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New York shared-services proposal gets cool reception from counties

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Shared services agreements forced by NY governor violate home rule, counties say

Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) plans to cut down on duplicative services provided by New York’s nearly 1,600 local governments, but the way he wants to do it will chafe along the way.

His 2018 budget proposal directs county chief elected officials to draw up agreements for their governments to consolidate services with cities, towns and villages and put them up to a public vote in November. But many county officials and the state association of counties say it’s a violation of home rule and the wrong catalyst for that kind of cooperation.

“Obviously there are too many levels of government in terms of towns, villages, cities, counties,” said Jay Gsell, Genesee County’s manager. “But imposing that, versus letting people come to those conclusions themselves, isn’t the way to do it.”

Continuing a goal of his since his days as attorney general, Cuomo aims to cut down on high property taxes resulting from counties and other municipalities providing the same or similar services. This is the first time he has mandated any service consolidation. In 2015, the state required governments seeking property tax rebates to submit local government efficiency plans, which over three years added up to nearly $882 million in savings.

“You definitely see the effect high property taxes have,” said Orleans County Executive Chuck Nesbit. “You see the erosion of tax bases when people flee over a border to different towns or counties; you see housing stock deteriorating when people abandon properties because of an outsized tax burden.”

Nesbit heard from the governor and his aides on the proposal during the New York State Association of Counties’ (NYSAC) legislative conference in January, shortly after the plan was announced.

“He describes it as a way to empower counties more, but I don’t get that from how the language is written,” Nesbit said.

Cuomo instructs chief executives to form plans that are due to county legislatures by Aug. 1, which kicks off a 45-day clock to finalize wording. If voters don’t approve the measures in November, new plans are due by the following January.

“It’s intrusive into home rule powers,” said Steve Acquario, NYSAC’s executive director. “We’re all for sharing services and consolidation, we don’t need the state to tell us to do that.”

NYSAC members passed a resolution opposing the proposal as drafted. The state Legislature is still working on the budget, so exact wording and parameters are still up in the air.

“By challenging local governments to create a plan to streamline government bureaucracy for voter approval, this innovative and powerful initiative will empower communities and lead to real, recurring property tax savings,” Cuomo said.

Cuomo has often cited a total of 10,500 local governments, which includes nearly 9,000 state-created special districts, many more than the 1,598 counties, cities, towns and villages.

Nesbit said he saw potential for countywide code enforcement, tax collection and real estate assessment, but said there was limited room for cuts.

“I’d say the low-hanging fruit is pretty well picked over,” he said. “We’re talking about fundamental change of how we do business.”

That kind of fundamental change came in Ulster County after voters approved a county charter in 2006.

“We’ve been restructured, relative to the rest of the state’s counties, for the last eight years,” said County Executive Mike Hein. “We’re dealing with a very different scenario than most.”

The county’s property taxes are less than they were in 2010, an aberration in New York.

“We just look at different ways of delivering services,” he said. “Just because the state funds health and public health separately doesn’t mean you have to run two different county departments.”

He pointed to the consolidation in progress between the county’s bus system and that of the town of Kingston as an example of inefficient duplicative services.

“Kingston has a smaller bus system, and when their expenses escalate, they can’t bring in the most modern technology, they can’t use the best routing software and they don’t have efficient ridership,” he said.

“People aren’t using the system and it can go into a death spiral. We can bring the county’s system into the town and cut costs and increase service.”

Acquario points out that school districts, which account for 60–65 percent of the total property tax bill, aren’t included in the plan, and nearly all county services fulfill state mandates. He also added that nearly all county expenditures are needed to fulfill state ser vice mandates.

Nesbit said that these elements, plus counties’ outsized contribution to Medicaid, make it troublesome to compare New York to other states. Hein goes one step further.

“If you’re a business, and nobody’s trying to be more like you, you’re doing something wrong,” he said. “You don’t see other states trying to make their governments like be like New York.”

Hein acknowledged that the progress Ulster County has made in restructuring its government would be too traumatic for every county — it was on its way to bankruptcy when the government changed, creating the crisis that drove dramatic change.

The New York Conference of Mayors and Municipal Officials rejected Cuomo’s plan and instead called on the state to increase municipal aid for the first time in nine years.

In Washington County, the village of Argyle has done about as much service sharing as it can.  

“We’ve turned over a lot of our functions to the town or county,” said Mayor Wes Clark. “It’s made for a pretty efficient village operation, our functionality. A lot of what we do is maintain the water department, but if we didn’t exist there would have to be a water board.”

He noted that the village had contemplated dissolution in 1982 and 1993, but each time the conclusion that there wouldn’t be much savings.

“It would be a wash,” Clark said.

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