Regional Roundtables
Local Government Cooperation
Opportunities for Efficiencies and Cooperation
County-wide Assessment (Adobe PDF)
Agenda
Friday, March 26, 2004
9 am - 12 noon
Genesee/Finger Lakes Regional Planning Council
City Place
50 West Main Street
2nd Floor Atrium
Rochester, New York 14614
585-454-0190
Objective of this Roundtable: To bring various local and regional stakeholders together to discuss local government services, responsibilities, innovations, and challenges in the Genesee/Finger Lakes Region.
Refreshments
Welcome/Introductions
A short presentation with some starting points for discussion on local government, including a brief historical background and comparisons to neighboring jurisdictions.
Discussion
Is upstate New York "over governed"?
What is good about the current system of local government?
What are the challenges of governing with the current system of local government
What should potentially be studied or changed?
Are these changes possible?
How can we get there? What are the challenges to change?
Good examples and innovation from around the region and the rest of Upstate
New York on local government cooperation
Wrap Up & Next Steps
Ground rules for this Roundtable:
Do not interrupt others while they are speaking
Do not devalue input that you do not agree with
Speak if you feel comfortable, submit your feelings in writing if you so choose to
Summary Notes
Attendees:
Jason Haremza G/FLRPC
Tim Hens Genesee County Highway Superintendent
Anne Humphrey Town of Perry Supervisor
Esther Leadley Genesee County Legislator
Gay Lenhard Town of Odgen Supervisor
Darrell Norris SUNY Geneseo Geography Professor
Donald Roberts Wyoming County Code Enforcement Officer
Al Scheg Village of Spencerport Administrator
Shelley Stein Town of LeRoy Supervisor
Larry Stid City of Rochester Director of Planning
Michael Wolkoff University of Rochester Economics Professor
David Zorn G/FLRPC
The roundtable began with a brief discussion on the history and structure of local government in New York State. This generated more interest than anticipated; information and documents on this subject will be posted on the website.
1. Is Upstate New York "over governed" ?
The overall (and in many cases, immediate) consensus was yes. Upon further discussion,
it was agreed that a better term might be "over regulated."
Over-regulated was referring to the fact that its difficult in New York for the system of
government to evolve to meet needs as society evolves and changes.
Over-regulation also refers to a long list of unfunded state mandates. Particular
frustration was expressed that not only does the state, in a sense, say "here is the goal,
you must achieve this," but also says "here is how you must get from the current
conditions to the goal." Local municipalities and counties should have more flexibility
in how to achieve the goals of state mandates.
2. What is good about the current system of local government?
The existing system arose in response to certain political, technological, economic,
and demographic issues of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
Currently, it was noted, villages provide for a level of service and infrastructure that is
suited to the concentrated populations usually found in villages. However, it was also
noted that anything a village provides can and is being provided by towns via
special districts.
Many villages and towns have good working relationships, but many do not.
Everyone could relate instances of where villages barely speak to the towns they
are located in. The unfortunate part of the current system is that good coordination too
often depends solely on good personal relationships.
However, it was stressed that there are many existing examples of intermunicipal
agreements and cooperation. These need to be better publicized.
3. What are the challenges of governing with the current system of local government?
Population change (loss or gain) and stagnant or shrinking tax bases are two
challenges of governing with the current system. Village government seems to make
sense when the tax base and population exist to support it financially. Villages with
small populations and low property values have a hard time offering full municipal
services without having a tax rate as high or higher in some cases than the county's tax.
Financial burdens are a major challenge. Police services are very expensive and often
represent a major portion of a municipalitys budget, especially for villages.
If a local municipality has local police, it is in some sense paying twice for police
services since residents pay county taxes to support the county sheriffs deputies that
they are not utilizing. The analogy of paying to send your children to private school but
still having to pay school taxes was used to illustrate this point.
(on a side note: it was stated that counties are not mandated to provide sheriffs
deputies. They must provide a sheriff and guard the county courts, but in theory,
if a countys financial situation became sufficiently dire, the sheriffs deputies and
their patrols could be ended since they are not a mandated function.)
In towns or villages with very low populations, it can be difficult just to get enough
people willing to sit on various boards (planning, zoning etc.).
An additional challenge is simply getting people to know and understand where they
live. A persons mailing address often bears no connection to the political entity they
live in and only find out when they get their tax bill.
4. What should potentially be studied or changed?
Library services were especially mentioned as an area needing study. The types of
libraries (municipal, school district, association) are varied. Since libraries are not a
mandated service, it was expressed that as public finances continue to be strained,
library funding could be cut. Study and review of library services is necessary to ensure
that adequate and efficient resources are available. If we are to keep them, how are
we to fund them?
Tompkins County performs property assessment on a county-wide basis. Many of the
attendees asked for more information on this method and how it was working for
Tompkins County.
The data showing that Upstate New York has 5131 people per local government unit
should be expanded to show what percentage of the population lives under more than
one level of government (i.e. village-town-county-state as opposed to
town-countystate). Include districts (fire, library, school, etc.) in this study.
Not only should village dissolutions into towns be considered, but also town-town
consolidation/amalgamation.
5. Are these changes possible?
Although it was reported by some that State Representatives have indicated that local
government consolidation/changes is all but impossible (specifically, the creation of a
Town-Village such as East Rochester would be very unlikely in the current political
climate), it is true that many different forms of cooperation and consolidations are
possible in New York State. The degree of difficulty varies, and overall is high compared
to many other states.
6. How can we get there? What are the challenges to change?
Technologies developed over the past 10-20 years have been crucial to many
cooperation efforts. Everything from swipe cards for shared fuel depots to computerized
databases of building records have made shared or county-wide services possible and
efficient.
All agreed that the issue of cooperation and consolidation can be a very emotional
issue for people. Concerns were voiced about the perceived loss of identity argument
that is raised when consolidation is discussed. This was countered by explaining that
community identity should be "de-coupled" from political entities. There are many
examples of places with no political or legal definition (urban neighborhoods, hamlets,
etc.) that have a very good sense of identity. Conversely, there are legally incorporated
towns and villages that lack any real sense of identity. Therefore, village lines on a map
and sense of identity are not a 100% correlation.
A question posed: Is Upstate New York less advanced as far as local governments
adopting new technology, compared to other states and areas, particularly in the
south and west? Two theories were advanced:
o the well documented loss of young adults from Upstate New York, a
demographic group that would tend to demand more technology and be more
accepting of technology.
o the fact that many southern and western areas developed with technology, and
made use of it as they developed. New York State, being an older state, largely
developed in the "person and paperwork" era and therefore must introduce
technology to a "pre-technology" system.
An active and involved State representative and good relationships with that
representative are very important to effecting change.
The State says that it is important to cooperate and consolidate, but places many
obstacles to having it occur. Examples were given where state agencies would ask
to use local facilities, and access was freely given, but when local municipalities asked
to use state facilities, the answer would be no. Union issues are potentially a factor in
this, although not the only factor.
7. Good examples and innovation from around the region and the rest of Upstate New York on local government cooperation
It was widely agreed that there are many existing examples of efficiencies and
cooperation. Of course, improvement and progress is always desirable, but there was a
sincere feeling that our current successes need to be more widely publicized and more
widely known in the region.
Wyoming County county-wide garbage pick-up
Wyoming County county-wide building permit and inspection services. The county
provides these services for all municipalities (the final town signed on last year) with the
sole exception of the Village of Warsaw.
o It was noted that like many of these examples of cooperation, technology makes
it possible and efficient. The automation of the building database is key.
o In addition to issuing building permits and inspecting existing buildings, the
professional, full-time county staff of 5 provides public awareness, training
seminars for contractors, and in general can offer a higher degree of service than
the former system of part-time individual inspectors for each town.
o The county building inspectors can easily coordinate with related departments
for building issues, such as the county health department and acts as a
"doublecheck" for compliance with municipal zoning.
o Finally, by having the inspection and enforcement at the county level, it provides
a greater distance between the enforcement officer and those being enforced.
There are many examples throughout the region where town or village officials
are friends and relatives of those who are building and the temptation to "bend"
the rules is strong.
o This is a case of where the whole is truly greater than the sum of the parts and a
tremendous example of sharing of services at a level above the municipality
(county). This method would appear to make a great deal of sense for rural
counties. However, to the knowledge of those present, the only other county in
New York that does this is Schuyler.
Wyoming and Genesee Counties these counties are the only two counties in the state
where the county highway department maintains all bridges on local roads. This ensures
that bridges, especially in small rural towns with limited resources, are maintained to a
high level of quality and in a consistent manner.
Genesee County groups of towns share highway equipment, although it was noted
that each town still retains a highway superintendent and personnel rather than
equipment costs are often the larger part of a towns expenses.
Genesee County county highway department constructed a consolidated fuel farm
with the City of Batavia, the Town of Batavia, and the Batavia School District.
Significant money has been saved in administrative costs, facility construction, and the
bulk purchase of fuel.
Genesee County the county highway department produces all signs for the towns and
villages in the county. In many cases, the county can produce these signs more cheaply
than a vendor and it also provides a high and standardized level of sign quality
throughout the county.
Town and Village of LeRoy/Genesee County policing agreement: whichever car is
closest responds to a call, whether it is state police, county sheriff, town police or village
police. The town then pays the responding agency on a per call basis.
City of Rochester/Monroe County starting in the 1940s, several service functions have
moved from the city to the county. It makes sense for services and infrastructure such as
the airport and major parks to be funded by the level of government that contains the
people that utilize it. Clearly, the airport and major parks are used by all county
residents and therefore should be supported by the broader county tax base.
City of Rochester provides building inspection services to the Towns of Brighton and
Gates.
o Cost was a motivating factor; due to economies of scale and the ability to better
and more evenly deploy personnel resources, the city can provide these services
to the towns more cheaply than for the towns to hire their own personnel.
o There was some union opposition at the city, but the alternative was lay-offs, so
this arrangement preserved jobs for civil servants and saved money for the towns.
o In addition, the city is able to provide some very specialized inspection services,
such as elevator inspections, that would be difficult for the towns to provide.
Town of Irondequoit, in a similar arrangement, contracts its building inspection services
with the Town of Greece.
50
West Main Street, Suite 8107
Rochester, New York 14614
tel:
585.454.0190
fax: 585.454.0191
Last Modified: May 01, 2007