“Town and County to Share Services”Tuesday, February 11, 2014
Big Flats – Chemung County Executive Tom Santulli and Big Flats Town Supervisor Ed Fairbrother held a joint press conference today to announce and sign a shared services agreement that will restructure the towns Public Works Department. The agreement was approved by the Chemung County Legislature at last night’s meeting and by the Big Flats Town Board at their January 22nd meeting. “I am encouraged with this agreement that more can happen in the county to bring us together to help save taxpayers money,” Chemung County Legislator Rodney J. Strange said. Strange voted in favor of the agreement. “I this could be the beginning of many positive shared servic agreements between the county and other municipalities. This a is a good day for the taxpayers.”
Under the agreement the County will provide administrative and personnel supervision to the Town’s Public Works Department with the County’s Commissioner, Andy Avery, acting as the Big Flats Commissioner of Public Works at no cost to the Town. The initial agreement calls for an Evaluation Period of twelve months during which time the Commissioner will look for ways to eliminate duplicative services in Public Works, thereby “streamlining government”, increasing municipal efficiency, reducing costs and improving the effectiveness of government.
“In government we need to always be looking for ways to best utilize taxpayer dollars, save taxpayer dollars, while maintaining the highest quality of service for our residents,” said Fairbrother. “With our former Public Works Commissioner leaving this gave us the perfect opportunity to begin this discussion. We will see cost savings from day one and hope over the course of the first year new opportunities for further collaboration in the form of a permanent merger, consolidation, or other cooperative agreement can be developed.”
“Governor Cuomo has made it very clear we need to work better together for the good of our community and its’ taxpayers,” said Santulli. “We have numerous shared services agreements with various municipalities within the County and are always looking for more opportunities.”
Sharing services is not new to the Town and County. The County received a Local Government Records Management Improvement Fund grant several years ago to assist the Town in the converting paper building permits and maps into electronic images. The County maintains these records on their servers and through the grant the Town was able to purchase equipment so they can continue to add additional record series to the system. The Town and County will continue to look at opportunities for sharing of services in the area of Information Technology.