EDITORIALS
Merger process improved
New government consolidation law eases steps toward streamlining
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State Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo last week shepherded through the Legislature a bill he wrote that gives New Yorkers greater ability to abolish or merge local governments. With more than 10,000 of those entities draining the public purse—1,044 of them in Erie County—the need is obvious.Gov. David A. Paterson is expected to sign the bill.
The bill reduces the number of signatures needed to put the question of dissolution of a governmental entity on the ballot. It also makes it easier for counties to start a dissolution or merger process of local entities within their borders. At a time when New Yorkers, especially upstaters, are in full-scale revolt over the bloated state budget and legislators’ inability to make appropriate decisions, this bill provides a measure of relief.
It’s not perfect. It excludes school districts, which are by far the largest consumers of property taxes. And it does nothing to impose more controls on Albany, whose unfunded mandates are big drivers of property taxes. Still, it’s a useful change and if voters demand, it can lead to more.
It was also a more difficult change than it should have been. Powerful forces tried to block the bill, including representatives of municipalities and, especially, volunteer fire companies. They worry that recruiting could suffer if, after dissolution of a neighboring fire district, volunteers are asked to risk their safety protecting a municipality other than their own.
It’s not an unreasonable concern, and it’s one that will have to be kept in mind. But this law does not impose mergers— majorities of both groups would have to approve—it simply makes them easier. Far more importantly, though, any imperfections in this law cannot stand in the way of changing a government structure that is driving upstate to its knees. What we have now is worse.
Cuomo’s role in this effort is both telling and, compared to his predecessor, intriguing. The rearranging and streamlining of multiple consolidation laws would seem a logical target for an attorney general, the state’s top lawyer, but there was a political task in this effort as well. With it, Cuomo notched a political success that would be expected more of a governor—an office he previously sought and that many believe he continues to covet.
During his 2006 campaign for the office of attorney general, Cuomo said that while then-Attorney General Eliot Spitzer had focused on corruption on Wall Street, he intended to look under rocks within government itself. He has been as good as his word.
Spitzer reached the governor’s office based in good part on his success at issuing subpoenas and forcing reforms in the financial sector. That approach never translated from attorney general to the state’s chief executive. The jobs require different skill sets.
In submitting this legislation and then negotiating its way to passage, Cuomo showed that he knows how to make the system work. He has the advantage of Democratic control of both chambers, which Spitzer did not, but he still had to use his political influence, not subpoenas, to get the job done. He succeeded. That says something.
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