ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - Republican lawmakers in the state Senate pushed back Tuesday against Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s plan to force counties to look for ways to share services and pool their costs.
Cuomo, a Democrat, has proposed requiring counties to create plans to reduce property taxes by consolidating government programs or sharing equipment. If county officials choose not to implement the cost-cutting plans, they would go to local voters for approval.
Republican Sen. Kathy Marchione of Saratoga County urged Cuomo to amend his plan. She says it ignores the burden of unfunded state mandates and could be too punitive to local governments already working to become more efficient.
She said she’d like the cost-cutting proposal to be voluntary and for the state to promise to increase state funding to local communities that find ways to do more with less.
“However well-intentioned it might have been, the reality is that the governor’s consolidation plan is just the latest example for localities of Albany not listening to their concerns and making their difficult situation even worse,” Marchione said. “We - all of us, Republicans and Democrats - need to listen to, and work with, our partners in local government.”
Cuomo argues that cutting or consolidating duplicative services offered by neighboring governments could reduce crippling property taxes. He said that many local governments - villages, cities, towns and counties - could save money by sharing expensive equipment, pooling their purchases or cooperating to make services more efficient.
Several county executives from around the state have backed the idea.
“Local property taxes are crushing New York families and seniors and that’s why the governor wants to empower them under his plan to cut costs and lower property taxes,” said Cuomo spokesman Rich Azzopardi when asked about Marchione’s proposed changes. “?Taking it out of their hands preserves an untenable status quo and, frankly, misses the point entirely.”
The proposal is currently in Cuomo’s $152 billion state budget proposal. Lawmakers expect to vote on a budget by April 1.
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