While some counties are dragging their feet with the Shared Services Initiative put forward by Governor Andrew Cuomo a couple years ago – Steuben County isn’t taking that approach.
On Monday, the Steuben County Legislature presented its shared services plan to the public.
The new plan has a three year term, and will continue sharing a variety of services between county and local municipalities.
Steuben County Manager, Jack Wheeler says the big takeaways from this plan are sharing equipment, personnel, and code enforcement officers, as well as working to achieve rural broadband.
“We know where efficiencies can be had,” Wheeler told WENY-TV. “We don’t want towns or villages to go out and buy equipment that they don’t need. We don’t want to buy equipment that we don’t need or add more staff than we don’t need. So if we can partner together on projects, we collectively save.”
At the end of the day, he says it comes down to saving taxpayer money. The plan will save approximately $1.2 million, according to officials.
“If we can do things more efficiently, if there’s a piece of equipment down the road that a town owns that we can use if they’re not using it, we do it,” Wheeler added. “Same goes for us. We have a lot of municipalities that use our equipment and our crews when they’re available because it makes sense.”
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