Government
CONSOLIDATION
An
empire is an aggregate of many territories, and the Empire State
is composed of many jurisdictions: 57 counties, 62
cities,
556
villages, 932 towns, as well as school districts, water
districts, library districts, etc. Add the special purpose
authorities and the units of governance in the State of New
York are literally countless (a governor’s Commission
on Local Government was unable to come up with an exact figure
but it’s something over 4,000). In a time of strained
resources, rising costs and increased demands for public
service it should not be surprising that state and local
issues always
seem to lead to the question of making the level of government
hailed as being closest to the people more efficient. The
word that’s heard is consolidation.
The concept of government consolidation has at least two broad
meanings.
Functional
consolidation refers to municipalities and authorities working in
cooperation, sharing personnel and resources. It can be as essential and obvious
as police and fire departments serving more than one municipality. More frequently
locales will cooperate in their “back room” operations, such as
insurance and personnel management.
Structural
consolidation means extending the town boundaries, dissolving the
village, establishing metro government and creating an expanded or entirely
new governmental entity. The laws of New York State provide for citizen petitioning
to restructure the local government, though the process is complicated and
rarely carried out. For example, if a big city wants to extend its borders
around an adjacent village it must be approved by a majority in both the city
and the little village.
Functional consolidation happens all the time and few people raise strong objections.
Structural consolidation is regularly one of the bloody shirts of local politics
in the Empire State.
New York’s state government encourages local entities
to cooperate and provides assistance through the Division
of Local Government Services (LG) in the Department of State. Their
encouragement activity has become even more persuasive now that
LG has $23 million in Local Government Efficiency Grants to support
research into shared services and “to promote intermunicipal
efforts to improve efficiency and reduce municipal costs.”
The efforts of LG have been reinforced by the April, 2008 report of the New
York State Commission on Local
Government Efficiency and Competitiveness. Chaired
by former lieutenant governor Stan Lundine, the Commission looked into almost
every aspect of local government activity to find redundancy, inefficiency
and practices that were clearly out-of-date.
A report issued
by the Association of Towns of the State
of New York rebutted
the Commission report, asserting that “bigger regional government is
not better, and is often more expensive.”
To explain the motives and methods behind the many kinds of consolidation,
WSKG Public Broadcasting is presenting a series of special reports and a face-to-face
debate between candidates for Broome County Executive in which consolidation
will be a major theme.
On
Monday and Tuesday, September 29th and 30th during MORNING EDITION
and ALL THINGS CONSIDERED on WSKG Radio, special
reports will define
consolidation, dissolution and shared services. Part of the
report was recorded at a workshop for local government officials
sponsored
by the Department of State’s LG Division in Corning – the
first in a series of fifteen such workshops
to be held across New York State. 
Consolidation Call-In
On Tuesday
evening, September 30 at 7:00 PM on WSKG Radio, a live and interactive
CONSOLIDATION CALL-IN will convene a panel of experts to respond
to listener
questions
and share experiences of local government.
John
Clarkson, executive director of the New York State Commission
on Local Government Efficiency and Competitiveness.
Kenneth
Kamlet, attorney and co-chair of the consolidation committee
of the Greater Binghamton Chamber of Commerce.
Tim
Whitesell, since 1990 the town supervisor of the Town of
Binghamton and a member of the executive committee of the Association
of Towns of the State of New York.
Michael
Hattery, Ph.D., Director of the Center for Local
Government in the Department of Public Administration
of Binghamton University and a member
of the Tompkins County Legislature.
WSKG’s Bill
Jaker will be the moderator.
To join in the discussion on Tuesday evening call 888/359-9754
or post a message to WSKG.Radio@Gmail.com.
Barbara
Fiala |
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Broome County Executive Debate
Consolidation will be a major theme
of the debate between candidates for Broome
County Executive.
|
Michael
Marinaccio |
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Barbara
Fiala is the Democratic incumbent, running
for re-election the first time. She was previously
Broome County Clerk.
Michael
Marinaccio, town supervisor of the Town
of Dickinson, is the Republican challenger.
The
debate will be broadcast LIVE
on WSKG
Radio
Wednesday,
10/1 at 7:00 PM.
Rebroadcast
on WSKG-TV
Thursday,
10/2
at 8:00 PM.
The candidates will be questioned
by Ronald Lesch, representing the Greater Binghamton
Chamber of Commerce, Vivian Carlip of the League
of Women Voters of Broome and Tioga Counties
and Nadia Rubaii-Barrett, Ph.D., associate
professor and chair of the Department of Public
Administration at Binghamton University.
These election-year programs
are presented by WSKG Public Broadcasting in
partnership with the League of Women Voters
of Broome and Tioga Counties, the Greater
Binghamton Chamber of Commerce, the Center
for Civic Engagement at Broome Community College
and the Department of Public Administration
of Binghamton University.
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LISTEN
NOW to Monday's report (3:49):
