In 2004, the state introduced a Shared Municipal Services Incentive grant program; some have taken advantage of the money in the program, including 12 municipalities in Westchester that formed the Long Island Sound Watershed Intermunicipal Council.
The council grew out of a four-day seminar held in 1998. Lester Steinman, director of the Michaelian Municipal Law Resource Center of Pace University, led the discussion of the council”™s storm water-management coalition and, seeking to expand on the success, of municipal consolidation of services at the Pattern for Progress seminar held at SUNY New Paltz recently.
Gov. Eliot Spitzer”™s administration, holding out financial carrots to encourage municipalities to consolidate services, is very attractive to council members. Steinman was joined by town of Mamaroneck Supervisor Phyllis Wittner and Scarsdale village Manager Alfred Gatta, whose municipalities participate in the storm water effort. “Our infrastructure is more than 25 years old,” said Wittner. “It wasn”™t built to handle the population of southern Westchester, nor the storms that have battered us the past two years. We must work together if we are to be successful.”
And as a group, the council has been successful in getting grant money to further its common goal. Funding from shared-services initiative and other incentives the state is offering for consolidation of services are extremely attractive to the 12-member coalition.
“One of our biggest obstacles is the way taxes are distributed,” said Gatta after the Westchester panel made its presentation to Pattern attendees, “Seventy percent of our taxes go to the school  district, 20 percent to the county and 10 percent is allocated to our local government. If Albany can find a way to redistribute the way it collects school property taxes, our local municipalities would be better able to accomplish what is needed.”
Like Steinman and Wittner, Gatta advocated for replacement of storm water pipelines, doubling them in size to handle both storm water and run off so excess water and sewage overflow doesn”™t end up in streams, rivers and basements.
The Long Island Sound watershed group has been proactive in getting grants, “but we”™ve got a long way to go,” continued Gatta after the presentation. To build the funding necessary to remake the storm water infrastructure, Gatta said the council is considering a formula wherein single-family homes would pay $36 per year toward storm-water upgrades and commercial properties would pay the equivalent of each residential unit its property represents, which would be capped at a certain number. “Commercial properties can get tax credits if they do onsite wastewater management on their own,” added Gatta.
Â
The bottom line, concur council presenters and Pattern attendees, is to consolidate, cooperate and put political agendas aside for the greater good of the region.
In the storm-water council”™s case, the 12-member municipal group seems to be putting political nitpicking aside. “We had billions of dollars of property damage and lost business in the past 12 months as a result of the lashings Westchester”™s taken,” said Gatta. “That in itself is incentive enough to make storm-water management a regional effort for us.”
After an introduction by new Secretary of State Lorraine Cortes-Vazquez, Richard Briffault of Columbia University Law School gave Pattern”™s keynote address. He encouraged the state to “get the word out” about consolidation and cooperation financial initiatives and then take the show on the road.
Briffault believes  increasing efficiency and driving down costs are what the taxpayers care about. More towns, cities and villages would have a greater incentive to participate and put political agendas aside if the public were made aware of the benefits of consolidation and merger of certain services. “The state”™s constitution can make local changes difficult,” conceded Briffault. “Most of the existing governments were enacted decades, even centuries ago. While population and urbanization have shifted, local municipal boundaries have not changed.” A shift in ideology may be in order, said Briffault. “Local boundaries are not translating well in the 21st-century landscape.”
Lack of familiarity with successful consolidation models, differences in the legal processes, loss of local positions and other factors contribute to the snail”™s pace of change, “ but those most concerned about loss of local control may also be more open to saving money,” said Briffault.
The submission deadline for consolidation grants is December 14.
Â
