Cayuga County's code enforcement services may soon come with a hefty price tag if the Legislature passes a resolution, already approved by the Government Operations Committee, that would charge villages and towns a standard fee of $20 per capita, a rate intended to encourage communities to seek cheaper, private services.

The village of Cato is the only community in the county that depends on the county's code enforcement services, at a rate of 67 cents per capita. But county officials say standardization at an expensive rate is necessary to prevent communities from seeking the services of the county's code enforcement department - a one-man, part-time department that would be unable to cover county communities in addition to all county-owned property.

“The bottom line is we want out of the service,” said Legislator George Fearon, who introduced the resolution at Tuesday's Government Operations Committee meeting. “We don't want the business.”

The cost of doing business would outweigh any profit the county gained from providing code enforcement to local communities, Fearon said.

Jerry Vevone, the county's code enforcement officer, works part-time to perform fire inspections at all county-owned properties, facilities used by the county's foster care program and any new buildings. He goes out to the village of Cato about once a month to do the same.

“In the county you have 28 or more villages and towns - if everyone wanted the county to do that, it would definitely be a lot of work,” Vevone said. If the demand for county code enforcement increased, the county would have to expand the department, he said.

While the measure is preventative in nature and moot in most parts of the county, it could have immediate and serious implications for the village of Cato, where the county's services cost a fraction of the thousands of dollars neighboring communities pay private entities.

At 67 cents per capita, Cato's code enforcement tab comes to $403 a year. Nearby communities pay significantly more for private code enforcement - about $4,500 in Cayuga and Fair Haven, nearly $6,700 in Moravia, and more than $7,000 in Port Byron and Union Springs, according to data presented at Tuesday's Government Operations Committee meeting.

Legislators deliberately set the rate at $20 per capita to make county services more expensive than what private groups charge. At that rate, it would cost $14,400 for the county code enforcement in Aurora, where a private entity charges just under $3,000.

In Cato, county services would cost about $12,000 at $20 per capita, a price Mayor Carl Lincoln said would be steep for the village to pay for the minimal service they require.

“We haven't built houses here in quite a while,” Lincoln said. “It isn't like they're out here every day.”

The village will most likely have to look elsewhere for code enforcement next year, he said, but even elsewhere will be more expensive.

Staff writer Sarah Gantz can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 237 or sarah.gantz@lee.net