By Ashley M. Casey
Staff Writer
After months of meetings, leaders from 35 local municipalities and school districts of Onondaga County voted Sept. 13 to approve version 2.01 of the County-Wide Shared Services Plan. The town of Otisco was the only municipality to vote against the plan.
The plan could save county taxpayers as much as $5 million annually. New York state will match the annual savings with grants. County Executive Joanie Mahoney must present the plan to the public by Oct. 15. Each municipality must approve the plan — or explain why it is opting out of certain items — and begin implementing shared services by Jan. 1, 2018.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a law in May requiring counties to collaborate with towns, villages, cities and school districts on a plan to reduce the costs of local government.
The bulk of the savings come from a collaboration among Onondaga County, the city of Syracuse and the Syracuse City School District to submit joint requests for proposals for a Medicare Advantage plan for their retirees. This initiative is projected to save between $2.2 million and $4.4 million each year for 2018 and 2019, but projections for annual savings for 2020 and beyond are not available.
The rest of the shared services amount to around $1 million per year. Some of the big-ticket savings in the plan are:
• Municipalities and Onondaga County will submit joint solicitations for workers compensation insurance, with projected annual savings of $71,440. The town of Manlius and the village of Manlius opted out of this initiative.
• The town of Salina and Onondaga County plan to build a joint highway facility, which is estimated to save $2,435,646.
• OCM BOCES and its member school districts will establish a transportation hub to cater to the needs of special needs students. The estimated annual savings is $75,000.
• The county will offer delinquent tax collection software to municipalities and school districts, saving as much as $298,345 per year.
• Onondaga County will allow the town of Van Buren to use its Pottery Road fueling facility as its primary fueling location, which will save $430,000 amortized over 10 years.
In addition to naming services that could save taxpayers money, the plan also establishes the Greater Syracuse Shared Services Council. The powers of the council include acting as a purchasing consortium, coming up with “practical ways and means for obtaining greater economy and efficiency in the planning and provision of municipal services” and promoting the cultural, economic and general welfare of the county.
While most towns and villages requested the withdrawal of the council proposal from the plan, the following municipalities remained onboard: the towns of Cicero, DeWitt, Fabius, Geddes, Pompey, LaFayette and Tully and the villages of Camillus, Elbridge, Fabius and Tully.
In a statement to Eagle Newspapers, Mahoney called the vote “a step in the right direction toward more efficient and streamlined government.”
“I am grateful to Gov. Cuomo and the state legislature for fostering this conversation on the local level and offering a real incentive with the state match for us to come together and find additional ways to share services and save money,” she said. “This would also not be possible without the partnership from officials in the towns, villages and schools who worked together diligently over the last several months to make this plan a success.”
While Mahoney said she considers the vote a success, the local leaders who voted to approve the plan seemed resigned to their fate. Fayetteville Mayor Mark Olson told the Daily Orange that the process was rushed by the governor and the state legislature and that municipal leaders “had no choice” in the vote.
Although he voted to approve the plan, Cicero Town Supervisor Mark Venesky shared some of his reservations at the Sept. 13 Cicero Town Board meeting.
“I’m not seeing big savings here at all, and as a matter of fact, they can’t even quantify the savings, and I have an issue with that,” Venesky said.
North Syracuse Mayor Gary Butterfield said he thought most of the initiatives listed in the plan make sense, but added, “There were a couple others that were questionable.” North Syracuse opted out of joining a county-wide online database to rent parks and recreation facilities, allowing the county to mow its parks and consolidating code enforcement services.
North Syracuse Trustee Chuck Henry said at the Sept. 14 meeting of the North Syracuse Village Board that he was upset with the way the shared services process has unfolded, saying the proposal was “shoved down our throats.”
Henry also questioned the shared services panel’s communication with the public.
“Are we going to educate the community about this?” he said.
Butterfield noted that very few community members attended the public hearings leading up to last week’s vote. Only five people out of roughly 50 attendees of the Aug. 3 public hearing made comments, Eagle Newspapers reported Aug. 6.
The plan, as well as key dates and other resources, can be found at ongov.net/sharedservicesplan.
