Chautauqua County has long been working hard to improve services for the people living here while reducing their cost of living. It’s not an easy balance to achieve.
In 2017, New York state decided to nudge communities to get serious about this with a competition to improve local government efficiency. The state wanted to see innovative approaches. Chautauqua County and five other areas across the state were Phase I winners. That brought money to plan and prepare a Phase II submission for one single $20 million prize.
While that money ultimately was awarded to the second largest Town in New York, Brookhaven, Chautauqua County is still benefiting from the planning process undertaken.
Brookhaven won because they devised visionary government efficiency solutions, including proposing consolidation and shared government services to reduce property taxes. They proposed a comprehensive reassessment and redesign of government service delivery models across municipal boundaries. There was much to learn from their plan.
Chautauqua County proposed many of the same ideas. The county brought together and coordinated existing proposals. They sought and developed new ideas while analyzing the fiscal impact of everything they suggested. The final Chautauqua plan was impressive. Although not selected for the grand prize, it was still a winner, and so was everyone living here. The strategies and solutions recommended to streamline operations, formalize municipal collaboration, maximize efficiencies in service delivery, and better serve residents and businesses are still great ideas.
Some of the consolidations, dissolutions, service-sharing, and other cost-saving measures proposed by the Chautauqua County Regional Solutions Commission in that 2017 proposal included suggestions that neighboring communities work together more, even merging services or going further to merge and dissolve some governmental entities.
For instance, it proposed the city of Dunkirk and the village of Fredonia work together to implement wastewater treatment efficiencies and share one facility for their police forces and courts. It also recommended the towns of Busti and Ellicott and the village of Lakewood explore one unified police force.
It suggested County Fire Services should study and coordinate efficiencies, including recommending that the Portland and Brocton fire companies merge and that Dewittville, Hartfield, Mayville, and Maple Springs fire companies explore closer coordination.
It recommended the dissolution of the Village of Cherry Creek into the Town of Cherry Creek. It also suggested the town of Gerry and the town of Charlotte consolidate into one town, with the village of Sinclairville dissolving into that single town, with a unified highway and administrative building on the Cassadaga Valley Central School grounds.
It recommended the Town of Hanover and the Village of Silver Creek share one facility for their municipal offices and courts, as well as proposing the village of Lakewood and the town of Busti establish a shared municipal and court facility.
While not all of these and the other recommendations made in 2017 have resulted in action yet, the rationale is still available and relevant. It could eventually lead to future improvements in service delivery and cost savings for county residents. The work put into proposals like that one has also helped form future proposals that were successfully selected for funding and have and will continue to result in improvements in many areas.
It is hard to overstate the importance of planning.
The Northern Chautauqua Community Foundation’s Local Economic Development committee believes there is much to be learned from the planning processes undertaken here, including those done decades ago and from the proposals selected for funding in other regions. The committee also believes moving toward sharing more services among Chautauqua County communities would greatly benefit residents by providing them with cost savings and much better service delivery.
Patty Hammond is Economic Development Coordinator at the Northern Chautauqua Community Foundation. The Local Economic Development (LED) Initiative is a standing committee of the Northern Chautauqua Community Foundation (NCCF). Send comments or suggestions to Patty Hammond at phammond@nccfoundation.org