The New York State Commission on Local Government Efficiency and Competitiveness today submitted its final report to Governor David A. Paterson. The Commission’s report offers numerous recommendations to increase the cost effectiveness of local governments throughout the state – proposals that could lower taxes and government spending through modernization, shared services, consolidation and mandate relief. Governor Paterson plans to propose legislation that will begin to lay the groundwork for the necessary reforms to ease the onerous tax burden on New Yorkers.

“With the cost of living skyrocketing, and the need for governments everywhere to deal with fiscal realities, we need to help our working families by doing everything we can to lower the cost of government,” said Governor Paterson. “We cannot achieve real, sustainable property tax relief without addressing local government efficiency, and this Commission has produced a series of recommendations, which I will now work diligently with the Legislature to implement.”

The Commission was established in April 2007 to examine ways to streamline local government, reduce costs, improve effectiveness, maximize participation in local elections, and facilitate shared services, consolidation and regional governance.

The Commission’s final report recommends additional ways to improve the efficiency of local government. Among the Commission’s major recommendations are:
— Enabling and encouraging sharing and consolidation of local government services, and requiring centralization of several local government functions, including assessing, tax collection, emergency dispatch, civil service commissions and vital records;
— Restructuring state oversight of county jails, with the goal of moving towards a single state-run jail system, and
— Encouraging consolidation of school districts or their back-office functions, justice courts and local Industrial Development Authorities (IDAs).

The Program Bill offers the potential for up to $50 million in local savings. In addition, the Wicks law offers additional savings for local governments, including reducing NYC’s long term capital construction costs by more than $200 million in its upcoming City Fiscal Year (CFY) 2009 Capital Plan.

This year’s Enacted Budget included two of the Commission’s early recommendations: strengthened Local Government Efficiency Grants and Wicks Law Reform. The Office of Real Property Services is implementing a third Commission recommendation – improving local assessment and tax collection – by working with 43 counties to study collaborative approaches to local assessing and 33 counties to facilitate collaborative local tax collection.

Several other early Commission recommendations are being advanced today as a Governor’s Program Bill that includes measures to:

— Reign in special district spending by targeting the abuse of taxpayer dollars and eliminating compensation and perks for special district commissioners;
— Make it easier for municipal governments to form a cooperative health benefit plans for their employees, which will reduce overall health insurance costs;
— Facilitate highway shared services agreements among municipalities, and between municipalities and State agencies;
— Allow multiple counties to share services of a Director of Weights and Measures;
— Allow multiple counties to employ a single public health director that would report to a single board of health;
— Transfer management responsibilities for special sanitation districts to town boards; and
— Create a simplified process by which citizens can submit petitions for municipal consolidations and dissolutions.