County Administrator timeline, Which Is A Very Big Deal

At the IGA 'second meeting' yesterday, a timeline for moving on the County Manager* position was laid out.

There was general agreement that the Board as now constituted is in favor of moving forward (but not necessarily unanimously).  So here's what we hope will happen, and when -

- The IGA Committee will send all the job descriptions and local laws it has collected to Ellen Coccoma, County Attorney, so she can begin drafting our local law (first) and our job description (later).

- Ellen will come to the first IGA meeting in September (Sept. 10, 9AM) to talk about details of the local laws, ask the Committee questions, etc.

- Ellen will present a draft to the IGA at their second meeting in September (Sept. 24, 9AM).

- The IGA Committee will formally present their proposal for a CM/CA at the full Board meeting on October 2.  Debate will be encouraged.

- It takes a while to prepare a local law for passage, including announcing it at one (two?) Board meetings and then having a public hearing (usually right before a Board meeting).  Most of our required public hearings attract no speakers from the public, mostly because they're addressing pretty abstruse issues.  But this one might attract opponents.

- Vote on the local law during the December Board meeting (Dec 4). 

We talked about a six-month search process (beginning, obviously, after the local law is approved).  The job description would be completed by the time this process begins.  We want to be thorough, careful and patient.  The Committee voted to request $75,000 in the 2020 budget for salary, fringe and staffing.  There has only been general discussion about staffing, focusing on an administrative assistant, full or part time.  This may be a new position, or one that uses existing staff in the Board Clerk's or Treasurer's office.

The fact that we've established a timeline and are talking specifics is a very big deal.  This is something the Board has been talking about and debating for around 25 years. 

* Actually, I think there was consensus on using the term County Administrator, as it more accurately describes what we want - not a Manager in authority over Department Heads, but someone who will provide administrative assistance and leadership. 

Life on the Board VII - Homelessness

Our topic for today is homelessness.  This is a little more extensive and comprehensive, since I"ve been in the middle of all this for all eight of my years on the Board.

In NYS, Counties have some substantial responsibility for providing services to the homeless population. In Otsego County, this costs taxpayers about $1M/year., which is a lot of money. Until recently, that money went to local hotels, mostly in Oneonta, at the rate of $50/night/person.

It's still $50/night/person to house a homeless individual in a hotel, but we have, over a somewhat long period of time (4-5 years) been developing some alternatives.

CROSSROADS: One of our solutions kind of fell in our lap in about the best possible way. Out on State Rte. 7, between Oneonta and Otego, is an old motel called The Crossroads (that's what it's called now; I don't know what it was called when it was still a motel). A number of years ago, a couple bought the property and turned it into a half-way house for people recovering from addiction – mostly, people coming out of rehab and trying to re-integrate into that dangerous world that hadn't worked out so well the last time.

Brad and Noel took this on as a faith-driven mission, at least in part. They provided support, encouragement, personal investment, and drove their clients to job interviews, services appointments, and anything else that might give them a leg up. There were a variety of reimbursement sources, but a great deal of their revenue came from rent charged to, and paid by, the clients themselves.

Maybe around three years ago, their lives took a turn that required them to look for a more reliable financial base, and they, and Otsego County DSS, devised a creative solution: DSS would pay for every one of Crossroads fourteen (I think) rooms every night of the year, and would be charged $35/night/person, a $15/night/person savings over what we were already doing.*

It was DSS's job to make sure that every one of the rooms was occupied every night – we paid even if the room was empty. Empty rooms have not, since then, been a problem.

Doing the math, which is not my forte, seems to suggest that if the system worked perfectly (all rooms full every night) the savings would amount to $76,660 in a year. Reports I have seen indicate that the system is working to a capacity in the mid-90s, percentage-wise, and that money is being saved. Considering that Crossroads also provides transport and whatever casework they can, it's an even better deal than that.

Brad and Nicole recently applied for a DSRIP ** grant of around $82,000 to support more casework services, and some other services. They got the grant, so the quality of this collaboration will improve even more.

TINY HOMES - There are Counties which own properties designed to house homeless individuals. We're not jumping into this realm with both feet yet ***– just the NIMBY challenges alone are daunting – but we are in the midst of providing homeless individuals with a place to stay that is owned by the County. It's called the Tiny Homes project.

If you're not familiar with the Tiny Homes movement, it's a fascinating idea that's worth a Google. Basically, they're what they say they are: houses that are around 400 square feet and smaller. The Otsego County Planning Department collaborated on a $350,000 grant to build a few Tiny Homes on the empty land behind the Meadows County Office Building. The building trades program at Delhi Ag and Tech (I believe it was the Residential Tech program, but not sure) teamed up with us to build the homes, for the cost of the materials alone, and we wrote other grants for other parts of the project, like a small community center (washer/dryer, social hall, interview room) and the geothermal heating/cooling systems.

Right now, the pads have been prepared and two units are in place. The social hall is under construction, and the geothermal folks will be on site soon (the buildings will be powered by solar panels). Security is being developed, hopefully as part of an existing contract. There is already regular public transit service to the Meadows. And the casework can be coordinated right from the Meadows itself, since DSS has a variety of services based there.

Again, my wobbly-at-best math suggests that each unit, if occupied each night all year, will save us $18,250. And remember – we haven't paid a dime for this system as of this point, and we're not likely to pay much, if anything, for heating and cooling. There are a few very persistent cases of homelessness – individuals who, for a variety of reasons, are homeless for very long periods of time – and right now the plan is to populate the Tiny Homes with these folks.

We have a long way to go here, even with Crossroads and Tiny Homes. At best, given, say, five Tiny Homes, we will solve less than half of our $1M fiscal problem. However, twenty homeless individuals each night will be getting a much more significant chance to move on – to get a sustainable foothold in the housing market – than was true before.

Which brings us to the inevitable next step: providing adequate affordable housing in Otsego County, so homelessness will be, at worst, only temporary. “Affordable housing in Otsego County” is a massive topic, and although it is probably the number-one long-term issue for the County Board to address, I'm not going to try to summarize it this time. There are a couple of serious proposals for large (for this area) affordable housing projects that are currently being discussed – the Riverside Apartments and the “Lofts on Dietz Street” project – each with it's own opportunities and challenges. But anything that increases the stock of affordable housing in Otsego County is going to have a positive effect on all levels of our population.

PS: A twist on the homelessness issue that was added about a year and a half ago, was the Governor's initiative called “Code Blue.” This changes the rules regarding accepting homeless individuals into shelters when the weather gets dangerously cold. Details here. “Warming Stations” have, and continue to be, developed, mostly in Oneonta.

PPS:  PPS:  Opportunities for Otsego operates a homeless shelter in Oneonta, and they charge us $75/night/person.  They are by far the best options for families - really the only good option.  More here.

* - I tend to say “we” because I'm the Chair of the Human Services Committee, which oversees DSS. I take no credit for any of the great creative stuff they do.

** - DSRIP is a State funding stream dedicated to support the Medicaid redesign (which is another whole big thing). For further details, Google: NYS Medicaid takeover DSRIP.

*** - There are some very, very preliminary investigations at the moment into some funding which may expand our ability to do this.

Life on the Board - VI - County Manager

Let's talk about a County Manager.

I've hesitated writing about the top issue we're moving on at the moment because it's such a long, drawn-out, complex, controversial issue.

And then I thought again, and decided, “No it's not. It's pretty simple.”

Let's start with this: What $115M/yr corporation that you know of is functioning without some sort of unitary executive leadership? In business, they're called CEOs. In Counties, they're called Managers, or Administrators, or Executives.

The arguments for some sort of executive county governance are many. First, as above, they always do it in business, because you need a central authority for communications, planning, decision-making, etc. Second, what might be called the County's “executive functioning” is currently being done by fourteen part-time laymen who serve two-year terms. What could possibly go wrong? Third, believe it or not, up until two years ago, when we instituted Department Head meetings, there did not exist – I'll repeat: did not exist – any formal structure for Departments to communicate with each other. Fourth, a central executive will be able to reduce redundancy in County functioning and purchasing. Fifth, a central executive will be able to take on the roles of Budget Office (now residing in the Treasurer's office), purchasing liaison, fleet manager, etc. And take on a large part of the Department Head evaluation role. And approve smaller expenditures and transfers, and authorize the filling of vacant funded positions, execute contracts, and negotiate with the unions. And so on and so on.

Currently, Committees spend an enormous amount of their time doing a lot of this stuff that the executive could take care of. That would free up time for the Committees to... oh, I don't know... maybe do some planning... policy... and so forth: the stuff we are elected to do and have, for the most part, not done in the past.

A note on terminology: I have been using the word “executive” with a lower-case 'e', meaning “central management.” One thing Otsego County won't have is a County Executive, with an upper-case 'E'. That decision has been made. A County Executive is someone who is elected in a county-wide election, serves at the pleasure of the voters, and has a authority, to a great extent, independent of the Board. County Executives are, generally (but not entirely) found in larger counties in NYS.

(Fun fact:  Otsego County is tied with Columbia County as the largest County in NYS without any kind of central adminstrator.)

County Managers and County Administrators are employees of the County who are hired by the Board and serve at the pleasure of the Board. There's not a lot of important difference between a CM and CA. What level of authority the CM or CA has throughout the various departments, and what their functions would be, is determined by the Board when we establish the job description.

The County Manager issue has been handled in the Intergovernmental Affairs Committee (IGA), and Chair Meg Kennedy (who's been doing a really good job in this area) has held a second IGA meeting each month to discuss county governance. I go to as many of these second IGA meetings as I can, and have strongly encouraged all Board members to participate as well. The next “second meeting” is on Tuesday, August 27, in the Committee Room on the second floor of the Count Office Building. It's a public meeting.

I was being a little offhand when I said this wasn't really a complex issue. But the bones of it are pretty straightforward. If I can master the technology, I'll put a “starting point” draft County Manager job description in the next post. Please let me know what further directions you'd like to take this particular conversation.

Thanks

Just wanted to give a shout out to 'anonymous' who wrote to me to tell me he/she reads this blog and is interested in the current series (Life on the Board).

Also - anonymous: you noted that you are a "future constituent."  If this means you are moving into District 11 in the near future, then I look forward to representing you.  But if it means that you're too young to vote and therefore feel you aren't a constituent - I already represent you. 

I represent everyone who lives or works in the City's 1st and 2nd Wards, no matter their age, their party registration, their voting status, or even their citizenship.  Everybody, with no one left out.

I love this job!

Life on the Board V - Raises

Let's talk about raises.

Facts first: there are, essentially, two types of County employees. There are union employees, members of one of the three units operating in the County (Correction Officers, Sheriff's Deputies, and CSEA (everyone else). All the rest of the County employees (including Reps and other Electeds) are Management and Confidential, universally known as M&C.

Union employee's salaries are laid out in the contract, which includes specific percentage raises that will be applied in each year of the contract. So Union folks always know what their salary will be, practically to the penny, for the next few years that the contract covers.

Here's how M&C salaries are determined: At the January Board meeting, there is a resolution which lists each position and the salary attached to that position for the coming year. That's it.

How is that list assembled? Usually at the Budget Committee, at some point. And if you think that this is a system that's ripe for abuse, you'd be right.

The assumption has always been that the M&C salaries will start the budget process for the next year unchanged from the previous year, and if there's any money available at the end, they might get a raise. There's never any money left at the end. Before 2019, M&C employees went 11 years with only one raise (and not all of them got it).

This is an issue that I have been pursuing for about four or five years, and I think we're approaching the finish line. Just one more major issue to address: an ongoing salary scale that is automatically applied each year.

A few years ago, we got $50,000 added to the budget for a comprehensive salary study, comparing our salaries to salaries in comparable counties in NYS. Due to some really frustrating complications and, frankly, the fact that no competent organizations responded to our Request for Proposals, it was a year later when we just decided to do the study ourselves. I had already compared upstate counties on a large number of factors, and we chose 18 of them to study. Penney Gentile and her Personnel staff sent out detailed salary surveys to those counties, and followed up, and followed up, and followed up. They were great, and we got what I think is some really reliable data.

What we found was that Otsego County was dead last, salarywise, for most M&C positions studied. Overall, the picture was atrocious. We had kind of known this; in casual conversation, Department Heads – who spend a lot of time collaborating with their peers across the state – let us know that our county was a well-known outlier in terms of salary.

To make a long and complicated story short, the Budget Committee did an astounding thing last fall – they proposed pay raises for all M&C employees that would put their salaries right at the average paid across the comparable counties. This was way better than I expected, and right now, our M&C employees are just a bit below average (the study was done in 2018, with salary data up through 2017, so our folks are actually getting the 2017 average; everyone in the other counties have gotten two raises since then).

So the final hurdle: how do we set up a scale that provides reasonable raises to M&C every year? The PRGS Committee debated this for a year – 2018.

The Performance Review and Goal Setting Committee (PRGS), of which I've been Chair for a few years, and a member of for all my 8 years, works in two year cycles. In the second year of the Reps term (after new Reps have had a year to learn the ropes and get to know everyone involved) we facilitate Performance Evaluations for all Department Heads. That's what we're doing right now. During the first year of a term (for instance, 2018 and 2020), we discuss issues related to staffing, evaluation, compensation, and anything else that seems relevant. For a number of cycles we created and refined the Department Head evaluation forms and the system for evaluation, which was much more complex (and long) than one might think. In 2018 we attacked the M&C salary issue, worked with Penney to do the salary study, and came to some general conclusions regarding M&C salary scale and merit pay issues.

So we're ready to ask the Budget Committee to consider all this – I've got to write it up and send it out soon. Here's the proposal – not a hill to die on, but the beginning of a conversation:

Department Heads

• 1.5% raise annually
• Another 1.5%, in increments of 0.5%, depending on outcome of latest Performance Evaluations

Non- Department Heads

• Same increment as CSEA contract

An important reason why this is essential to do is that, in the last few years, there have been union employees whose salary has risen above that of their supervisor. This is a demoralizing situation, for sure, for the M&C supervisor, but in addition, when the supervisor leaves, what motivation does the union employee have to apply for the supervisor's position? In addition, we found that we were hiring and training employees only to see them take a job in a different (often nearby) county for significantly more money.

So that's it. I've simplified some and left a lot out, but this should be enough to understand why you might hear that the County is talking about raises for County employees.

Life on the Board - IV

I thought it might be important to talk about some of the issues that are front and center at this time. There are dozens and dozens of things that are in progress at any given time. There are over 25 Departments, depending on how you want to define the term, and every department is constantly acting, responding, planning, collaborating, etc.

Most of this is taken care of at the Department level, and perhaps discussed at Parent Committee. But there are some big things that we, the Board, really need to be working on at this point, things that I just listed in a previous communication.

HIGHWAY GARAGE – The main highway garage has not been used for a couple of years because it is so structurally unsound that it must be torn down (which means that vehicles have been outside, year-round, for a long time). Funds for this demolition project – in the six figure range – were budgeted for last year, but it wasn't done, and they're in the budget this year. No word on any preliminary plans for starting the project.

Part of the problem is long-term planning: should we stay on Linden Avenue in Cooperstown? There are a lot of problems with keeping the site, including the fact that it's cramped and is adjacent to the Cooperstown CS campus. The land is probably worth a lot. Moving, on the other hand, is a monumental undertaking, and there's always the possibility of a brownfield issue. A year ago there was some talk of buying some land adjacent to OAOC in Milford, and creating a common transportation facility for BOCES, Milford CS, and the County (and any other entity that was interested). This may still be included in our shared services grant proposal.

242 MAIN ST., ONEONTA - The County maintains an office building in downtown Oneonta (right next to Autumn Cafe) which is used primarily by the Mental Health Clinic (which also includes addiction services). Its probably been three or more years since there were conversations about selling the building and moving to a more efficient space. The chief motivator for this initiative was (and still is) the need for security in the building. Given the clientele, there are occasional incidents which may become dangerous without some kind of security services.

Security is problematic in this building because there are three entrances, and estimates ranged up to $200,000 a year for access security focused on all three. In the frustrating way that large organizations operate, we have talked and worried and problem-solved for these three years, and still there is no security at all in the building.

Complicating the issue is the fact that the City showed a good deal of interest in buying the building and including it in the DRI. Also, there are other County Departments who would like an Oneonta presence and are looking at space in the building (for instance, DSS, Probation, Public Defender,etc.).

After some pressure from Oneonta Reps to make a decision, the Public Works Committee recommended that we keep the building and provide appropriate security. At the present, we are still talking about what kind of security would be best (contract with a private company? Hire retired DA investigators? Etc.).

PUBLIC SAFETY BUILDING - The “Old Jail” is next to the Cooperstown County Office Building and the Courthouse. The current Public Safety Building was built (I think) around 25 years ago, and needs some major renovations, due partly to age, and partly to new technology and requirements. After a couple of years of talking, the money for the renovations is in the budget this year. It's a $1.5M project; we've borrowed $1M, and budgeted $0.5M in the 2019 budget. It should be done by the end of this year.

This is only a start on renovations that the Sheriff has asked for. New “pod” architecture (requiring rebuilding much of the jail) would reduce the number of Correction Officers needed. However, recent changes in State law (most prominently, cashless bail) may reduce the number of inmates coming through our facility. On the other hand, we could “board out” extra beds, providing them for other counties' overflow, for a fee.

EMERGENCY SERVICES TRAINING CENTER - I know very little about this project – just that it needs to be replaced. The current facility is off Hemlock Road in Oneonta, next to Medicoaches. There are lots of people and groups county-wide who are involved in planning for this, and it is taking a long time to come to the set of conclusions that would lead to the next step.

COUNTY MANAGER - As you know, this has been going on for ten years or more. It really deserves an essay of its own, so I'll put that on the list. We may have a decision by the end of this year.

Again, just scratching the surface on all of these.

By the way, feel free to contact any of the Board Reps for more details on subjects that are handled in their Committee. Committee assignments can be found here.

Life on the Board III - Taxes

Time for taxes (and just scratching the surface) -

From our constituents, we hear more about taxes than almost anything. Sometimes we'll get notes and calls about high-visibility issues, but these come and go. Taxes are forever.

It's my personal opinion that complaining about taxes is one of those tropes that people use as social cartilage – a common stereotype, based on pretty much nothing, that you talk about when you can't thing of anything else, like how bad institutional food is, or how politicians are all crooks, how busy you are, or how we really needed that rain.

So the first thing to do when confronted by someone unhappy about how high taxes are is to challenge them to educate themselves. Ask them to go back to their tax bills – municipal and school – add the totals, and then divide the County tax by the total. That'll show the percentage of their tax burden that is County tax. I did that for my bill, here in center city Oneonta, and the County share came to 11%. I assume it's a pretty typical bill. If the county raised property taxes 2% for 2020, it would cost me about $10 more.

Another strategy with someone unhappy about taxes is to ask where they think Otsego County falls, in regard to tax rate, compared with all the other counties in NYS. I've included that comparison in the attachment to this e-mail

The truth is, Otsego County has the lowest tax rate among all Counties in New York State.

There are actually two ways to figure tax rates, as shown on the attached spreadsheet. Otsego County is the lowest in the state on one measure, and third lowest on the other.

One of the reasons that this is so is that Otsego County is unusual in a particular way: whereas most Counties (I think I'm right on this) collect more property taxes than sales taxes (the two major revenue sources for Counties), Otsego County, with our robust tourist economy, collects three time more in sales tax than property tax. This has a very significant impact on our fiscal functioning. All County Board members are secretly rooting for higher gasoline prices, so balancing the budget will be easier (just to be clear in this litigious society, this is a joke)..

Another piece of the puzzle: the NYS 2% tax cap. NYS provides incentives for Counties to keep their annual property tax increase below 2%, and there are penalties for exceeding it. Actually, up until this year, it's been a slightly different figure (but all under 2%) for each County (based on inflation and other things – but this is getting too deep into the weeds). This year, for the first time in years, Otsego County can go all the way to a 2% increase for 2020.

So – let's see what a 2% increase in the tax levy gives us for the 2020 budget. 2018's tax levy (don't have 2019's in front of me) was $11,407,756. Two percent of that is $228,155. That seems like a lot of money, but that won't even pay for the contractual raises for our Union employees. So although the tax hike each year gets a lot of play in the media, it's a very small part of constructing the Budget.

Going back to our unusual sales/property tax ratio, when property taxes are (relatively) low, then 2% of a low number is a low number.  Counties with a higher tax rate get a lot more benefit from a 2% rate hike.  Also - and this is grist for another mill - our lower taxes are partially a result of some ruthless cost-cutting during the recession that cut some departments in half (Health, Highway).  We are very slowly (the only way we can do it) increasing staffing in some areas, but there are departments that just aren't getting their work done because of low staff levels.

And add to that: we probably won't do the full 2% tax increase for 2020, because there is a political price to pay for a headline that reads “County Board Applies Maximum Tax Hike Possible.” It's much better to see “County Board Restricts Tax Hike to Below Maximum” or, even better, as we did I think two years ago, “No Tax Increase for Otsego County Property Owners.”(Remember, at 2% we're talking about ten bucks for the average property owner. But headlines can make policy.).

So that's all on taxes right now. The attachment shows the County's revenue and expense pie charts in the first two slides, and the fifth slide is the state-wide comparison of County tax rates. The rest are interesting data-sets, which you may find useful or not.

Cheers til next time -

PS: The Budget is an extremely complicated document, except for the line items for each Department, and I am avoiding using numbers for the most part and being general rather than specific because it's never that simple and I have never understood all of the accounting-level ins and outs. I've attached a copy of the 2018 budget. Good luck!

PPS:  I couldn't figure out how to include the documents mentioned in this blog post.  Please let me know if you'd like copies and I'll get them to you right away.

Life on the Board II - Planning and Timliness

From the budget, I'll move on to a potpourri of issues, plans, challenges, obstacles, etc., that are facing the Board presently. They were all discussed, in some form, at the Budget Committee meeting on Monday July 29.I'll be sending them in installments.

First, a very high-altitude overview of two fundamental issues that may or may not come as a surprise.

First: The County Board really, really stinks at planning ahead, long-term. I think we have a long history of dealing only with what's right in front of our noses.

In my opinion, and in the opinion of most of the Board members I have spoken with about this, we have a truly excellent group of Department Heads, and one of the things almost all of them do very well is long-term planning. So each individual department is looking down the road and making plans for what's ahead for them. However, when it comes to the bigger projects, and taking the Strategic Plan and using it to plot the overall direction of the County and its various components – this seems always to fall down the list of priorities and we often go month after month without making headway on most of them.

For instance, here is a representative sample of some of the projects we must address (and more on each of these later):

• Demolish Highway garage and build a new one – move the whole Dept to a new location?
• Perform $1.5M repairs and renovations on 25-year-old jail
• Decide on how to upgrade/sell/use as is – 242 Main St., the County building on Oneonta's Main Street
• Replace Emergency Services training facility

We've been talking about, and putting off, these projects for years (the Jail renovations are occurring now, and should be finished by the end of the year. But there are still decisions to make here).

All of these (and other examples) cost a lot of money, and that's probably another reason we tend to avoid making progress – at some point in the process, real money will need to be spent.

This all needs to change, and I, for one, am hoping that adding a County Manager/Admin to the mix will help a lot.

Which brings us to: Second: Everything in government takes a whole lot longer than anyone expects. And the County Manager issue is a good example – we've been talking about this for at least ten years, and we may be on our way to a decision and detailed plan by the end of the year. But it has taken forever.

The reason is probably the combination of our reticence regarding long-term planning, and our actual system of governance. We've discussed the planning issue. Our system of governance really requires a thoughtful, complex path to completion, a path that takes time. There are a couple of reasons for this.

First, we have a number of layers of decision-making. On a Department level, decisions are made every day, but as plans, and the decisions needed to implement them, become more substantial and/or complex, they need to come to one or more Committees, and the Committees usually take a good deal of time to consider, come up with and deal with objections and alternatives, put it off for a while to think about it or to consult with others, etc. 

When this process is finally complete, and the Committee has agreed on an action, the action usually needs to come to the Administration Committee, which must approve spending, policy and plans that are above a certain level of cost, complexity, etc. Then, if and when the Admin Committee agrees (which, for bigger projects could also take many meetings, for the same reasons the Parent Committee took so long), the proposal needs to be drafted as a Board Resolution and voted on by the full Board. Since each of these entities (Parent Committee, Admin, Full Board) meet only once a month, even a relatively simple proposal could take months to work its way through.

There are pros and cons to taking a long time. We certainly give everyone a chance to weigh in, much time is spent in debate. But many things take too long. Again, we hope the insertion of a County Manager will help to speed this up without losing the thoughtful approach.

The second reason things take so long – and this is more opinion than system analysis – is that nobody likes change or spending a lot of money, and most of what we need to do requires both. It used to be that the Board included many members who were unwilling to spend any money at all, and spent a lot of time trying to slash the budget (not so much any more). So it's so much easier to kick the can down the road in the hopes that it will go away, and in many cases, this is what happened.

The Board needs to be wise stewards of the taxpayers' money, and we can never forget that. But stuff costs money. It's so often the case that expensive plans and proposals that are hotly debated will eventually save us money (Enterprise fleet management, preventive maintenance) or are just the right thing to do (M&C raises). You will get used to hearing the phrase “unfunded mandate,” which means that NYS has required Counties to do something expensive without providing any, or enough, funding to help pay for it. And so forth.

As we move forward, it is our hope that we can become an institution that plans well and pursues those plans in a timely manner.

Next - taxes!  Aren't you excited?

Life on the Board I - The Budget

First of all, thanks for running. Public service is difficult and largely thankless, but it is what America runs on. You continue an unbroken legacy that goes all the way back to the Founding Fathers, and before. Win or lose, you're willing to make a substantial contribution to your community – so thanks.

It's a good idea to start with the budget because this is the beginning of budget season. I wouldn't say that budget development consumes us, but it's never far from any conversation we have from now through December.

The first Budget Committee meeting was Monday morning, and we talked just in general terms about this challenges. The Budget Committee is the Administration Committee plus Andrew Marietta, but it's a public meeting and other Reps, and sometimes even candidates, attend pretty regularly. It's a really good place to get a long-term overview of County functioning. The next Budget Committee meeting is on Thursday, August 29 at 10:00 in the second floor committee room of the County Office Building.

The first thing that happens in the budget process is that the Treasurer “opens the budget tool.” The budget tool is software accessible by Department Heads, and is essentially the budget structure without any numbers in it. This has already happened; the budget tool is now “open,” and has been for a few weeks.

Ideally, Department Heads spend July filling in the budget tool. At the same time, they are presenting their budget for the next year to their parent committees. The Treasurer usually attends these Committee meetings to act as a resource. After whatever negotiation is necessary, the Department's final (up til that point) budget is entered into the budget tool.

Around the end of August, the budget tool is “closed,”, meaning that Department Heads cannot make any more changes. From then on, the Budget Committee meets pretty regularly and makes the changes necessary until, hopefully, around the middle of November, we have a balanced budget.

By the way - in many/most Counties, the Treasurer and the Budget Officer are two different people.  In Otsego County, the Treasurer is both.  If/when our County Manager comes on board, (s)he will almost certainly take on the role of Budget Officer. 

When the budget tool is closed, the Treasurer figures out the “gap” - the difference between revenue and expenses, given the budget lines as they stand at that time. The rest of the autumn is spent reducing that gap to zero. The Budget Committee can do it any way they want to, and often we call in Department Heads to talk about their requests, etc. The Treasurer is always there as a resource.

The budget gap is usually huge and scary – it has been as much as nine or ten million dollars – but there are always things to do – some hard, others easier – to bring it down to zero. By the way, our recent budgets have been around $110 million.

By state law, the Budget must be done by November 15. We usually have a public budget hearing at the Courthouse on the first Monday night of December, and no one ever comes. We can amend the budget by resolution until the budget is approved by the Board. We usually have a second full Board meeting in December, and that's when we approve the budget.

That's a quick overview of the way it works on paper. Watching the sausage being made in Budget Committee should add some important dimensions.

I'll be sending more summaries and overview of structure and function (and some opinions!) on an irregular basis.  Please let me know if there's anything you particularly want to know more about, and if/when you would like to meet to talk in more depth, etc.

(That last goes for you too, my hypothetical reader!)

Does This Thing Still Work?

Testing, testing...   one, two, one, two...

I'm back, for a short time.  I've been away for quite a while, almost entirely because I've had no evidence than anyone reads this blog.  For a while, it helped me organize my thoughts and keep track of the really wide variety of issues and directions that the Board is involved in.

But eventually, perhaps inevitably, I drifted away from preparing regular posts.  However, I'm currently involved in the process of supporting new candidates for Board seats - providing some background information and data, so they can discuss issues with constituents, and participate in debates, with more information at their command.

So I'm going to post my notes to the candidates here, for easier reference and, again, to organize and archive my thoughts on this interesting journey.

As you, my hypothetical reader, probably know, I will retire at the end of this term, December 31, 2019.  More on that, perhaps, later.  For now, I am looking forward to the energy, intelligence and commitment of those who will come after.