Sloatsburg — While it was rainy in Rockland, there was lots of action in Albany.

So many issues are in play for residents, parents, home owners and tax payers, small and large. Budget cuts, debt service, investment. People, places, things. Many village, town and county issues revolve around budget decisions and legislation made in Albany. From school mandates to wage and tax legislation, what gets put into state budgets (or gets cut) via legislation usually makes its way into village, town and county practices: school budgets get adjusted, social service agencies can or can’t do things, infrastructure grants are available. Down from Albany go money and mandates to town and village halls and county seats.

Bottom pay bumps to $9 in 2014.

With state budget season in full swing, other issues were top of mind for legislators, too.

Suffern Assemblywoman Ellen Jaffee (D), representing the 97th District of Ramapo and Orangetown, announced support for a state bill increasing New York’s minimum wage to $9 per hour in January 2014. The bill passed the Assembly and matches the federal plan to increase minimum wage.

Greenwood Lakes Assemblywoman Annie Rabbitt (R), who represents District 98, opposed the measure.

Rabbitt said the increase would hurt her local constituents who work in “ski mountains, pizza shops and farms that depend on high school students and young adults as employers” and can’t afford such a hike.

Rabbitt is also calling for the repeal of the NY Safe Act.

If you’re a food service tip-making wage earner, your base wage will only increase to $6.21 per hour.

Jaffe framed the the minimum wage increase as a labor value issue that can help struggling people, families, job hunters. She suggested that, with corporate profits soaring, now is a good time to invest in the labor force. Wage earners contribute to local economies, said Jaffe.

Fractivism on the energy highway.

Sloatsburgers might not feel fracking in their backyards but the fracking is tied up with watersheds, waterways and good old tap H2O.

The NY State Assembly passed a moratorium on hydrofracking permits until this May 15. Both Jaffe and Assemblyman Kenneth Zebrowski (D), representative for District 96, were part of a group who co-sponsored the moratorium bill.

Sen. David Carlucci (D), 38th District, introduced similar moratorium legislation in the State Senate. As Chairman of the Senate Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities Committee, Carlucci tied the fracking moratorium to on-going health studies related to the whole process.

“A quick buck is not worth the long-term debt that our children will have to live with if we get this decision wrong,” said Carlucci.

Bill Batson at Nyack News and Views has an essential Rockland County primer on the local fracking issue that establishes the basics of the debate and links to other material. Batson reported that “Chairwoman of the Rockland County Legislature Harriet Cornell (D-District 10) is drafting a local law that would ban the introduction of hydrofracking wastewater into Rockland water treatment plants and ban the use of hydrofracking brine on county roads.”

And with that . . . .

We’ll let Sen. David Carlucci carry water from the Albany chamber floor himself, speaking on behalf of Senate Budget R818 Resolution. The measure was eventually adopted and keeps in the budget funds that many a Rockland County program or service depends on, from educational grants to senior services and mental health.