In his recent spring swing through Westchester County, state Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli was no public doomsayer. The coming-and-going in the governor”™s office had not shaken his “sense of optimism and confidence.” Still it was not a rosy view from Albany that the former telecommunications manager and Long Islander offered his business audiences and others in speeches and forums.
The challenges to government are “even more problematic and even more challenging at a time when the economy is down and resources are limited,” he told members of The Business Council of Westchester at a recent breakfast. “It”™s not a time to rest. It”™s time to get into gear as we see volatility in the financial market spill over into government.”
For a state that “too often has used debt as a surrogate for wealth,” the revenue shortfall likely will increase this year, he warned. For a state that depends on Wall Street for one-fifth of its annual budget revenue, both corporate and personal income taxes will be down next year, a result of Wall Street layoffs and company earnings losses and employee bonuses that this year “will be way off from where they”™ve been in recent years” in the financial canyons of lower Manhattan.
It was in that hardly rosy light that DiNapoli joined a panel in Cortlandt Manor discussing shared public services. He and other panelists agreed that reducing the property-tax burden with more cost-efficient shared services among schools and municipalities was a change whose time might have come at last in New York.
“In politics, everything is timing,” said attorney and Westchester County Association Chairman Alfred B. DelBello, who spearheaded the initial work of that business group”™s property tax reform committee and serves on the state Commission on Local Government Efficiency and Competitiveness. The latter temporary commission was appointed last year by then-Gov. Eliot Spitzer to make recommendations on government consolidations and shared services in a state with, as DelBello said, about 9,000 taxing authorities and 6,000 governments. “You can be too early or too late,” he said. “I hope that we”™re right on the cutting time.”
The time has not been right for shared-service initiatives in the past, DiNapoli said at the forum sponsored by his former colleague, Assemblywoman Sandy Galef, D-90th District.
“The time really is now for that kind of expanded conversation.”
DiNapoli said patience is “a key part of all of this.” Convincing municipalities and school districts to work together will not be easy, he and other panelists agreed. “Another real issue is the sense of identity” in small communities, he said. “That”™s real, but I think there are ways to get around that.” He said “tangible incentives” from the state ”“ money ”“ is needed to encourage communities “to buy into the system.”
As recommended by the Spitzer commission, more of that incentive aid, an additional $4.4 million, was included by legislators in the recently enacted 2008 state budget. The newly named Local Government Efficiency Grant program, administered by the Department of State, has $29.4 million with which to promote consolidations and major service-sharing arrangements that save taxpayer dollars.
Commission officials said high priority will be given to a new grant category, 21st Century Demonstration Projects, which could involve dissolution of local governments, consolidation of services on a countywide or multicounty basis or provide support for schools consolidation, regional service models in areas such as highway maintenance, policing and smart-growth planning or regional consolidation of school district “back-office” services.
Towns and villages considering merger, consolidation or dissolution can choose to receive a 25 percent increase in current state aid or incentive funding equal to 15 percent of the combined property tax revenue of consolidating localities, with both funding streams capped at $1 million annually, or a $250,000 flat amount that would phase down over five years.
Panelists said the state”™s Board of Cooperative Educational Services could serve as a model for municipalities or as an established vehicle for those changes if given expanded authority by the state Legislature.
DelBello said BOCES should have a stronger role in school districts”™ business operations. With 70 percent of property taxes going to schools, school districts must be a focus of change, he said.
James Langlois, Putnam/Northern Westchester BOCES district superintendent, said BOCES is envied in other parts of the country for the efficiency of its shared services system. BOCES “has a kind of entrepreneurial quality because our services only exist as long as people want them,” he said.
Noting the obstacles to cost-efficient change, including “bureaucratic sclerosis,” Langlois said, “I think shared services is a good focus to start with before you start looking at consolidating schools.”
DelBello said the Commission on Local Government Efficiency and Competitiveness soon will issue its report and recommendations. “I don”™t think we can continue much longer with the system of governance that we have in New York today,” he said. “The state Legislature has to take some bold steps that could be very politically jeopardizing for some of them or nothing”™s going to get done.”
