In terms of cash flow, March was downright miserable for Ulster County budgeteers. First, there was the $140,000 payout in severance for the Palens, formerly of the health department. Then there was another $517,000 to cover a new contract for mid-level managers. Meanwhile, revenues from the sales tax are trickling in slightly below the county’s conservative projections.

Fortunately, unlike in Washington, they won’t have to borrow the money. Severance is an annual expense, predicated on known attrition and educated guesses. What might now be called the Palen Fund has varied from a million bucks in 2007, according to budget officers, to $750,000 this year. The Palens themselves got almost 19 percent of the 2010 line item.

It works like Social Security. The money collected from taxpayers is paid out to beneficiaries every year. Given the continuing downsizing of county government, that figure may rise substantially in the near term. The county legislature will be looking at this long-standing policy of banking vacation and sick days — virtually unheard of in the private sector — with an aim at establishing caps for new employees.

Not to beat a dead horse to death, as former Kingston mayor Peter Mancuso liked to say, but in withholding severance pay from the Palens last June, County Executive Mike Hein was really between a rock and a hard place. If he had authorized the payout while charges of mismanagement hung over the Palens, he might have been thought a fool. Withholding the money suggested prejudice, on the other hand.

Absent criminal conviction, and there may be some question on whether even that mattered — re: a host of disgraced state legislators — severance has nothing to do with performance. Methinks the executive was ill-advised by some of his legal eagles.

And while we’re beating the horse, there is this. Despite allegations of mismanagement, favoritism and such, Hein dismissed the former health director hours before his staffers broke into the infamous safe in Palen’s office last June, the one that contained all those uncashed check, permits and cash. I’d call that putting the cart before the horse, except readers are probably full of equestrian metaphors by now.

The 13 percent pay raise for mid-level managers over five years — with no raise this year — is generous by today’s thank-god-I’ve-got-a-job standards. Three to three and a half percent a year is roughly what the county was giving other unions before the economy went bust. Managers gave up their demonstrably outrageous “flex plan,” which among other abuses, had the county paying for lawyers’ fees, health-club charges and the like, and will pay 10 percent toward their medical coverage. But the net effect is a hefty raise, another $130,000 a year on the taxpayers’ dime. It will not be compounded, according to the county executive, and it does not include Hein’s already well-paid staff or department heads and deputies. Mid-level managers formed their own bargaining unit in 2006 after being passed over for raises in 2005.

Money for the new contract will come from the county’s $12 million fund balance.

On another money matter, county fiscal officers say they are cautiously hopeful the two-year downward trend in sales tax collections is leveling off. According to Budget Officer Art Smith, the county took in about 1 percent less in January than projected in the 2010 budget based on revenues from a year ago. By contrast, sales tax collections were off by almost 6 percent between 2008 and 2009.

Of no small concern is that the January payments represent fourth-quarter activity — the busiest time for sales — and that one month does not represent a trend. To say that fingers, toes, ankles and eyes are crossed in the executive wing would not be an understatement.

My publisher reminds me that December comes every year, making December-to-December comparison as easy as apples-to-apples comparison.

Bad-news legislators

A recent Rasmussen poll that showed almost 70 percent of New Yorkers would trade in their state legislators for anybody else is probably not news to those being targeted. But it’s problematic. Both houses of the legislature were well aware since at least since last fall of rising public resentment. Another missed budget deadline will do nothing to assuage that anger.

While a 69 percent “vote” to throw the rascals out is no doubt unsettling to the rascals, what is downright terrifying for incumbents is the mere 22 percent who told Rasmussen their reps deserve re-election.

Congress was not spared. Only 31 percent of New Yorkers felt their congressmen best for the job against 39 percent who want their rep reelected.

For the political establishment, this is startling news. Historically, legislatures have been reviled as institutions, while members have been re-elected almost automatically. In other words, it’s the other guy. Now, as Pogo might have said, we have met the enemy.

The good news for the entrenched is it’s already April, with precious few credible challengers on the horizon.

Talking nonsense

I can’t believe that some Kingston aldermen are seriously talking about city bankruptcy. Sure, the city is going through tough times. Who isn’t? But bankrupscy? Ostensibly they’ll be able to void union contracts and start from scratch with the workforce. Forget it. Who’s going to move to a bankrupt city? Worse, how many will move out?

Here’s one place to start: when the council reapportions itself next year: reduce the number of aldermen from nine to five. With any of the current crew talking bankruptcy, there’s obviously too many knuckleheads in that body.

Shades of Tricky Dick

Perhaps the most devastating question ever raised about Dick Nixon, pre-Watergate, was, “Would you buy a used car from this man?”

These days we’re being sold national health reform, long overdue. I wouldn’t say there’s anything tricky going on — beyond the usual political chicanery — but there is the appearance of used-car salesmanship about the process.

First, of course, we have to ask why representatives like Maurice Hinchey, John Hall and the rest of the New York Democratic delegation — sans the new guy from Utica — and senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer have to sell anything. I mean, they’ve already voted for it. It’s the law now. Fact is, they’re all on the ballot Nov. 2 and if they don’t sell a skeptical public on this idea they all might be selling apples come next January.

Hinchey, for one, refused to hold a single town meeting with constituents prior to last month’s vote. Now he’s extolling the bill’s virtues at any podium he can find.

The strategy is obviously the product of one of those Washington boiler-room operations. It must be. They’re all saying almost exactly the same thing: sell, sell, sell the benefits, which are considerable, and to hell with the price tag. That comes after the sale. But wait, don’t we already know what it’s supposed to cost? The Congressional Budget Office says about $900 billion over a 10-year period. The president says it’s “paid for,” and that reforming health care could actually reduce the deficit over time.

To most people struggling to balance their checkbooks in these challenging times, spending money to save money doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. It’s like buying a used car, which usually goes something like this:

Hello, salesperson. I like that Honda over there. How much is it?

Oh, that’s a beautiful car. One owner. Sold here. Serviced right here.

That’s nice. What’s the mileage?

Mileage? Who cares about mileage? Hondas break in at around 100,000.

How much money is it?

Hmm. With your credit rating, we can probably swing $180 a month on a five-year note, assuming the bank approves.

I’m already in debt up to my eyeballs. Can we look at that Chevy over there?