Purchasing:
About five years ago, or so, we began the process of outsourcing our
purchasing management to Onondaga County, based on a relationship
that a one-term Board member had with somebody in that organization.
It's been a very, very long and difficult transition which has only
really settled in during the last year or so.
Onondaga
County (including the City of Syracuse) has a pretty massive
purchasing system, and had never collaborated with a County before.
We pay them $30,000/year for the service, which is about 1/3 of what
it would cost us to create one position here in Otsego County. Before
all this, each Department pretty much did their own purchasing (there
was a half-time clerk in the Personnel office who did it for a while,
but that didn't work out). The transition took so long because change
is hard, and because Departments didn't like giving up autonomy, and
because Onondaga County took some time to learn how to integrate us
into their pretty well-oiled machine. It didn't help that the
Onondaga County Purchasing Director left his position about a year
into the collaboration, to work for NYS.
However,
all things considered, everyone's been working hard to make this
work, and Andrew Trombley, the new Onondaga County Purchasing
Director, has been very responsive. As you may know, there are a lot
of restrictions on municipal purchasing, to ensure fairness with the
public's money and to restrict corruption, and when done right,
purchasing is just awash in bureaucracy and takes forever. But
there's a great advantage to doing it right, and it's usually worth
the wait. We haven't heard about any real problems in this area for
over a year.
Vehicles:
Otsego County uses a lot of vehicles, and most of them by far are
used by DSS: caseworkers are expected to be able to access any home
in the county if necessary, transport out-of-county for a lot of
reasons, etc. DSS has had a transportation coordinator for a long
time because of this.
General
and routine maintenance was done by the Highway Department until
staff cuts during the economic downturn left Highway with half the
staff they had ten years earlier, and no time to work on County cars.
A
few years ago the Public Works Committee started looking at
outsourcing our vehicle purchases and maintenance. I believe that
there were two (three?) proposals, and we chose Enterprise. They
lease us cars on a schedule, cycling them in and out on a four-year
rotation. The best estimates they and the Treasurer can provide
suggest that we'll save money. We've been doing this for about a year
or so, and so far, so good. We have control over whether we keep the
car (extend the lease) or not, which is a good thing: Enterprise's
schedule doesn't really take into account how the cars are used.
There's a hazmat truck that Emergency Services uses for specific
situations. It's five years old, so Enterprise wanted us to replace
it – but it's only got 16,000 miles on it. In addition, DSS –
which has been making decisions about cars for decades – is
requesting that a few of their cars be kept another year or so, for a
variety of reasons.
Everyone
agrees that we won't know if this whole system is cost-effective
until a whole four-year leasing cycle is over.
AIM
payments: I am not familiar with AIM payments (Aid and Incentives to
Municipalities), mostly because it is State funding to cities, towns
and villages for them to do with as they see fit. However, this year,
there's a new way to pay for them: County sales-tax
payments from the State will be reduced by the amount of the AIM
payment totals within each County. In other words, the State no
longer has to pay AIM – the County does.
The
justification here, such as it is, is that the new Internet sales tax
payments will make up the difference. We'll see; I'm betting not.
This is generally seen by counties as a very bad thing.
Some
other NYS initiatives that will cost the County money – and for
which the state has provided some compensatory funding :
- Early voting: It costs more than I realized to run an election, and when you keep polling places open for over a week (October 26 through November 3 this year) before the regular Election Day, it's going to cost a whole lot more. Early voting in Otsego County will only be available at the Board of Elections office in the Meadows County Office Building, but will probably be expanded in future years.
- Raise the Age: This initiative moves the age of adult responsibility from 16 to 17 (October 1, 2018) and then to 18 (October 1, 2019). So as of next week, individuals charged with a crime who are 18 and younger will be treated as minors, not adults, by the court system. The big cost here is if someone who is 18 or under needs to be incarcerated. This is rare in the world of minors convicted of a crime, but by raising the age, the possibility increases. Of course, Probation and DSS, and others, will now be taking on caseloads of 16, 17 and !8 year olds in a variety of their programs.
- Court of First Appearance (CAFA) and cashless bail – and other justice system reforms – I would check with members of the Public Safety Committee for more details.
And,
finally, Otsego County is, obviously, part of the Susquehanna River
watershed, since we boast one of the sources of the river, Lake
Otsego. Counties in this watershed, in NY, PA and MD, are members of
(I cannot for the life of me remember the name of the organization),
and are responsible for a certain level of water quality reaching the
Chesapeake Bay. The Otsego County Soil and Water District does a lot
of work in this area, including buffer tree plantings and
environmental education in the agricultural sector (fertilizer runoff
and sediment are the biggest problems).
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