Ron Wilson

There is a great deal to examine when considering a consolidation or dissolution topic. There are in Cayuga County 23 town rural governments, nine village governments, one city government, one county government, six school districts (with others abutting and or coming into Cayuga County), and numerous water districts, fire districts and other local districts. The logical place to look is where the bulk of taxes and costs are being paid because that is where your greatest savings may occur. Therefore, one would look at the county/town and your school district. Just a reminder, when the County Water and Sewer Authority was created with many promises to the village of Port Byron of cheaper water and better service your rates virtually doubled. Bigger is not necessarily better or cheaper!

Looking at the overall picture one could envision going back to a board of supervisors at the county level. Wayne County and Ontario County to the west work that way and they seem to do pretty well, but here in Cayuga County we created another level with a whole level of people called legislators and all the benefits and bigger salaries that go with it. With a county manager now in place, going back to a Board of Supervisors for policy and then the manager who would administrate those policies is an idea that is not so farfetched. Not creating a whole new layer of government.

School districts could all come under the authority of the BOCES superintendent with the major bulk of the purchasing and bookkeeping being done there, eliminating the top administrators in each school system, especially the district superintendents at the top end with their very large salaries, expense accounts and elaborate benefit packages.

Possibly towns should be restructured on a larger level as they once were larger entities and with modern transportation one could look at eliminating the duplication within 23 towns throughout the county. Take a look a the map of the county and the way the legislative districts are drawn and larger towns could be formed at a savings by merging towns together ending the largest duplications that exist at the local level. After all, towns were created in late 1700s and early 1800s to provide for some functions of the county. Each township with a highway superintendent, in many cases a part-time clerk, a justice or town with a court clerk, assessors, building officials, planning and zoning boards even town historians that could all be streamlined and cut back easily, perhaps even being superseded by county officials. For example, we suggested coordinating building inspectors so someone is here in the community (village and town) and entire day. My suggestion was to use the village's inspector because he is certified and also tied into flood plain management which is also an important issue. The town currently uses their same one and did not want to combine services. Currently, Montezuma and Union Springs along with Port Byron share a code enforcement officer.

Highway departments might be better coordinated through the county highway department with manpower and equipment usage more cost beneficial, and with much less duplication of expensive equipment and labor.

One usually finds, though, that the group that is the most vocal about this issue is the one that is in trouble financially or administratively. It is very easy to distort facts when one does not know them and then present distortions of major proportions.

Villages were created because of larger concentrations of people living closer together. Even the state has backed off on their original efficiency program. The last village to dissolve was Pike, which did so mainly because of size (less then 400) and the few services that it offered. Expensive studies were done in Speculator and Macedon, each village having to bear the entire cost of thousands of dollars and both times it was voted down by the residents. Incidentally, the studies have to be paid completely by the village residents, which has run into thousands of dollars in some cases.

In any case if the debts stay with the village, then the assets would also stay with the village residents, not just be turned over to a new tax base (town outside village) as some think. New districts, such as garbage pickup, light, water, sewer, police and fire, would totally be created with some kind of governing board.

These boards would have to be formed to take care of equitable tax distribution items and provide residents with the services that they are accustomed to, and those residents obviously would pay for these services.

Also, it would be reasonable to say that village residents should consider what services they now receive from the town/county for what taxes they pay.

Wilson is mayor of the village of Port Byron