The Chemung County Legislature hired the Center for Government Research to conduct a study that will find out the impact the 2014 sales tax distribution change had on the county’s municipalities. The vote took place at the June 5, 2017 meeting
The study will look at four major components and report its findings back to the legislature in a few months.
Chemung county Legislator Rodney J. Strange believes this study is very important and needs to be done.
“I urge all the municipalities in the 15th district to fully cooperate and give meaningful feedback to those conducting the study,”
The components will include:
Component 1: CGR will prepare a summary of the pre / post adjustment approach to
sharing sales tax in Chemung County. This will include both a description of the policy
change and a presentation of the total sales tax revenues generated countywide. We
recommend this presentation cover a 10-year period (e.g. 2007 to 2016) in order to
demonstrate the trends and overall volatility of sales taxes in recent years.
Component 2: CGR will collect and analyze data on each government’s fund balance,
expenditures, tax levy, tax rate and employee count starting with the last preadjustment
year (2013), through the most recently-available year (2015 or 2016). The
source of data will be the Office of the State Comptroller. CGR will document how
each metric has changed since implementation of the new sales tax policy. In cases
where a metric is found to have increased or decreased at an anomalous rate (i.e
beyond what the impact of the sales tax adjustment itself would have suggested), CGR
will evaluate that change in greater detail.
Component 3: CGR will seek to conduct an interview with each government – the
County, City, 11 towns and 5 villages – in order to document what each has done in
response to the sales tax adjustment. Particular emphasis will be on identifying
examples where governments have changed their mode of service delivery,
implemented efficiency improvements, and / or pursued outsourced, shared or
consolidated approaches since 2014.
Component 4: CGR will synthesize the elements collected in Components 1, 2 and 3
in order to identify a set of “best practices” that all governments in the County can
benefit from regarding steps that have been taken to improve efficiency. Where CGR
identifies examples of changes that could benefit other governments in the County,
we will note them. As part of this concluding component, CGR will offer perspective
on high-level opportunities that could be available to the County and its governments
going forward. Although each such opportunity would likely require more detailed
analysis prior to developing an action plan, CGR will provide a “frame of reference”
regarding savings potential.