The Empire State Games have been killed off again. And this time it may very well be permanent.

   The Poughkeepsie Journal reported today both the winter games in Lake Placid and the summer games slated for July 27-31 in Rochester have been canceled, effective immediately.

   “It is with great regret and sadness that I must inform you of the cancellation of the 2011 Empire State Games programs,” Winter Games administrator Lisa Del Signore wrote in a letter to ESG athletes obtained by the paper. “We have been informed that there will be no appropriation for any of the Empire State Games programs in the coming year, and two of our five staff members have been laid off effective the end of the year. The other three have been re-assigned within the State Parks agency. With no money and no staff, we have no program.

   ESG executive director Fred Smith was not available for comment, the parks department deferred calls to the state budget department and the ESG website was inaccessible tonight.

   Budget Division spokesman Erik Kriss said he could not comment about the ESG but that the state was moving forward with its layoff plan in the Parks Department.

   Rochester mayor and Lt. Gov.-elect Robert Duffy said he was aware that the Games had been canceled, but said it was premature for him to offer an outlook on their future under Gov.-elect Andrew Cuomo. “I can’t offer a definitive answer today but am certain that the incoming administration will revisit this decision after Jan. 1,” Duffy told the paper.

   The prospect of revisiting saving the ESG when the new administration takes over in January matters little however as the local organizing committee in Rochester will

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be severely hamstrung for the remainder of 2010 as it attempts to attract sponsors. Prospects in early 2011 don't appear any more promising as the incoming administration will be inheriting more fiscal woes, and the state budget is not due until April 1 -- a deadline that has seldom been met in the last quarter of a century.

   “The real opportunity exists if there are private sector sponsors that can step forward and save this very important event,” Duffy told the paper.

   After a hiatus in 2009 due to budget problems, the Games returned last summer in Buffalo. A $500,000 donation from First Niagara Financial Group was instrumental then, but perhaps four times that amount will be needed in 2011.

   Given the on-again, off-again drama associated with the ESG in recent years, the local organizing committee will have almost no credibility as it makes pitches to businesses in search of financial support. Most businesses large enough to take on ESG sponsorship will have finalized marketing and budgeting plans for 2011 by late this year or early 2011.

   More later: Apologies to those of you who have called or e-mailed and not gotten a response for the last week or so. Life has been a blur, literally (minor vertigo attack) and figuratively (work and family obligations) lately, and I'm just now beginning to dig myself out of a backlog of stuff.