Cuomo’s Consolidation Bill — Watch Lohud Live Friday
Want to lower your tax bill and eliminate village government? How about merging your local police department?
Learn more about the pros and cons of Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s proposal that would give taxpayers more power in getting rid of local government.
Tune in at 11 a.m. Friday for a discussion on government consolidation when politcal reporter Gerald McKinstry talks with Larchmont Mayor Liz Feld, Rye Town Supervisor Joseph Carvin and County Legislator Ken Jenkins of Yonkers. Watch it at www.lohud.com.
Read what our panelists have said so far here and here.
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Police Shared Services for Ossining
Joseph Burton is chief of the Village of Ossining’s police force. The village contains a total of 59 police officers. I’m sure there are also some civilian administrative people as well.
Mark Busche is chief of the Town of Ossining police force where we have 19 police officers. I’m sure there are also some civilian administrative people as well.
PROBLEM:
We have 2 separate police forces in Ossining. It looks like we have close to 80 police officers in the village and town of Ossining, including a number of administrative employees.
SOLUTION:
1) Combine police forces into 1 police force simply known as the Ossining Police Department or OPD
2) To save money, we can eliminate some officers and send them to other towns or the Westchester County Police or New York State Police. There are plenty of police jobs in NY.
3) The village police will now be able to patrol the town and vice versa.
4) This shared service idea will also allow the new merged department to act more closely as a team, patrol overlapping communities, and more easily share information.
5) Obvious redundancy in the police forces will have to be eliminated. All unnecessary jobs can be eliminated.
6) We can offer early retirement to any officers who have 20 or more years of service in either police force.
7) None of these suggestions is to compromise the safety and security of Ossining. It is merely a way to save taxpayers money, consolidate 2 police forces into 1 and use the volume purchasing power of the new combined police force to save money on goods and services.
This is once again a politician trying to entice people with a “something for nothing” policy. Consolidating Services is a great idea IF EVERYONE PAYS THE SAME PRICE FOR THE SERVICE. We already have a glaring example of what can go wrong with consolidated services: the MTA. The MTA is supposed to consolidate transportations service and provide efficiencies in service and cost savings (i.e exactly what in now being touted by Mr. Cuomo and others). What happened? We got one of the worst bureaucracies know to man that has become a black hole for taxpayer money. The services are heavily skewed to NYC while the cost burden is place on the poorly served suburbs. Bad enough this happened to our Buses and Trains, do we want to see history repeat itself with our Police, Fire and Schools. Maybe fixed the current example of “Consolidated Service” first Mr.Cuomo before starting a new project/mess.
Before consolidating services, actions such as standardized assessments of property would have to be undertaken in the communities partaking in the consolidation. This was tried in Rockland and failed miserably when special interests groups (who currently consume more in services than they pay for) blocked standardized assessments when they realized they would have to start kicking in and their property taxes would go up/
Sadly “Consolidating Services” is little more than a social and redistribution of wealth program to give services that some taxpayers are paying for to communities where special interest groups outnumber those willing to pay for services.
It seems funny to here anyone from Westchester County talk about consolidation. When Enhanced 911 came into the county we made 53 or so answering points instead of the 5 or 6 that logically would have sufficed. It cost the taxpayers millions of dollars more then necessary and we will continue to pay a higher cost then most other states or counties in the future.
Consolidation is plausible if it dosen’t reduce services or cost more then existing services.
When Cuomo targeted fire districts he made a grave error. The property tax burden for most fire districts is respectfully lower then most cities, villages and towns. The local governments tend to add costs to their systems that do not necessarily reflect good management. In some cases it could make improvements, but we don’t need the state to cost us more money for the same service.
The school taxes are the greatest percentage of our taxess. Why don’t you address their issues where a small change will give a greater reward for the effort.