County-wide Shared Services Initiative Introductory Meeting
Meeting Minutes
June 7, 2017
NOT APPROVED
Present:
Town Supervisors
Alfred Dan Acton
AlmondDawn Wildrick Cole
AndoverGus Weber
AngelicaRobert Jones
BirdsallCynthia Gowiski
BolivarRick Gould
Burns Lauren Oliver
CentervilleMarc Bliss
ClarksvilleRon Truax
CubaRobert Carney
GrangerTom Voss
GroveJonathan Gorton
HumeDennis Ricketts
New Hudson William Shuler
RushfordJohn Jessup
Scio Kim Demick
WardJames Lucy
West AlmondBrent Platt
Willing Ronald Wightman
Village Mayors
Alfred Justin Grigg
Almond John Meehan
AngelicaMichael Trivisondoli
BolivarRobert Mitchell
CubaMichele Miller
Local Government
Curt Crandall, Chairman Board of Legislators
Tim Boyde, County Administrator
Phil Stockin, Legislator
Dave Decker, Legislator
Kevin LaForge, Legislator
Terri Ross, County Treasurer
Kier Dirlam, County Planning Director
Michelle Denhoff, County Planning Office
Jodi Adams, Assistant to the County Administrator
William Heaney representing Senator Catherine Young
Kate Hollis representing Assemblyman Joseph Giglio
Public
Cal Champlin
Media
No media present.
Call to Order
The meeting was called to order at 6:30 p.m. by Allegany County Administrator Tim Boyde.
Mr. Boyde welcomed and thanked people for attending the meeting. He then gave brief introductions and stated the meeting is an open meetingso the public can attend and that we will be taking minutes.
Overview
Mr. Boyde stated the goals for tonight’s meeting include discussion on the Governor’s mandate, composition of the panel, the role of the chair and panelists, required activities and deadlines, examples of shared services, new ideas to explore, and establishing the next steps.
The FY 2018 State Budget includes a new mandate designed to generate property tax savings by facilitating operational collaboration between local governments.The County-wide Shared Services Initiative (mandate) establishes a Shared Services Panel in each county, chaired by the Chief Executive Officer of the County.
The Panels are tasked with developing and ultimately approving a County-wide Shared Service Property Tax Savings Plan through intergovernmental cooperation by finding new opportunities to share and coordinate services.
A couple years back it was the Tax Freeze Rebate Plan and a number of us worked together to do that successfully. This process is entirely new.
The Governor has said if Plans create actual and demonstrable property tax savings they may be eligible for a one-time match of the net savings resulting from new actions implemented pursuant to the Plan. The panel must decide how to divvy up match funds.
The Role of the Chair and the Panelists
Required participants include the Chief Executive Officer of every town, village and city within the County. This law defines the CEO as Mayors and Town Supervisors. The County CEO must chair the panel, and is a voting member.
According to the Department of State (DOS),a designee can attend panel meetings and can work on the proposals, but is not a voting panel member. A Deputy Supervisor or Deputy Mayor, may be a panel member if their job duties include acting in the absence of their Supervisor or Mayor. Only a Panel member may vote.
Mr. Boyde explained that by local law, he is not the County CEO, the Legislature Chairman is. However, the State law says “notwithstanding any local law…. the County Administrator is the CEO.” This is why he’s Chair instead of Legislature Chairman Curt Crandall.
The Chair’s tasks include convening panel meetings, soliciting input from public, unions, and panelists, conducting public hearings, meeting deadlines, creating and certifying the final written plan and submitting the Plan to the State. This also includes conducting a public presentation of the final plan.
In order for Mr. Boyde to certify the plan, he will need to calculate the expected tax levy impact of the Plan to the average taxpayer, average homeowner, and average business. Mr. Boyde has to certify to the State that the figures are correct.
Municipalities may decide whether or not to participate or opt-out of any component of the Plan. However, if you choose to opt out, you are required to submit a written explanation as part of the Plan. Also, the Chair has the authority to decide if the County will optout on any component of the Plan. If a municipality opts out, the Plan’s action does not end, it just doesn’t apply to the municipality that has opted out.
Once the Plan is developed and presented, if the Plan doesn’t passby vote, Mr. Boyde stated we will be forced to repeat the process again next year.
According to the process, the County Legislature, nor your elected boards, has any approval role over the Plan. The only approval role comes after the fact when it comes time to implement the Plan and approve inter municipal agreements. However, there is nothing preventing our elected boards from voting to directing each of us to include or exclude anything in the plan.
Mandated Deadlines
Plan deadlines include:
Before August 1st
- Research recommendations from representatives of the shared services Panel,as well as the representative of each collective bargaining unit of the county, towns, and villages. The survey forms that were emailed and mailed to municipalities requests the required information.
- Write, certify, and submit the plan to the County Legislature.
Before Sept. 15:
- The County Legislative shall review the Plan, and may, by a majority of its members, issue an advisory report with recommendations to the Chair.
- The Chair may modify the Plan.
- The Chair must facilitate three public hearings on the Plan for the Panel and the CountyLegislature.
- Panel must vote on the Plan. Any “no” votes must be explained in writing by the panel member.
- Chair submits Plan to the State Division of Budget.
- Chair disseminates Plan to County residents.
Before Oct. 15
- Chair delivers public presentation of the Plan.
Additional Information
The Plan should include shared and coordinated actions that can be implemented during the subsequent calendar year.
Proposed actions must be among the county, towns, and villages within the county. Proposed actions can be among: the whole group, just a few municipalities, with or without County,
or any combination of the above.
The Plan must contain new recurring property tax savings to be achieved through actions such as the elimination of duplicative services, shared services, the reduction of back-office administrative overhead, and the improved coordination of services.
We cannot use anything that we currently do.
We will need to show what the taxes would be if we didn’t implement the cost savings action.
If the Plan contains a proposed action that by law is subject to a procedural requirement such as a public referendum, then the planned action will not be operative until said procedural requirement occurs.
The Plan must begin with the summary document when it is publicly disseminated and is submitted to the Director of the New York State Division of the Budget. Otherwise, there is no prescribed format for the individual proposals contained within the Plan.
Examples of Shared Services(from NYS Regional CWSSI meeting)
Examples of shared services that were discussed at the regional meetings included: combiningjustice courts, transportation, assessors, tax collection, highway, health insurance, purchasing, code enforcement, fire inspections, accounting, vehicle maintenance, combining boards, records and digitizing, MEGA, LED streetlight, wastewater authority, animal control, information technology, law enforcement, trash, and district consolidations.
Examples of Existing Shared Services within Allegany County
Mr. Boyde and panelists discussed what we currently do to share services and reduce taxes. Shared services include:MEGA, Enterprise lease, Inter Municipal Agreements with NYS, Allegany County, Towns, and Villages for roads, bridges, garbage removal, equipment, tax billing, shared space (office, courts, and storage), utilities, police, fire and ambulance, summer recreation, assessors, code enforcement officers, animal control officers, building inspectors, water- resources, systems, equipment and operators, Workers’ Compensation Insurance, Town and Village Justices, and staff working in dual capacities.
Panelists discussed the model they use for shared services with their assessor. Possible ways to structure payments for contracted services include by parcel and reevaluation per parcel. Shared code enforcement is a similarmodel for more discussion and possibly expansion and cost savings on a larger scale. The towns and villages that are currently sharing services have reduced costs and report it is working well for their constituents.
A concern with having the county manage the assessor was mentioned as a way to increase taxes through increasing assessments and loss of neutrality that tax payers depend on.
Mr. Boyde mentioned that the County doesn’t have to be part of the Plan’s proposed action. Shared services can be achieved between Towns, Villages or Towns and Villages working together.
It was noted within Allegany County there are currently 59 tax collectors (schools, T,V, and C). Discussion about shared services with tax collection followed. County Treasurer Terri Ross noted the existing software, which was received through a consolidated services grant, has the capability to perform this function. It would require additional staff and she isn’t sure what the time or cost would be. The existing software and equipment does include a small annual maintenance fee.
Tim Boyde mentioned that Chemung County absorbed payroll and bookkeeping tasks for towns and villages. Currently, the majority of local towns and villages use consultants.
Health insurance was another area of interest to explore to see if there are any opportunities to combine coverage and reduce costs. The question was raised why can’t towns, village, schools and county employees share the same insurance? If the numbers are prohibitive, can we share coverage with other counties or municipalities?
Combining justice courts is another area of interest for future discussion and potential savings. County Administrator Tim Boyde mentioned Public Defender Barb Kelley was successful in receiving a grant to assist in meeting the State’s legal representation requirements at arraignments, which has proven problematic in a rural setting.
Additional Ideas for Future Shared ServicesConsideration
Based on the feedback from surveys provided by municipalities, the following suggestions were identified for further discussion: Health Insurance, County code enforcement and zoning officers, County-wide assessments, Wastewater treatment systems, County Town Bridge cost sharing programs.
Next Steps
Mr. Boyde and panelists agreed that sharing services and reducing taxes is a good thing. Mr. Boyde said we’ve been doing it and despite the flawed and rushed mandated process, we may be able to find worthy ideas from this process to save taxpayers’ money.
Mr. Boyde pointed out it is unlikely that we will find enough savings to move our County down in the national “highest taxed counties” rankings that the Governor pounds on us local governments about. The only way to cut property taxes enough to do that would be for the State to take ownership of its own mandated costs that are passed on to the County.
Mr. Boyde asked the Panelists if given the timeline if they wished totry to put a plan together for submission this year or if they wanted to continue meeting and develop a quality Plan for submission to DOS in 2018.
Attendees unanimously voted by show of hands to continue meeting and submit a plan to DOS in 2018. Members agreed the timeline will be more conducive to a constructive process with meaningful savings results to our taxpayers.
The next meeting will take place on June 27th at 6:30pm at the Belmont BOCES Center.
Adjournment
There being no further business to discuss, the meeting was adjourned at 8:15 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Jodi Adams
Assistant to the County Administrator