."

 In February, the Business Council launched its own campaign. In an issue paper its officials stated, "Unfunded, underfunded and, in many cases, unnecessary state requirements and rules on counties, municipalities and schools simply drive up costs, in many cases beyond the ability of local taxpayers to pay for them." Stated Business Council President Daniel Walsh: "For years, the cost of state mandates on local governments has been like the weather. Everybody talks about it, but nobody does anything to change it."

 Some officials believe that the business community's heightened interest in mandate relief finally is spurring the Legislature to activity. "Having achieved some level of income tax relief and business tax cuts, they're now looking at how property taxes [affect] the economic climate," says Kevin Crawford, counsel for the state's Association of Towns, referring to property tax relief proposals topping $1 billion introduced this session.

 Also this year, Pataki has called for a constitutional amendment prohibiting the state from passing new unfunded mandates on to local governments. In his state budget message, Pataki declared that "unfunded mandates are unfair mandates. Today I propose amending New York's Constitution to prohibit this and all future state governments from imposing on local governments responsibility for a program without giving them the means to pay for it."

 Though local officials have lauded the call for the amendment, many acknowledge that its chances appear slim. "The dynamics are as they've always been," says Pataki's regulatory czar Robert King. "State-level officials, like many elected officials, like to take public credit for creating new programs. It's particularly easy to do when you don't have to raise the taxes to pay for them.

 "You try to legislatively create as much restraint as you can, but it's just so attractive politically that it's hard to stop the train," he says. "Clearly a constitutional amendment, if you can get it through, can be a very powerful tool."

 Pataki during the 1994 gubernatorial race campaigned in part on the mantra of mandate relief, but his level of success has been, at best, mixed, according to analysts and those with a stake in the regulations.

 SUNY's Zimmerman says he hasn't seen much movement from New York to turn the tide against mandates. Were Pataki truly zealous about mandate relief, he would make it a pressing issue with state lawmakers, he says. "I have seen little evidence that he's really campaigned to convince the Legislature to remove mandates," Zimmerman says.

 Nonetheless, some local officials still trumpet Pataki as the white knight prepared to slay the dragon of mandates. NYSAC Executive Director Robert Gregory says the Pataki administration has been responsive to the needs of counties. "I think that George Pataki and his staff and administration have been very sensitive to the concerns of county government as it relates to mandate[s] and mandate relief." Gregory says.

 "We are optimistic to have the executive branch out front on these issues," says NYCOM Executive Director Edward Farrell. "That's not the way it was before.

 Even Rochester-area Assemblyman Joseph Morelle, a Democrat, says he has seen a new attitude within state government. "I think the administration has been positive in the way they have tried to sensitize people in the agencies that they need to be more thoughtful and less arbitrary in the ways they apply regulations," Morelle says.

 But he's skeptical about claims that the administration has had wholesale success. "I think they have had some modest successes," Morelle says. "Some are a little overstated."

 Each year NYCOM dissects the governor's budget proposal in search of the magic elixir of mandate relief. In the 1996-97 spending plan, NYCOM was heartened to see Pataki push again for changes in the Wicks Law and for some flexibility in binding arbitration in contract negotiations. But when the session ended, the big-ticket mandated items on NYCOM's list were largely intact. Those mandates that had been vanquished were largely annoyances to local governments. For instance, the governor's proposal to allow local governments to accept credit card payments for fees and taxes was adopted.

 The sales tax on municipal parking, implemented years before during one of the state's frenzied scrambles for any available revenue source, also was repealed.

 Still. any headway, regardless of its scope, is welcome in the eyes of desperate local officials. And Pataki has made the case that it's the state Legislature—of which he was a part before becoming governor—that is the impediment to even greater relief.

 "The question always is: Will the state Legislature try to micromanage policies set by themselves?" says Erie County Executive Dennis Gorski, who previously served as a state assemblyman.

 Beyond the finger pointing, however, is the fact that the number of unfunded mandates has soared. Compounding the higher bills county officials must shoulder is the fact that they find themselves with little discretion as to how they handle their budgetary costs. They also are limited in revenue options. "County government, with the exception of a very small amount of revenue received from fees, really relies on sales tax revenues and property tax revenues," Gregory says.

 Some counties in recent years successfully have hiked their sales tax to generate more revenue. Others have struggled to find areas to cut in budgets largely out of their control.

 As Medicaid costs have grown in recent years, especially in counties with an urban core, expenses have gobbled up huge chunks of budgetary discretion. Nearly 70 percent of a typical county's budget is mandated program costs, and much of that is driven by the Medicaid program.

 According to the Public Policy Institute, county spending on Medicaid and welfare programs jumped 76 percent—or $1.9 billion—over the last decade. Inflation during that same period rose 35 percent.

 The institute conceded in a February report, however, that state and local efforts to control social services costs were having a positive effect. Social services spending by counties fell in 1995 after seven years of sizable increases, the study showed.

 Other costs have flowed from the state establishing guidelines for county jail conditions. But many local jails are strained by New York's inability to find room for its own "state-ready" inmates. In turn, local jail officials are sometimes chided by the state commission of correction for overcrowding created by the state's inability to house its own inmates. "They in large part created the problem by having parole violators and state-ready inmates in our jail," Gorski says.

 Cities, which other than New York mostly don't confront Medicaid costs, find the inflationary requirements for firefighter pensions burdensome. They also complain that state law restricts their input at disability hearings for police and firefighters.

 State Education Law forces some school boards to sign off on hirings and firings right down to the custodial staff. Why, school officials ask, isn't this task left to a school district's administrators?

 Town and village leaders, many whose populations are growing by continued movement of residents from urban to suburban locations, are especially pinched by the Wicks Law, says Association of Towns Counsel Crawford. New town halls or municipal construction is required, but many towns don't have the professional engineering staff to oversee the different construction-related contracts, he says. "Wicks," Crawford says, "is especially devilish for small governments."

 For many municipalities, the Wicks Law stands as the most defining mandate because it illustrates the power of the trade unions in New York. Erie County Executive Gorski remembers when, as an Assemblyman, he headed a legislative committee. He proposed a repeal of the Wicks Law and didn't receive a single committee vote. His luck as county executive hasn't been any better, despite support from the Pataki administration to make changes in the law. "For nine years I have put in my legislative package [for] the repeal of the Wicks Law," Gorski says. "We have argued till the cows come home."

 The law mandates that local governments award four contracts on construction projects—one for a general contractor and separate ones for plumbing, electricity and heating. It's a case in which the state doesn't always live by its own rules, with the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York exempt from the Wicks Law. "If it were cost-effective and made for a better product and saved money, you would think the private industry would jump on it," Farrell says.

 Opponents of Wicks Law see its immovability as a sign of another of Albany's pressing dilemmas: How do you free lawmakers from the grasp of special interests? Trade unions long have supported the law, maintaining it's an effective tool against corrupt bidding.

 Trade unions also say the claims that repealing the law will save money are off the mark. "The savings isn't going to be passed on to the purchaser," says Harold Joyce. president of the Tri-City Building Trades. "It's going to be passed on to the low bidder, which is the general contractor."

 The general contractors won't come in with any lower bids without Wicks, but simply will pay some subcontractors less, Joyce says.

 Pataki has proposed changes in the Wicks Law that would consider the cost of a project and a community's size. Communities with populations under 500,000, for example, would apply the law only to projects that cost more than $1 million.

 Despite having only limited success on rolling back unfunded mandates, local lawmakers are hoping to see progress this session on several mandate relief fronts in addition to Medicaid and Wicks. The governor and legislators, they say, must tackle preschool handicapped costs and requirements. New York's costs for the program outstrip those of other counties across the country, and some officials complain that the deck is stacked against them as they have little say about which children enter the program, a situation that can lead to abuses in which children whose need is, at best, marginal may receive government-funded help.

 Erie County Executive Gorski says he would like to see local officials with input on the committees that decide which children are eligible for assistance. Currently, the service providers and schools largely make the decisions. "You have a predisposition to honor virtually everybody that comes through the system," Gorski says.

 Binding arbitration also is a concern. When a municipality reaches contractual impasse with police and fire unions and an arbiter is called in, the decision is binding. Police and fire unions maintain that the role of an arbitrator is to establish a fair contract agreement. But many local officials say the arbiter needs to be aware of just how much a municipality reasonably can afford to pay. Unless a municipality is at its constitutional limit for taxation, "you always have the ability to pay," says NYCOM's Farrell.

 Pataki supports a proposal that would require decisions by arbitration panels to consider whether the municipality would have to raise taxes or fees to afford the contract costs.

 Sights also are trained on the Triborough Amendment. The amendment to the state's Taylor Law, which dictates how localities bargain with unions, keeps all components of a labor contract in place after it expires and before a new contract is in place. "It gives them no incentive to sit down and bargain," says NYSSBA's Pape about the teachers unions.

 New York State United Teachers officials say the amendment has been effective at preventing public employee strikes. The union and other supporters say the 1982 amendment to the Taylor Law created a level playing field. Without the Triborough Amendment, employers had little motivation to bargain aggressively because the Taylor Law outlawed strikes, says Carl Korn, a spokesman for New York State United Teachers. "What happened was public employees who were barred from striking said, 'Where are the checks and balances here?"' Korn says.

 Other local officials complain that the prevailing wages mandate—which requires what is typically union-wage pay for public jobs—also inflates their construction costs. Construction unions and workers argue the mandate ensures that the public sector pays a decent wage.

 Asbestos removal requirements also are giving local officials fits. State law mandates that governments use expensive protective equipment and clothing for removing asbestos shingles from roofs. "This is a mandate that requires a more stringent standard for the public sector than for the private," says NYSAC's Gregory. "That's a very expensive proposal on the local level."

 Pataki has supported plans to align the public sector asbestos removal process with market prices in the private sector.

 Meanwhile, the Governor's Office of Regulatory Reform is continuing its mission of weeding out any new mandates that may sneak into executive branch directives. Executive Director King argues that his office, which some lawmakers claim hasn't done much to rein in regulation, has been able to pare out mandates that could have been bothersome and costly to local governments. "There's ... two levels of relief," King says. "One we can do through the regulatory reform process, which I have the focus on. The second is through the Legislature. That's a much harder nut to crack."

 In one case, King says, the state planned to mandate that physicians could be the only ones to give physicals for police applicants. Nurse practitioners can do the same service for a third of the cost, and the plan was changed by his office, King says.

 In another case, which received some media notoriety, proposed changes in building codes would have mandated structural changes for new construction to withstand earthquake tremors. While there is some small amount of seismic activity in New York, the likelihood of a major earthquake is minuscule, King's office argues. The proposal was changed, possibly cutting construction costs 9 percent, King says.

 Some county officials say the Pataki administration is following the national course of "devolution '—ceding more power to the local level.

 "I think there's definitely been progress, especially in the social services area," says Rensselaer County Legislature Chairman Neil Kelleher, a Republican. "There's been a little more latitude in decisions we can make at the local level."

 Still, Kelleher says Albany's dynamics of a divided government, the power of downstate lawmakers, and special interest influence make it difficult for any governor to make quick inroads on mandate relief.

 The staying power of unfunded mandates also owes much to the state's willingness to provide an ample safety net for the needy and to ensure decent working conditions, some argue. "New York responds to interest groups, and the state tends to be very socially conscious," Zimmerman says.

 Assemblyman Morelle says counties cannot cut the umbilical cord with Albany. "Counties are really the service delivery systems for the state of New York," he says. "They have a mission to carry out the policies for the state of New York. A lot of county governments would like to ignore the fact that that is their primary mission, when in fact it is.

 "We ought to allow them a greater flexibility in carrying out their policy objectives," Morelle says. "But I do part ways with some county officials who think the counties should be independent of the state."

 Pataki meanwhile continues to embrace mandate relief, convincing many officials that his message is sincere. But many of those same officials say he needs to show more energy on the mandate relief front, especially if the state, as many expect, reduces its aid to localities.

 Asked Pataki's score to date on mandate relief, Tompkins County Administrator Heyman says, "I wouldn't condemn or praise him." 

Gary Craig is a reporter for the Rochester Gannett newspapers.