Board working on shared services MADISONCOUNTY

WAMPSVILLE, N.Y. » No members of the public were in attendance at the Madison County Shared Services Panel meeting on Monday night.

Monday’s meeting, the third such shared services panel meeting following Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s announcement of the County Wide Shared Services Initiative, included 10 proposals

Members of the shared services panel voted on Monday to give county administrator Mark Scimone approval to include the proposals in the initial draft of his shared services plan.

“All you’re doing today is giving me authority to put it in the approved document. None of this is binding in the end,” Scimone said to the panel. “Once my plan is developed, any municipality can withdraw from the complete plan or individual proposals.”

Of the 10 proposals on the agenda, all but one made the cut. The one proposal cut sought to establish county coordination of purchasing with flexibility to protect local merchants who can provide goods at comparable prices. The proposal was not accepted because the county already includes language in its purchasing agreement allowing municipalities to piggy-back off of county contracts.

The nine other proposals for the initial plan that were unanimously approved include:

•Proposal 1 - Establishing a county-wide health insurance pool

•Proposal 2 - Regional court consolidation

•Proposal 3 - Madison County to provide IT services to towns and villages

•Proposal 4 - Making Madison County CivicPlus website available to towns and villages

•Proposal 5 - Madison County to provide phone service to towns and villages

•Proposal 6 - Establishing a county-based assessor’s office

•Proposal 7 - Madison County to provide shredding and disposal services to towns and villages

•Proposal 9 - Village of Cazenovia to provide water to Route 20 east corridor (approximately 2.5 miles); includes residential and business properties, Children’s House and Medical Center

•Proposal 10 - Construction of shared highway garage between Town of Eaton, Town of Smithfield, and Village of Morrisville

By voting in favor of all the proposals - except for Proposal 8 - the shared services panel is not writing the concepts into law. Instead, the panel voted to give Scimone the permission to include the proposals in the initial draft and pursue the topics in greater detail.

The County- Wide Shared Services Initiative requires county officials to develop localized plans that find property tax savings by coordinating and eliminating duplicative services and propose coordinated services to enhance purchasing power.

The initial plan must be developed and submitted to the county legislative body no later than Aug. 1.

By Sept. 15, there must be public hearings on the plan, in addition to modification of the original plan and a panel vote of the plan submitted.

If the plan is approved in September, it is submitted to the New York State Division of Budget and shared with residents of the county.

If the plan is not approved or voted on, a report on the September proposal is released to the public and the process begins again in 2018.

https:// www. ny. gov/ programs/shared- services-initiative