August 9, 2019
The following letter has gone out to Allegany County elected officials:
Re: Shared Services Plan
Supervisors, Mayors, County Staff and interested public:
I would like to invite you to a meeting currently scheduled for Tuesday, August 27th at 5:30 p.m. in the Legislative Chambers Belmont, NY. We have a very specific agenda and request that the Towns Supervisors and Village Mayors if you can please plan to attend or send a designate to this meeting it would be quite helpful.
The Agenda Items include:
1. Allegany County has a new County Administrator in Deborah McDonnell that you will have an opportunity to meet at this session.
2. We will have representative(s) from New York State who have met with us regarding this process and they will discuss our approved 2018 CWSSI Plan and provide guidance and direction for moving forward. Richard Tobe Director of Special Intergovernmental Projects from the Department of Labor and/or Elizabeth Burakowski from NYSHCR is expected to attend.
3. We will discuss what successes you have had since we passed the plan in October 2018 and make appropriate plans to compile the results to get compensation as allowed by New York State.
4. We will discuss what projects you have currently in the works that should be included in a work plan for 2020 so that you may get compensated as allowed by NYS.
5. We will discuss the steps that we must complete in the coming months in order to be in compliance with the New York State law that we are working on this Shared Services program.
Please also mark your calendars for a public hearing: Thursday, September 26th at 5:30 p.m. in the Legislative Chambers Belmont, NY.
A second Public Hearing date will be set after our meeting on August 27th.
Step 1: RSVP your intention to attend the meeting August 27th, or NOT to Michelle Denhoff at 585-268-7153 or via e-mail DenhoffMM@alleganyco.com
Step 2: Between now and our meeting on August 27th please consider what cost savings you and your cooperating municipalities may have achieved thus far and will have achieved by the end of 2019.
Shared Services Plan – Pg. 2
Cost savings objectives DO NOT have to involve the County and can be limited to one or more partners. As a reminder Our 2018 Approved Cost Savings Plan Objectives included:
Leveraging health care consortia to generate insurance savings;
Converting streetlights to LED technology;
Group purchasing of electricity and natural gas;
Online and county-supported tax collection;
Centralized bulk purchasing;
Joint tax assessment and property revaluation;
Collaborating on water and sewer services;
Evaluating potential municipal reorganizations; and
Exploring shared highway equipment, offices, staff and contracts.
Step 3: Between now and our meeting on August 27th please consider what cost savings you and your cooperating municipalities think you want to work on for 2020! You don’t have to just work from this list but some cost savings objectives that we previously identified in our plan for future consideration included:
Animal control;
Code enforcement;
Document management and records retention;
Financial services;
Grant writing; and
Information technology.
If you want to discuss this upcoming meeting, your projects or have any questions feel free to reach out to me at dirlamhk@alleganyco.com or at 585-268-7442
Thank you.
Sincerely,
H. Kier Dirlam
ALLEGANY COUNTY DIRECTOR OF PLANNING
