STATE COMMISSION PRESENTS WAYS TO SAVE TAXPAYERS MONEY BY IMPROVING LOCAL GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY
Report Cites $1 Billion in Potential Savings; Calls for Municipal Modernization, Shared Services, Consolidation and Mandate Relief
Governor Proposes Legislation to Streamline Government Services

The New York State Commission on Local Government Efficiency and Competitiveness today submitted its final report to Governor David A. Paterson. The Commission’s report offers numerous recommendations to increase the cost effectiveness of local governments throughout the state — proposals that could lower taxes and government spending through modernization, shared services, consolidation and mandate relief. Governor Paterson plans to propose legislation that will begin to lay the groundwork for the necessary reforms to ease the onerous tax burden on New Yorkers.

“With the cost of living skyrocketing, and the need for governments everywhere to deal with fiscal realities, we need to help our working families by doing everything we can to lower the cost of government,” said Governor Paterson. “We cannot achieve real, sustainable property tax relief without addressing local government efficiency, and this Commission has produced a series of recommendations, which I will now work diligently with the Legislature to implement.”

The Commission was established in April 2007 to examine ways to streamline local government, reduce costs, improve effectiveness, maximize participation in local elections, and facilitate shared services, consolidation and regional governance.

The Commission’s final report recommends additional ways to improve the efficiency of local government. Among the Commission’s major recommendations are:

• Enabling and encouraging sharing and consolidation of local government services, and requiring centralization of several local government functions, including assessing, tax collection, emergency dispatch, civil service commissions and vital records;
• Restructuring state oversight of county jails, with the goal of moving towards a single state-run jail system, and
• Encouraging consolidation of school districts or their back-office functions, justice courts and local Industrial Development Authorities (IDAs).

The Program Bill offers the potential for up to $50 million in local savings. In addition, the Wicks law offers additional savings for local governments, including reducing NYC's long term capital construction costs by more than $200 million in its upcoming City Fiscal Year (CFY) 2009 Capital Plan.

This year’s Enacted Budget included two of the Commission’s early recommendations: strengthened Local Government Efficiency Grants and Wicks Law Reform. The Office of Real Property Services is implementing a third Commission recommendation — improving local assessment and tax collection — by working with 43 counties to study collaborative approaches to local assessing and 33 counties to facilitate collaborative local tax collection.

Several other early Commission recommendations are being advanced today as a Governor’s Program Bill that includes measures to:

• Reign in special district spending by targeting the abuse of taxpayer dollars and eliminating compensation and perks for special district commissioners;
• Make it easier for municipal governments to form a cooperative health benefit plans for their employees, which will reduce overall health insurance costs;
• Facilitate highway shared services agreements among municipalities, and between municipalities and State agencies;
• Allow multiple counties to share services of a Director of Weights and Measures;
• Allow multiple counties to employ a single public health director that would report to a single board of health;
• Transfer management responsibilities for special sanitation districts to town boards; and
• Create a simplified process by which citizens can submit petitions for municipal consolidations and dissolutions.

Stan Lundine, Chair of the Commission on Local Government Efficiency and Competitiveness, said: “Our recommendations chart a course for streamlining and modernizing local government, and if enacted, we will have taken great strides in improving local government and addressing our statewide property tax problem. The Commission owes a great deal to the local leaders who have demonstrated their vision, energy and courage by submitting bold efficiency initiatives, many of which led our thinking. The Commission’s approach of assisting local initiatives and addressing barriers they encounter has been enormously valuable and should be continued, as we have recommended.”

Senator Betty Little said: “We’re facing challenging economic times that will force all levels of government to make some tough choices in the months ahead. However, the decisions we face as elected officials pale in comparison to the decisions of many families and businesses whose budgets are being crushed under the weight of high property taxes and skyrocketing gas prices. With their best interests in mind, I am hopeful that this report to improve local government efficiency and save tax dollars will be taken seriously and that the recommendations offered will be considered very carefully.”

Assemblyman Sam Hoyt, Chair of the Assembly Committee on Local Government, said: “The rising cost of government is felt first and foremost by property owners and businesses in our communities who, in many areas pay increasingly more in taxes each year. The work of this commission was integral in developing ideas for how local governments can become more efficient by streamlining services and consolidating where appropriate. We are confident that the result will be a cost savings to property taxpayers throughout New York without diminishing the quality of necessary services. This will lead to revitalization of communities beset by rising costs.”

Barbara Fiala, Broome County Executive, said: “Our goal in pursuing this plan is to begin a dialogue with municipalities about consolidation and ways to operate more efficiently and hopefully reduce costs. We do our citizens a disservice by doing nothing. We realize there is a lot of work that has to be done before consolidation of police departments can begin but we have presented a starting point for negotiations. We hope the discussion does not end here.”

Tom Santulli, Chemung County Executive, said: “It is incumbent upon us to seek out ways to provide tax relief to our overburdened property taxpayers. By bringing together all segments of local government and reviewing our service delivery systems we have found that not only can we provide cost savings to our taxpayers but also better-coordinated services in a more efficient manner.”

Joanie Mahoney, Onondaga County Executive, said: “Amazingly, despite advancements in nearly every other part of society, our system of local government has barely evolved over the past one-hundred years and we are still governed by these same archaic institutions formed before the invention of the light bulb, telephone, automobile, and computer. We often say that we would never willingly re-create the government we have today — and in Onondaga we believe that now is the time to take the steps necessary for Upstate to succeed in a rapidly changing world.”

John T. McDonald III, Mayor of the City of Cohoes said: “No one can say that the opportunity to be heard has not occurred and it is healthy to receive feedback from municipal officials as well as members of the public at large.”

Robert T. Wood, Oneonta Town Supervisor, said: “There are still a great many political barriers to .merging. the city and the town. [but] I believe we have a rare opportunity to shape the future of our community together. If we can break down this wall of protectionism and look at what is best for the area.”

Michael Hein, Ulster County Administrator, said: “Ulster County has spent $100 million on a new jail, and meanwhile Dutchess County is planning a 300-bed addition at roughly $70 million. We have the room and the staff in our jail to take on inmates from our sister county across the river and solve both our problems, but we’re not allowed to take a regional approach that would benefit the taxpayers of both counties?”

Governor Paterson added: “I want to thank Chairman Stan Lundine, Executive Director John Clarkson and all of the members of the Commission for their tireless efforts over the past year. I am also grateful for the hard work and cooperation of our partners in local government who have played such an important role in this process. Although we have already enacted some of the Commission’s initiatives in this year’s Budget, today I am proposing a program bill that contains a number of other critical initiatives submitted by the Commission that will help make local government more efficient, thereby reducing the tax burden of New York’s working families.”

The report can be viewed at http://www.nyslocalgov.org/report_page.asp.
The Governor's memo can be viewed at http://www.state.ny.us/governor/press/pdf/press_0430081-1.pdf.
The Governor's bill can be viewed at http://www.state.ny.us/governor/press/pdf/press_0430081-2.pdf.