Municipalities have worked for decades to share services and cut costs, Broome County Executive Jason Garnar tells CNYBJ in an interview. In both small and large ways, shared services have been happening for a while. “There are tons of things that local governments are doing already to save money,” he says. In Broome County that […]
Municipalities have worked for decades to share services and cut costs, Broome County Executive Jason Garnar tells CNYBJ in an interview. In both small and large ways, shared services have been happening for a while.
“There are tons of things that local governments are doing already to save money,” he says. In Broome County that includes anything from a shared water plant to sharing highway materials.
But when the state launched the shared-services initiative, it opened up an opportunity to capitalize on the savings achieved by municipalities working together, Garnar adds. Since the initiative began, the county has completed a number of projects.
Broome County worked with the Maine-Endwell and Whitney Point school districts to share caseworkers, saving about $325,000, and coordinated a public-safety radio tower consolidation.
A Medicaid Advantage prescription-drug purchasing alliance with municipalities and school districts allows the group to get the best prices. This helps lower the cost of the coverage Broome County provides to its retirees and saved about $2 million.
The Town of Deposit and Village of Sanford within the county combined their two separate courts into one, saving about $150,000. Deposit also dissolved its police department.
A joint-purchasing coalition for prescription drugs has saved the county about $3 million, Garnar says. “The state turned around and cut us a check for $3 million.”
“We have done four plans, and we have saved approximately $8 million,” he notes. The county will receive the rest of the matching funding once the state verifies the county’s savings, he adds.
At the recent meeting, the plan proposed for the next cost-savings initiative will have the county working with the Binghamton City School District to add an employee to the district to work on housing situations. Once again, the position will come out of the county’s social services department, so that 50 percent of the cost is reimbursed by the state.
“It’s a nice program for counties to get in,” Garnar says. Broome County has 23 different villages, towns, and cities located within its borders.
Other counties that have participated in the initiative include Onondaga, Otsego, Oswego, Jefferson, Chemung, and Tompkins.
