In 2008, when residents of the Town of Clay voted on whether to abolish its Police Department, they knew or could have known the following: Town tax bills would drop by 20 percent; all 16 full-time officers would be getting comparable jobs with the county; and the town would get the exact same service from the Onondaga County Sheriff’s Office that it had gotten from the town.

Given those facts, an overwhelming majority of voters—nearly 70 percent— decided they no longer wanted or needed their own police force.

As the debate about eliminating villages across Erie County begins to flame, Clay could provide this valuable lesson: When it comes to making a difficult choice about cutting government, detailed information is king.

In the case of the village question, it also might be hard to come by. There are so many variables. What will happen to village debt? Will the town absorb all village workers, or will some be out of a job? Will the town provide the same level of service the village did? If so, who will pay for it?

Chris Duquin, whose grass-roots group in Williamsville is trying to figure out whether dissolving the village is a worthwhile idea, hopes to present village voters an analysis of what such a move would mean for them in dollars and cents.

To that end, his group is working with graduate students from the University at Buffalo to do a cost-benefit analysis of the village, which he hopes will tell property owners what they pay in village taxes and what they get for their money.

The group also plans to take 100 homes in the village and 100 homes in the Town of Amherst outside the village and compare the tax burden for each.

Duquin said he agrees that if the dissolution question is put to voters, many will cast their ballots with one question in mind: Will this save me money?

But he said he and others will take a longer view.

“The money part of it is important, but it’s the money part in relation to representation,” he said. “For me and for our group, we’ve determined that representation is worth a lot, especially because we are 5,500 people within a town of 120,000. If it costs me $35 a year for representation, that’s a no-brainer.”

Kevin Gaughan, whose push to downsize government in Erie County is behind the questions being asked now in every village, said he applauds the efforts of groups such as Duquin’s, believing that there is no such thing as too much data.

The problem is that you are more likely to find a liberal and a conservative agreeing about health care reform than you are finding agreement about what eliminating a village would save.

Gaughan said that should be a moot point, anyway.

“You don’t have to be a member of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers to know that the system we have today is too expensive,” Gaughan said. “All I’m trying to do is get people to think about considering a different approach.”

Clay Supervisor Damian Ulatowski said his town had the same thought process. But talk of eliminating a police department stirs as much or more passion than talk of getting rid of village government.

The antidote for fist-pounding and screaming was data and deliberation.

“By the time we had designed a plan that we thought was workable, we immediately called several public hearings to make sure the public was on board with what we were doing, how we were doing it, what it would mean to them,” Ulatowski said. “And we let the process go as long as it needed to go until everyone had their questions answered.”

Questions won’t be the problem for residents of Erie County’s villages. The problem will be the answers.