Standardizing
Services for Essex County, Towns & Villages Task Force
Monday, January 13, 2025 - 11:30 am
Jim Monty - Chairman
Chairman Monty called this Task Force to
order at 11:30 am with the following in attendance: Matt Brassard, Ken Hughes, Steve
McNally, Jim Monty, Matt Stanley, Jim Dougan, Mike Mascarenas and Bill Tansey.
ALSO PRESENT: Dina Garvey, Linda Wolf
and Jen Bridge.
MONTY: I guess the only one that we’re
missing is Mike and Jim is here, representing him.
So, I sent an email, asking for
Supervisors, as well as Department Heads to come up with some services that
they provide to the Department Heads to the Towns and the Towns, the services
that they request from the County.
I found that several of the Departments,
are what I call, community based services. They’re for the people within your
town, not necessarily for the Town, itself, things like Mental Health, Public
Health, Emergency Services, although Emergency Services can go each way,
because Emergency Services does provide to our ambulance districts, at the
County’s cost, right now. Sheriff’s Department; isn’t really applicable.
Probation; isn’t really applicable. DSS; is more of a community based program
for the people. Generally speaking, the resources that the Towns us, that I’ve
developed from the information from the Towns, is Community Resources, DPW,
legal, EMS, Office of the Aging; that’s one of those that’s kind of both, DSS,
Human Resources, Real Property and IT. These are all services that we use
within our towns and generally speaking there isn’t a lot of cost incorporated
with those services. I know we’ve had the discussion, as it pertains to
Community Resources, how we and I think Steve, is a very high proponent of
this, is there should be some of those administrative costs that go back to
Community Resources, to generate revenue in the grants that can be. There are
some grants that can’t be, but most grants, there are, but my understanding
from talking with Anna, she gets pushback from some Supervisors; well, you’re
taking money away from our program. We’re taking money from the reason that
grant was written.
STANLEY: The way I shoot back at that
is, you wouldn’t be getting this money, if it wasn’t for them.
MONTY: Right and I totally agree, Matt.
I don’t care if, you know, if you don’t want to apply for that grant, then
don’t or if you want to apply for it, then administrate it, yourself. I mean I
know with my CDBG, I have the option of administrating those CDBG grants, as
well. Do I want the time and the energy invested in doing that? Absolutely,
not. So, there should be an administrative cost to that grant and stuff and I
understand their logic. You know, you’re
taking away from the project involved, but.
STANLEY: I would also say, have you been
through CDBG and the amount of work that goes into doing that? I mean,
Community Resource, did our CDBG for our community center and I would have
given the money back, like if I had to deal with that stuff. I mean they are
professional, they know what they’re doing. I mean, they deserve to get the
money, the admin money from those grants.
MONTY: No question and think about it,
it’s also generate revenue for them.
STANLEY: Absolutely.
MONTY: Which is a huge and when we’re
doing the County budgets, I know we’re talking town budgets, county budgets,
but, you know, I think historically, we’ve gotten by, I know I’m just as guilty
calling Bill or Dan for legal advice and they’ve draw up somethings for me, but
there should be a cost involved. I’ve called Jim, several times, primarily for
furnace and stuff, but I’ve also told Jim, I want to be billed and normally,
Jim, does bill me. Not 100% of the time, but normally if he sends two guys, up
to work on my furnace, I pay for the parts and Jim charges it back to me for
the labor, which is only right, it’s only right, even if he’s providing a
service to me. If I was to hire an outside contractor to come in, I would have
to pay him and stuff. I get it, as a town level, we’re trying to save money.
We’re trying to save nickels and dimes. In the same token, when these
Departments are doing work for you, they’re not doing County work and County
costs.
That’s just my thoughts in a nutshell.
So, what I am hoping, after some conversation today, is we all come back with
thoughts on how to solve this issues. I think that’s the reason for the
standardizing of services. Sometimes DPW changes and I’ve never seen anything
from you guys and stuff.
HUGHES: Well, you have that memo from Dan,
kind of outlining all of that and why they don’t. How they could, but they
choose not to.
MONTY: Right, exactly, exactly, but
should that be a memo that’s across the board for all those departments that we
use.
MCNALLY: You know, I have an attorney on
retainer, so we don’t use, probably unless it’s a State of Emergency, you don’t
hear from us and it’s the same with most of the County, we don’t use much of
the County up here. The things we use are like printing and we pay for that and
I use Jimmy’s sign shop, but I pay for that. So, I try.
MONTY: I think we all do.
MCNALLY: But, you know, I’ve been trying
to get this administration fee back to Community Resources, and the reason is,
too, you go over there and you look at the boards and you see some towns apply
for 12 grants, a year and you see some that apply for none and I think it’s
fair. The people that use it, pay for it.
BRASSARD: Absolutely.
MCNALLY: And I know that they have a
vacancy over there, I guess that they’re not going to fill now, but I don’t
know, I think that’s only fair. I think they hired two people and they got rid
of one.
HUGHES: Yeah, she wasn’t a good fit.
MCNALLY: But, no I think, everyplace
else is getting administrative charge out of those CDBG or the housing grants
that you get. You either give them to HAPEC to someone else that administers
it.
BRASSARD: I have two right now with
Adirondack Roots, 18% and I have no problem, that paperwork’s insane.
MCNALLY: It’s worth the 18%.
BRASSARD: 100%, you know, maybe
Community Resources doesn’t take 18%, maybe 10%, you know whatever you decided
to come up with.
STANLEY: Well, the big thing to keep in
mind is, whether it’s towns paying for it, County paying for it, State paying
for it, it’s all taxpayer money.
MONTY: It is
STANLEY: And by having the County
standardize, like IT is a good example. Standardizing, IT, across the County is
cheaper to hire one or two guys to take care of 18 towns than it is hire a part
time person in 18 towns.
BRASSARD: Right
STANLEY: Or to contract it out. So, I
think that’s part of the reason, I think, this County is incredible in the way
that we can save those taxpayer’s money by standardizing the work through the
County, but yet, still being charged for that work, because it will be cheaper
than if we go out to bid it out anywhere else.
MCNALLY: Bringing the IT Department, 5
years ago, maybe we brought that onboard, and that was the best thing we ever
did. I think that’s real beneficial and I think that maybe there should be
charges for that, too. You know, that’s been successful. I think this is
completely different, but I think we got to start talking the same program for
the dogs. I mean, we’re all paying big money, we’re all paying big money and
that’s something we all need. I mean, I’m paying $2,500.00 a year. I have taken
a dog down there in 5 years. I would rather give that money to the County.
HUGHES: We can talk about all 26
departments and what our issue, do you have a plan of attack, in terms of how
you want to break up or identify or begin discussing? Are you looking to say,
okay, let’s talk about Community Resources, right now and get a solution?
MONTY: Not specifically.
HUGHES: Okay
MONTY: My thought is, we do a
generalized umbrella type. Let’s bring Mike, Linda and Jen, up to speed on what
we got talking here, initially what we started.
MASCARENAS: You don’t have to repeat for
me.
MONTY: Basically, what we talked about
is a lot of the departments in the County are what I call community based
departments. The work they do isn’t specifically for the town, it’s for the
people within the town. Mental Health, Public Health, DSS, some of these, but we do have departments that actually do
work for the towns. I mean, you guys do a lot of purchasing. I mean, I call
down there to get a State Contract cost on something. You’ve gone and put out
RFPs, you know through your office. Jim, does things for towns. The primary
ones that I found was Community Resources, DPW, legal, EMS, Office of the
Aging; which is one of those kind of community based, but there is a little bit
there that they do for towns, the same with Human Resources, Real Property,
Purchasing, IT. Those are the primary ones that hit the map on every town
within Essex County.
MCNALLY: I think this is the best, I
think the best approach to this is get the Department Heads in and like we are
here and they can give us what their perceived abuses are, or perceived issues,
like what’s happening.
MONTY: I sent that email out to them and
got I pretty good response from most of them, but until we get something, a
plan, it doesn’t do any good to call them in, I don’t think, until we need
them.
MCNALLY: But, getting them in, is going
to be imperative to making a good decision.
DOUGAN: I can do the same thing that I
did to you at the dog one? Let’s first agree on what our mission statement is.
HUGHER: Right
MONTY: Yup
DOUGAN: You know, Shaun, asked this
committee to come together and part of it was, there was some statements about
preparing for abuse. This Board, everybody works together pretty good, but
there’s things that you’re trying to prepare for abuse and like Steve, said, some
people, require all kind of applications to say, Community Resources and others
don’t do it at all. So, I almost think you should have your mission statement,
first.
HUGHER: We do have it.
MONTY: The mission statement was in, and
I’ll read it to you. The mission of this special community is to develop formal
policy initiatives for the Board of Supervisors to formalize the methodology
and permitted services in remuneration for these functions and services provided
to County Departments to support Essex County, Town and Village Governments. I
think that’s pretty good.
HUGHES: Yes
MONTY: Good mission statement.
MASCARENAS: Can I suggest, who’s going
to, this is the question that I know the answer is going to be me (laughter).
MONTY: Why ask the question, when you
know the answer?
MASCARENAS: A lot of these committees
happen, we come and we talk, but there’s nothing formalized. Who’s going to do
that?
HUGHES: Like what?
MASCARENAS: Like a plan, you need
somebody that’s going to take the notes, somebody that’s going to do all the
legwork of the committee. Right, because we’re going to want to present something
tangible to the Board at the end of this.
HUGHES: I would be happy to do that.
MONTY: That would be great.
HUGHES: I served in another task force
where we able to kind of, again, 10,000 foot view, gets some ideas down, you
put it down, again Google Docs, Google Drive and we all can take a look at it,
we all can add our notes, we can all add our notes, we can all add our comments
and things like that, so we have one working document that we can all work on.
I am happy to get that process started, I am happy to continue to edit that
process, that is what I did for the Land Bank
MONTY: Yup
HUGHES: I have no problem doing that.
MONTY: And that worked out well.
HUGHES: That worked really well, so I
have no problem taking on that responsibility to kind of organize the thoughts
and kind of put that all, so we can all see it, we can all contribute to it.
MASCARENAS: That’s great
HUGHES: And then we use that document to
hopefully formulize something prior to our June 24th date.
MCNALLY: So, you’re looking at a policy?
You’re going to come out with a Countywide policy?
MONTY: We’re going to come up with an
initiative and it will be up to the Board of Supervisors.
MASCARENAS: Recommendation
MONTY: We’re making a recommendation.
MCNALLY: But, it’s going to be based on
policies from each department, because each department is different?
MONTY: I got a lot of emails that I will
send you.
HUGHES: Send me everything.
MONTY: With descriptions from the
departments, what they do and not do. Jim, gave me a great one.
HUGHES: I will organize it by
department, so that’s kind of like bringing it to the table and then if we feel
like the explanation that the Department Head wrote is not robust enough, then
we can bring them for clarification or the things that you’re looking for.
They’re busy people, too. Obviously, we couldn’t meet with 18 different
departments. That would be a lot of work for us. We’ve got to be as succinct
and well-functioning, as possible.
MCNALLY: Well, we have a department
here, today and briefly they could explain to us something that they would like
changed or they perceive as some towns using them over for things that they
really shouldn’t be.
MASCARENAS: Well, Step One to me, well,
you have Purchasing, you have County Attorney, you have DPW, you have lots of
them here. But, Step One is defining our parameters, right? What information do
we want to collect? How do we want that to look? What’s important to understand
in terms of that? Linda and I, just had
a brief conversation, this morning. You have central service departments
versus non-central service departments. There’s already a certain amount of
individuals being claimed through, what we call, an in-direct cost report. So,
you got to know how that works in terms of, you know, that. So, we may have to
track time differently in some departments, so it doesn’t fall on the in-direct
cost report, which is in claim to DSS and those things in terms of time worked.
So, what happens is, the time Linda, works on a RFPs and that type of thing,
currently, it’s spread out across every County department and Venesky, can put
a number to that, based on basically a time study that individuals do. So, when
that claim goes back, DSS uses, Linda, X amount of time and then it is then
filed with the State and DSS pays a claim, the State reimburses her a certain amount
of money. So, there’s some internal things that would have to happen to capture
it properly and double dip, per se.
STANLEY: I was going to say, let’s have
everything claimed by DSS (laugher).
WOLF: So, we would have to keep our
timesheet by town, to have it be more accurate. Right now, it’s just other
government. So, that it doesn’t get charged to those reimbursable departments.
MONTY: And that would be getting to what
Steve was saying, that would be a direct correlation to what towns use the services
the most.
WOLF: Well, we would have to have it
based on what we were actually doing, right?
MONTY: Yeah
WOLF: So, if I had the timesheets for
the year, it would be billed after the fact. So, we would have to have Jack
Venesky, add it, if that’s the goal to bill.
MONTY: Well, I don’t think that’s
necessarily the goal to bill. The goal is to standardize the services, so Towns
know what the County is…
WOLF: And that’s a good way to have a
number on our costs.
MONTY: Absolutely.
MASCARENAS: But, Anna, you can do
whatever you want. So, we’re not claiming her anywhere else.
WOLF: Right
MASCARENAS: She really is a department
that supports the towns entirely. I get nothing out of it.
WOLF: Real Property
MASCARENAS: Real Property would be
another one.
MONTY: Yeah
STANLEY: So, I think, we have our
mission statement. We need to really define what our problem areas are, find
solutions to those and at the end of this, have a policy that comes out about
Town use of County services.
MASCARENAS: Yeah
STANLEY: I feel
MASCARENAS: One thing, too, I would like
to show our constituents, I think that’s a great plan, is the cost avoidance.
So, we get the hell kick out of us, right? Whether we’re at the supermarket or
whether we’re at the local store about taxes and all those things.
MONTY: Even church.
MASCARENAS: Even church, yeah, once you
step out or step in, it doesn’t matter. So, I don’t think they realize the cost
avoidance, by the way we provide services. The State comes out with these
things, the State says, hey, we’re going to implement shared services. Well, by
saying that, they’re assuming no one is doing that, because it’s a top down
approach. Nobody really knows what anybody is doing. I want to say that Essex
County has coined the phrase. We’ve been doing it for 30 years.
MONTY: Wasn’t it 3-4 years ago, the
Governor come out with the initiative to give us money back for doing shared
services and every one of them, we turned in, they said, you can’t do it, it’s
got to be new.
MASCARENAS: Right
MONTY: How do you think we survived for
25 years?
MASCARENAS: Whether it’s garbage,
whether it’s, however, like Real Property, all those things, we’ve been sharing
for an awful long time and it’s reflected in our tax rate, whether people want
to realize it or not and it’s reflective in your tax rates; right? We don’t pay
$3.60 per $1,000.00, because we’re not doing things together.
STANLEY: Well, and I also think there
are 18 towns that each town might may have something that they do that’s cost
savings that the other 17 don’t know about. A good example is with IT, when I
came in, every department had their own computer, every department was paying
for ways to backup, every single computer and I came in and I was like, I want
to have, essentially, a server and I want everybody to store their information
on that server. We now pay, so it’s a reoccurring monthly fee for one issue of
that service. We’re not doing it across every single department at the Town.
MASCARENAS: You’re probably less
vulnerable.
STANLEY: And by doing that, at the time,
I talked to James, about my idea, what I wanted to do. Hugh, has just taken it
to the next level, which is incredible and I would like to replicate that for
all the other 17 towns. I mean, you probably do something even smarter than I
do, but, those are ways on just one department, but I mean, from the flip side,
by Highway Department, actually contracted somebody to do their IT work, not
just using the County. So, I mean, there’s a lot of efficiencies that I think
we can get out of this, that we don’t even realize.
MASCARENAS: Yeah. One area, not to get
too far off, that are IT people get nervous about and you’ll understand this,
is doing work for Towns, but having Towns, not really listen or be willing to
spend the money and they’re worried that they’re somewhat liable and are they
putting the County in a bad position? So, yes, you might go to one server, you
might do that, but are you putting in firewalls that are recommended? Or are
you saying, no, that’s too costly, I can’t do that; right? So, from an IT
standpoint, should we be taking on, if you’re going to work with us, there has
to be a minimal standard of protection in your community that you and your
Board, buy into.
HUGHES: Yeah, hold harmless.
MASCARENAS: Before we even touch you,
because most Towns are like whatever, my computer is broke, come fix it.
STANLEY: Also, of that same vein is
understanding that the County employees, County work, comes first. Somebody
brought this up to me, because we’re Supervisors and we’re asking that
Department, that they can’t say no to us.
MASCARENAS: That’s absolutely true.
STANLEY: So, what I did, especially for
IT, I told you, I said, we’re not your priority, get me done when you can,
these are the things I want, but definitely make sure it’s not effecting your
County productivity and when you can squeeze us in, I’ll take.
HUGHES: And to piggyback off that, Mike
in county printing, so, I’ve always understood, even when I was in charge of a
non-profit and now as a Supervisor, he takes care of the County printing first
and then when there’s more work to be done by non-profits, or by other towns,
then he will prioritize that work, afterwards and he charges for it; right? He
charges for it and he charges a really competitive rate, instead of going to
Staples. So, I am wondering if Central Printing is a barometer for what we might
look at for other departments?
MASCARENAS: I think the majority of his
work is Town work, right?
GARVEY: Quite a bit, the majority.
MASCARENAS: I don’t think he does
anything for us.
HUGHES: Right? I thought he had a lot
more County.
GARVEY: He did, but all the departments
have their own color copiers. There’s no reason other than envelopes that
anyone goes to Mike, anymore, except for Towns and non-for-profits.
HUGHES: So, that goes to that next level
of efficiency. Is that efficient for every department to have their own color
copier?
MASCARENAS: Well, and everything is
digitized.
MONTY: Or is it efficient to have a
Print Shop?
HUGHES: Or is it efficient to have a
Print Shop?
MASCARENAS: You do, we don’t.
HUGHES: Right
BRASSARD: We us it a lot.
HUGHES: Yeah, I use it.
MASCARENAS: And when you look at the
cost of things, there’s a real reason why. So, if you look at a copier, right
now, you can get those for what? $7,000.00? They were $12,000-$15,000 years
ago, so the County had one, for black and white, alone, you were paying more
than that and the County is highly digitized.
HUGHES: That’s right, too.
MASCARENAS: So, my letterhead, I don’t
print letterhead. If I send a letter, I type it on there, the letterhead’s
there, I type it on there, if the letterhead’s there, I type it on there and I
print it out and I sent it or I email them.
DOUGAN: Right, yup
MASCARENAS: So, I don’t printing making
me 200 letterhead, it’s unnecessary.
HUGHES: Okay, so that’s good to know.
So, I do like the idea of defining
parameters. It gives all us a focus when we leave here, today. I don’t know how
often we’re going to be meeting.
MONTY: I planned on, right now, once a
month, until, like today is our initial meeting and then we’ll meet again a
month from now, to come together and meeting with ideas and again, if Ken,
creates that Google document.
HUGHES: Yup
MONTY: If anything pops up in the middle
of the day and you want to put it in.
HUGHES: Just fill it in.
MONTY: Fill it in and send it to Ken.
HUGHER: You don’t even send it to me.
You’ll have a link and then you can just add it yourself.
MONTY: And then Ken can report on
anything we sent him, at the next meeting.
HUGHER: Yup
MONTY: And then as we start hammering
out things, maybe meet a little more often. Shaun, really wants this presented
to the Full Board in June and stuff.
HUGHES: Yeah, it’s going to be like
you’re doing this, like we’re creating a
statue and we have a great big block of granite in front of us. We’re
going to lop off some big stuff, but as we get better, we’re going to refine
it.
MONTY: Start fine tuning it.
HUGHES: Start fine tuning it. Right now,
we have a huge block granite.
TANSEY: I think there’s also an
education element in this, going forward here. I’m not sure that everybody
knows what all the departments do and I’m not sure all the Towns understand how
the County is being used by some of the Towns. There are some Towns that have
really found resources, expertise, efficiencies in the County departments and
take advantage of that. Either because they’re getting a great job and they
like it or it’s cost effective. So, we need to educate both sides on that and I
think based on the responses from the Department Heads, there’s a few more
questions that we can send out to other Department Heads or all the Department
Heads to gather a little bit more information and from that, maybe we can
identify, Community Resources, that came up as the first thing you talked
about, it makes sense to have grant experts at our beckoned call, for the
entire County. Even if Essex takes a grant, it does effect, everybody going from
Willsboro down to Moriah, it effects everybody along that path. But, maybe
Jim’s hiring an extra snowplow driver doesn’t help the entire community. So,
not to pick on Jim, but maybe there’s a few things that the department’s doing
that is just too much of a favor for the town, rather than expertise and
efficiency. So, through the education, through deeper questions of the
Department Heads, maybe we can identify some of that and remove the low hanging
fruit, right off the bat.
HUGHES: I like that.
DOUGAN: Yeah, we, just to piggyback off
of that, digital message boards. Different towns like to use those for their
events. Not a problem, if we’re not using it for an emergency, someplace, first
come, first served.
HUGHES: Absolutely
DOUGAN: And if the town is willing to
come pick it up and bring it to their town and then bring it back to us, I
don’t know that I need to charge you for a few minutes of programming for it to
say what you want it to say, but if I’ve got to take a guy to drive it to your
town to set it up and come back and I have had Supervisors, that have said to
me, well, I didn’t have any money for that, okay, when I send a bill.
HUGHES: Well, now they do, because they
can use ROOST money for that.
DOUGAN: But, you know, if we can do things
like that, that’s the policy. Otherwise, I’ve got to charge you for the truck
and the guy’s time to drive it there. That’s a nice balance, but if you need it
for an event that’s a non-profit event, you’re already paying to put on, right,
if you send somebody to come and pick it up, we’ll program it there, because
that doesn’t take a lot of time.
HUGHES: But, if you’re, but if I need an
excavator from you, you’re not doing that.
DOUGAN: That’s right.
HUGHES: Even if my guys can come pick it
up, your policy, or the County’s policy is that is going to go to that town
with an operator.
BRASSARD: Absolutely
DOUGAN: That’s what it has been, because
of bad behavior on the past on other pieces of equipment.
HUGHES: Right, so how is a digital sign,
I don’t want to get off the topic, but how is a digital sign, a digital
signboard, in my opinion, is a tool that DPW uses.
DOUGAN: If I have already programmed it,
you’re not actually physically operating it, driving it up and down the road,
it seems like it has a little less risk.
HUGHES: Okay
DOUGAN: A little less risk for damage.
It’s not to be a balance of those things.
HUGHES: That’s fair.
DOUGAN: You know, what really started
the excavator conversation was bucket truck. Somebody chose to drill a hole in
it, that the whole bucket had to be replaced, couldn’t be certified any more.
It cost the County $5,000.00. Nobody would really step up and say who did it,
although we have a pretty good idea where it occurred and then I also lost a
month of being able to use that bucket truck during tree season.
HUGHES: That goes back to your
conversation about damages. IT damages, DPW damages that are happening by
somebody else.
MONTY: Another thing that’s going to pop
up with DPW is going to be our, that portable stage that we have, because towns
are going to want to use that portable stage.
HUGHES: Yup
MONTY: Should there be a fee charged and
I don’t think that situation is going to be the same as an excavator. Do we
want a town to transport it or do we want Jim to supply? But that’s just
something…
HUGHES: Something to be hammered out.
MASCARENAS: Do you think, just start
with one department and run the gamut, makes the most sense?
MONTY: We could.
MASCARENAS: So, we can kind of, just
see.
BRASSARD: Yeah, because there’s going to
be different from DPW than…
STANLEY: I suggest an easier department
than DPW.
HUGHES: I think Community Resources is a
great place to start.
MONTY: I think we come with a 10,000
foot approach and then we narrow it down, immediately under that umbrella to
specific departments and examine them there and maybe we need to meet every
Monday.
HUGHES: I’m also going to maybe reach
out to some other county colleagues, from some other counties and see if
they’re already doing something like this.
MONTY: Yup
HUGHES: Because maybe, they are.
MASCARENAS: You’re going to find, no.
HUGHES: I am sorry, what?
MASCARENAS: You’re going to find, no,
predominately no.
HUGHES: Okay
MASCARENAS: Here’s what I’ll tell you,
you’re a Board of Legislatures, you do nothing for towns.
HUGHES: That’s correct, I would contact
counties that have Board of Supervisors.
MASCARENAS: Right.
You’ll see there’s some of that, but not
as much. We’re probably the only Real Property in the State that do what we do.
HUGHES: Yeah.
MASCARENAS: I can tell you were the only
county in the State that has Community Resources. Everybody has a planning
department, but not what you think. It’s land use. It’s zoning. It’s that kind
of stuff.
HUGHES: Right
MASCARENAS: They’re not preparing grants
and getting, there’s a reason why we show up big and blue on funding maps. It’s
because we have people doing that work.
HUGHES: Right
MASCARENAS: So, yeah, I think you should
call, but I would be interested to know if you find out something I don’t, but
I can tell you, legal work, towns have their own lawyers.
HUGHES: Yeah
MASCARENAS: They’re paying for those
lawyers, that’s kind of stuff.
HUGHES: I only try to call the County
Attorney, if I think it would be something that would affect the entire, 18
towns or it’s something that they’ve already handled and is like, here you do,
done.
MASCARENAS: Yeah
HUGHES: Something that’s low hanging
fruit for them. Oh you need this or
that, no problem.
BRASSARD: I call Bill, too much.
TANSEY: Using the legal department,
compared to Community Resources, we’re in a contract here, because I do, do
work for the towns and hopefully that work helps another town and hopefully
that work helps another town when they call me, because I’ve already done it
all, But, when we go through this
education, you go through identifying efficiencies, we’re really going to be
relocating resources, because if you tell the legal department, hey, you’re
going to start providing legal assistance to the towns. I am going to come back
and say, I need three more attorneys.
HUGHES: Right
TANSEY: Because I can’t do it otherwise.
HUGHES: Right and if you come to me and
say, if you go to Community Resources and say, you’re going to start doing all
the grants. Well, Anna is going to need more employees. You’re only going to do
grants that help the County, as a whole. Well, maybe she doesn’t need five
people. So, this reallocation of resources is going to affect a lot of the
decisions and efficiencies.
MONTY: There’s going to be costs
involved in it, potentially.
TANSEY: And who pays for those costs?
So, I think that needs to be added into your overarching look. Are we going to
save money for consolidating here, putting a code enforcement officer for the
entire county or dog for the entire county?
BRASSARD: I think that one.
TANSEY: Or are we going to push that
down to the towns and go out to bid and only use it when needed?
STANLEY: Well, it’s funny, because
before I was elected, I had idea what the County did, like zero and I brought
that up again, today with Human Services. Like no idea what this County
provides to the residents of this County and just seeing the efficiencies and
learning the stuff. Like if I have an issue in my town, it’s probably
something, I heard something that week, that someone else was feeling that same
thing or I can reach out to 17 other people and say, hey, have you had this
problem? I think that’s what the services in this County can provide and some
of the legal stuff is, like we have all had to in the last couple of years,
pass tax cap law. I mean we’ve had to do that. I mean I know with Real
Property, it was cheaper for us when the County had our assessor. Now that he
went on his own, we’re paying him almost twice as much as he made for the
County. So, I think combining and consolidating and finding out what those
services are and that’s, I think we need to find the what, first, of almost
every department.
MASCARENAS: Linda, taught me a term
during budget, so I am going to give her some credit, right here. Transfer of
function; that’s what is really is about. Right, it’s about transfer of
function. So, is there a function that the town’s supposed to be providing that
the County is doing on their behalf? And I think that’s where, when you start
looking at that, that makes your mission a little more concise.
MONTY: Right
MASCARENAS: You’re responsible for dogs.
MONTY: Right
MASCARENAS: What are we doing to help
you with that? You’re responsible for your own legal work. What are we doing to
help with that? So, when you look at that transfer of function, I think it will
be very clear. It will be easier to define.
STANLEY: And looking at that, just the
tax cap law. Now, if 18 different lawyers had to write that law, it’s more
expensive, but if you go to them and it’s made and it can be reproduced 18
times, you’re paying 1/18th of the lawyer to do it, essentially.
MASCARENAS: Yeah, he’s just sending it,
during budget season. Hey, if you need this, here you go.
STANLEY: I mean, I’m using that as an
example, but there could be a legal issue that could affect 5 towns. Well,
that, as you’re dealing with that legal issue, it can be that workload, can be
divided 6 ways, as opposed as 6 different lawyers doing the same task.
HUGHES: I have a recommendation, do a
little divide and conquer. We’ve identified two departments, right now, that we
know are really important to all 18 towns. Community Resources and legal,
County Attorney. There’s others, but two really important ones. We’ve got at
least five Supervisors on this Committee and we have others that are
non-Supervisors, so I’m not sure if you would want to be a part of that or not,
but split the five of us up, three of us go to one and two of us go to the
other, however we want to do it and we, kind of what Steve was talking about.
Let’s really dig in and come up with the problem, come up with the solution,
even if it’s the draft solution, based on what the Department Head wants, based
on what we think we want with the larger conversation and the larger
understanding and come back in two weeks. If you really want to keep moving
this along; right?
MONTY: We can.
HUGHES: Come back in two weeks or a
month, whatever you want to do and present those ideas, based on those
sub-conversations. So, we’re not just sitting here, talking about all of this,
once a month.
TASNEY: But, very department specific.
HUGHES: Very, very department specific.
So, let’s say, it’s the three of us; Matt, and Matt and myself, we’re coming to
talk to you. So, we’re coming to you, we’re coming to Dan, we’re coming to
Anne, we’re coming to your crew up there and we’re really diving in deep. What
do you want? What do you want to continue to do? What do you not want to
continue to do? What are you willing to, you know what are your ideas on that?
And we come up with a really great idea that we can present back in two weeks.
STANLEY: But, maybe it’s not something
that, stop doing it. Maybe it’s, we’re doing this, and we need more help to do
it.
HUGHES: Oh, yeah, absolutely.
STANLEY: Or we hire that extra person to
do it.
HUGHES: Or we want to hire two more
paralegals, or two more full attorneys to just whatever it is. Right, and
that’s the recommendation that comes out of it.
MASCARENAS: Ken, can we do like a
standardized template, even though it’s not applicable, in certain situations?
So, that we’re collecting the same information across the board.
HUGHES: Whatever you want.
MASCARENAS: Well, I am just thinking.
So, cost avoidance, is a term, transfer of function. Is this a transfer of
function, yes or no? The answer for Public Health is no. Public Health is
performing the function of Public Health. So, they’re not doing work for your
town.
HUGHES: If you’re looking to collect…
MONTY: Even though they are. When they
do your rabies clinics in your town, but I see what you’re saying though.
MASCARENAS: Not your responsibility to
do rabies clinics. It’s the homeowner’s responsibility to make sure their dog
is vaccinated.
HUGHES: The devil is in those details,
certainly I can create a, if you’re looking to create more data, if that’s what
you’re talking about.
MASCARENAS: I like just systematic
things.
HUGHES: Sure, I can create a form and
you can fill out whatever parts of the form that you feel need to filled out,
because they are germane to your department or they are not.
MASCARENAS: So, you go to the County
Attorney’s Office and you say, is this a transfer of function? Yes, the answer
is yes, it is. But, what’s the cost avoidance for towns that you guys go this
work? We can put a real number to it and at the end, we can add it all together
and have some real strong information there. again, I think it’s an education
piece for the Board. I think it’s an education piece for the residents of Essex
County, showing just how much you’re saving and at the end of the day, if you
didn’t decide to charge, because one thing our Board’s very good about and they
might not always know the reasons why, but if we ask for something, they
understand.
HUGHES: Right
MASCARENAS: Because they know they’re
getting a service from that area. If Anna, comes in and says, I really need
help.
BRASSARD: Yeah, we probably going to
say, what do you need?
MASCARENAS: Yeah, you probably aren’t
going to say no.
HUGHES: So, you’re really bringing this
to an area that I haven’t really thought about. I’ve always been thinking about
the qualitative side of this report, but
there’s quantitative side this report and I think you’re going to be really
involved in the quantitative side. What are the costs savings? You know all of
the numeral data stuff, because the qualitative side is going to be educated by
the quantitative; right? The numbers are going to help drive what the policies
are probably going to be from those cost savings or those cost transfers to the
towns and so that’s going to be a really big part of I think, what we put
together. I hadn’t really thought about that before.
STANLEY: So, do your point, a little
earlier, should we be thinking about, first of all, before we go to
departments, should we think about that list of things we want to do?
MASCARENAS: That’s my point.
STANLEY: And we would come back with a
much more refined detail or do we want to go to those departments first to get
all of their and come back and then refine it. Like to your point of chiseling
down the statue, are we going to do something broad and then go get the details
or are we going to try and get the details right away?
MASCARENAS: Right
TANSEY: I think it’s a two-step process,
because sitting right here, right now, I’m not sure of all the questions that
need to be asked, but I do know, based on the emails that came in, there’s a
difference in interruption. Each Department Head has answered the question
differently.
STANLEY: Yes
TANSEY: So, if we can use the answers
that came in to generate a guideline for questions, to dive in deeper, the
responses that we get from that are going to re-steer us in another direction
and then we have to adapt, again. So, I think we go to that re-adaption and
then finalize.
STANLEY: Because I think there is a
two-fold, there’s what the Department Head thinks they should be doing for the
towns and the county and I think there’s a, the towns have an idea of what the
county should be doing for them.
MASCARENAS: And expectation.
MONTY: And there’s a huge cannon between
that and I saw it in the responses that I got back and I’ve gotten additional
responses, well, oh I didn’t realize we use this, oh I didn’t realize we used
this, I didn’t realize we used this.
MASCARENAS: Oh sweet.
STANLEY: I’ve got to have them do this.
MASCARENAS: I ran, Anna’s department, I
can answer almost any question, because I created the issue. We were the first Community
Resources, when we evolved from Planning. So, I created part of the issue and
then I moved on and she has been stuck dealing with that and I apologize to
her, frequently.
STANLEY: And using Jay, during Irene,
was probably a great example of how the town really utilized the County.
MASCARENAS: It was me, I was there for a
lot of years.
HUGHES: It’s like we’re creating menus
for each department.
MASCARENAS: Yeah, and it’s a capacity
issue.
STANLEY: Actually that’s a great way to
put it. We’re really looking at, what does each service in each department cost
the town to utilize it and then on the flip side, what is the cost savings to
the Town and County for doing such.
MASCARENAS: Right, right and then you’ve
got towns like, North Elba, who contribute more than anybody in terms of sales
tax and property tax and use us for nothing.
STANLEY: But, then again, Derek, would
be the first one to say, and he’s told me, I don’t know how many times, I don’t
know how you guys do all that stuff as a Supervisor, because I delegate that to
somebody.
MONTY: But, because of what Mike just
said, he has the means to do that and hire that and do that.
STANLEY: But, if you would think about
those services being paid by that biggest town, that everybody uses, it makes
somebody like Essex, be able to do a lot more and get a lot more value.
MASCARENAS: That’s the point. I’m
getting at. Is it those people, so planning it, are really from that community
where their assessed values are higher and sales tax.
STANLEY: Because, over the weekend, I
went to the Upper Jay Fire banquet and sitting next to the Lake Placid Fire
Department guy, I’m like why do you guys dispatch our own? Like if it was into
Essex County Dispatch, the County would know where every piece of apparatus is,
even though they should, sort of, anyways, but there’s a redundancy of service
there.
MASCARENAS: Yup
STANLEY: And that’s what we’re trying to
avoid, is redundancy of service.
MASCARENAS: Yup, you’re right.
STANLEY: Ticonderoga is the same way or
they used to be?
MASCARENAS: No, they used to be and I
think Lake Placid will wake up to us eventually.
STANLEY: It goes with the whole
conversation, first thing this morning with the standardizing of the County and
I think to swallow, the bite is going to look like it’s big to start with, but
I think once it’s in one spot and then it’s not going to look as bad as it is.
MASCARENAS: Yeah, garbage is another low
hanging fruit we could look at very quickly, because there’s a real number
there.
TANSEY: I am assuming it makes sense to
push it up to the County, sometimes it does make sense for the Town to have it
on its own.
MASCARENAS: But, I like your idea. I am
all about systematic, let’s get one or two under our belt.
HUGHES: Yup, we’ll learn a lot.
MASCARENAS: Figure out what we need to
know and then go on, but what are those questions that are important in terms
of getting it to a report stage that’s acceptable by the Board, because I can
see these templates being appendix at the end of the report.
HUGHES: Absolutely
MASCARENAS: This is was at the meeting,
this is what we learned and this is why we made the recommendations that we
made.
STANLEY: And it even be in the policy,
each department may have a section in the policy.
MASCARENAS: Yeah and when I was in
Anna’s position, I didn’t want to collect bills from my bosses, either. I got
asked every budget season, just like she does, because frankly some of you
won’t pay them and I don’t want to be wasting my time when I’m trying to beg
somebody to pay my $1,000.00 grant bill.
HUGHES: Well, there should be a
fundamental paradigm shift.
MASCARENAS: I think once this committee
come up with a more formalize approach to doing that.
DOUGAN: And I don’t want to spend a lot
of time in my department just doing accounting, the start sending bills.
There’s administrative costs to that as well. We already do it when it’s simple
paving back and forth, you do work for us, we do work for you; okay? That all
works pretty well. the hard part for me is Todd Hodgson. What is that service
worth; okay? Different people use it to different levels, but what service is
that, what is that worth and do I really want to try and bill it, I tried to
bill his time before, when I was at the consulting firm with him and it didn’t
work out.
MASCARENAS: That’s why we went into the
public sector.
DOUGAN: Yeah, that’s true. He doesn’t
want to bill either, but it comes down to what, at what point, some of you just
ask for a little bit of help and then whoever your water/sewer operator is,
takes it and runs. I want to be that expertise and I really don’t want to bill
you for it. I just want to be that level of help, but there other people what
him to come physically do the work and stay right there and almost make him
responsible for it. That’s, of all the stuff that I’ve listed, that’s what I
struggle with.
HUGHES: That’s different.
DOUGAN: That’s where the opportunity
cost is, because I need him being a professional engineer for the County
Highway Department.
HUGHES: Absolutely
MASCARENAS: Well, it’s a $150,000.00
position, before I even look at any overhead.
DOUGAN: Right
MASCARENAS: Before I look at equipment,
before I look at any of those other things.
DOUGAN: Yup
MASCARENAS: So, yeah, to not be able to
use him locally. So, I get where Todd doesn’t want to charge. I just want to be
able to use him more.
MONTY: At the County level.
MASCARENAS: Yeah, I never see him.
DOUGAN: But, at the same time I want to
help you. If I’ve got somebody who’s got that kind of expertise, I want to help
you when I’ve got someone who’s got that kind of expertise, I want to help you,
but I want you to then take it. I don’t want to carry your backpack forever. I
like to give a little lift, give you a little expertise.
HUGHES: Absolutely
DOUGAN: That’s why you’re doing all the
ground penetrating radar for all the towns, because you’ve been so skilled at
it.
HUGHES: So, where do we go from here?
MONTY: Well, going back to meeting more
than once this month. I don’t have a Monday, unless you guys are willing to
stay late or later, because next Monday is dog and the following Monday is
housing.
MASCARENAS: I think let’s just get to
work and then reconvene. What information do we need?
MONTY: I think we get that information
together and then Housing and the Dog are quarterly, so after this Monday, we
can meet every Monday, if you guys want. That’s fine, as long as there’s
nothing else that pops up.
HUGHES: And is there a like or dislike
to the idea of breaking up the group into two and maybe starting to have those
sub-meetings?
MASCARENAS: No, I think the work needs
to happen. That’s what I’m saying.
HUGHES: Because I would love to choose
one of the two and get in there with a couple of my colleagues and start diving
in. I don’t think the answers are going to be too difficult to find.
MASCARENAS: I am interested in hear what
you have to say, because when I question them about it, they’re always very
wishy-washy.
HUGHES: Who Anna?
MASCARENAS: Any department.
HUGHES: Oh, okay
MASCARENAS: Well, this isn’t, even your
department gets very wishy-washy when I ask that question.
TANSEY: Well, because, is my job at
stake? That’s the first question that comes to mind. I mean seriously. You
decide and I’ll take the legal, if you decide that the towns are going to get
their own attorneys, and the County, does the County need two attorneys,
anymore? Or can they just contract out for 20-hours a week? Right, very simple
question.
HUGHES: I don’t see any deduction in
force.
STANLEY: I think this going to find out,
I am thinking and hoping that this process will actually find where there can
be more efficiencies with County, with use of County property, which would
increase what we do by being able to get reimbursables back from a Town or
getting the Towns to see what they can get to buy into it.
TANSEY: I absolutely agree with you, I
just think some of the wishy-washiness comes from protection of worth.
MASCARENAS: Well and I think people do
work they like. So, if you’re an attorney, I’m assuming, I’m not an attorney,
you can either confirm or say I’m an idiot, you want to be in court. So, when a
Town calls and maybe has a dog case, that really isn’t ours to prosecute, we
end up doing it.
MONTY: Is that by law, because I’ve been
told that that’s by law. I also thought that it was the animal control
officer’s responsibly to do it?
MASCARENAS: I don’t know, Bill could
tell you more. I know we end up in Towns, spending countless hours doing that
work.
MONTY: Yeah, because we tried to do it
with a couple of dogs instances and we were told that Mr. Manning had to be the
one to handle it.
TANSEY: Handling of dog control cases is
very specialized and the law says, that a dog control officers should be doing
it.
MONTY: Yeah, right
TANSEY: Yeah, but if your guys does it
once a year, he’s going to fall flat on his face, as soon as he walks into the
courtroom, so in that case it makes sense to have one person in the County who
can do all 18 towns.
MONTY: And if that’s the case, there should
be a fee encompassed with that, in my opinion.
TANSEY: There probably should be a fee.
HUGHES: Yes
MASCARENAS: It’s a lot of time.
STANLEY: Well, we get better service by,
you get better service by having professionals do something.
MONTY: I don’t disagree.
STANLEY: I mean, like whenever I call
Linda, it’s like, I feel like we’re actually going to get it done right,
otherwise, if I try to put together some sort of bid package, I know it’s going
to be screwed up. I mean, it’s just much easier to say, can you help us with
this and help us do it. I mean I would gladly pay for it, to get it done right,
the first time.
MASCARENAS: Yeah
MONTY: What we’re going to be fighting
is years and years and years and years of it being done the way we’re doing it
now.
MASCARENAS: And it’s like Jim, said…
HUGHES: Well, we’re reached a tipping
point.
MASCARENAS: The RFPs are a great
representation of what you’re saying. We can give you an example of a RFP, that
is very similar to what you have done and that will take us 5 minutes.
BRASSARD: Right
MASCARENAS: And you can take the ball
and go with it. There’s towns that do it, but that’s not the case. You know,
some are like, no, do it all over for me.
BRASSARD: Linda, just did my
water/sewer.
MASCARENAS: Yeah, I had a contract with
a firm that they wanted, that we bid, and they’re like, no, just do it all
over. What? What’s happening here?
BRASSARD: What was it?
MASCARENAS: The beach thing.
BRASSARD: Well, that wasn’t me, that was
my Board.
MASCARENAS: Yeah, but the Board should
do it all over then.
MONTY: Then tell your Board to pay for
it.
BRASSARD: Right
HUGHES: That’s right.
WOLF: They wanted a lump sum versus
hours.
BRASSARD: Yeah, some nonsense like that.
Why don’t we just use the County’s, we can go off the County’s contracts?
STANLEY: But, I think we’re in a very
good position, where I think the Board works well together. I think it’s a, for
the most part, a newer Board and a Board that is actually, there are a lot of
new people on the Board and there are going to be a lot of new people coming in
next year.
MONTY: And I think that’s potentially
the reason why Shaun, wants to move this forward.
MASCARENAS: That is why we’re doing to
now.
STANLEY: Yeah, absolutely.
MONTY: Because in a year from now,
there’s going to be five new ones, potentially.
STANLEY: And it could be very
contentious, if this stuff isn’t figured out before then.
MONTY: Especially if a few democrats get
in charge.
STANLEY: Well, every once in a while, great things happen.
MASCARENAS: That was pretty good, Matt.
No, you guys were chosen for specific
reasons, your expertise, your willingness to work and big users of the County.
HUGHES: I’m not a big user of the
County.
MASCARENAS: No, but you understand IT
and you work on County issues.
HUGHES: Yeah, yeah
MASCARENAS: Matt, is a user of a lot of
services and Jay, kind of coined of a lot, when Randy, was here, quite frankly.
We shifted a lot. What we don’t understand, so like, Anna, we’ve got to work
with on redefining her department, period.
HUGHES: Yes
MASCARENAS: And I promised her, I would
help her with that and I have failed her miserably. Rob Wick, leaving us put a
lot of bigger demand on our department.
HUGHES: Yeah
MASCARENAS: Because we’re seeing more
that come through with towns. So, when Rob, came, Rob was specialty was kind of
doing RFPs and that kind of thing for towns, Rob’s gone. That spillover has
come to us, with no added staffing or no added anything. So, sometimes and now
she doesn’t have anybody with that level of expertise that does that work and
so maybe we need to refine that roll in her department, too.
TANSEY: I am sure that every department
has that person that they have lost or gain and has changed the dynamics.
MASCARENAS: Yeah
STANLEY: The problem is, even though the
County is bigger than the Towns, you still have people that you hire that have expertise in certain
things.
MASCARENAS: Absolutely
STANLEY: And you start to mold something
around those people who are there and then when you lose that person and you
get somebody else with a different skill set that can bring something else to
the table, but you might lose something.
MASCARENAS: Exactly, exactly, Matt and I
think just the discussion was great, today, so far.
MONTY: Why don’t we plan on meeting
again on February 3rd. That gives us a little time to generate some
ideas and thoughts and get them to Ken, to place in a Google Document. Maybe,
right after the Regular Board meeting. There’s nothing else until the 24th
of February.
MASCARENAS: What would you like
accomplished before then?
MONTY: That’s a good point, Mike.
MASCARENAS: That’s where we’ve got to be
task driven.
MONTY: I agree
HUGHES: Absolutely.
MASCARENAS: Those meeting have to happen
by then.
BRASSARD: Absolutely
MONTY: Meet with Community Resources and
the Attorney and just for thought process, because Steve’s traveling the
farthest, should it be two and two and I’m not trying to keep Steve out of it,
but if he wants to join in, just a thought.
MASCARENAS: You can zoom him in, you can
do whatever.
HUGHES: Steve, is incredibly invested in
that planning conversation.
BRASSARD: Absolutely.
HUGHES: He’s very invested in that.
BRASSARD: Listen, he’s willing to come
all the way up for lunch. He doesn’t bother him to get in the car and come up
here.
HUGHES: So, we’re going to split the
group up and meeting with County Attorney and Community Resources, that’s the
first task.
MONTY: Yup, yup
MASCARENAS: Can we develop some sort of
a template, prior to, is the question?
HUGHES: Yeah, we can.
MASCARENAS: Somewhere to start.
HUGHES: So, you seem to have a pretty
good idea of maybe what that might look like, you and I can work together on
that; okay? And that will be before those meetings, template design with Mike.
MONTY: Before the 3rd.
HUGHES: This will be maybe within the
next 7-10 days.
MASCARENAS: At least done by Friday, I
would think.
HUGHES: Okay, okay, I’ll work on Mike
with that. Once we get the template, then the meetings can take place with the
County Attorney. Who wants to do what?
MASCARENAS: if you do have any thoughts
of something, questions you want on there, let us know.
HUGHES: How are we splitting up the 5 of
us?
TANSEY: You mean the Supervisors?
MASCARENAS: I can go to all of them,
since they are going to be local. I mean, it’s going to be an hour of my day.
HUGHES: Here is the question, do we want
Bill going to Community Resources? Is that what this is about?
BRASSARD: No
MONTY: No, I thought we were doing the
Supervisors.
HUGHES: Is it just the Supervisors who are
doing it?
MONTY: I don’t know why anybody on the
Committee can’t go.
MASCARENAS: Yeah
HUGHES: That’s fine, again, just
defining parameters.
MONTY: Right
HUGHES: I didn’t know if the department
people that are here wanted to be involved with those questions or
conversations?
MONTY: That would give us, you know…
STANLEY: I think it would be great to
include, at least, a Department Head, because they may think about something in
another department that affects their department.
HUGHES: Sure, absolutely.
STANLEY: So, it may further the
conversation along.
MASCARENAS: And I’m more apt to speak up
in those wishy-washy situations than a Department Head.
HUGHES: Yeah, you do bring a lot to the
table.
MASCARENAS: When it comes to, like, hang
on, Bill, you do this, you do this, you’re not taking credit for it.
TANSEY: Yeah
MASCARENAS: Right now, you’re not
actually saying it, but you also do this, you do this; right? That kind of
thing.
TANSEY: You’ve thrown in Community
Resources and County Attorney and they’re opposite extremes of being used or
not used by the Towns. I think Real Property is another Department that a lot
of people could learn more about, but my sense is that is a County only
department, so in this initial brush, I would add Real Property to get another perspective.
MASCARENAS: We’re going to do them all.
TANSEY: I know that you are. I was just
thinking, this February 3rd, so much has been said today, maybe some
of it’s going to congeal on the 3rd and just getting that third
input.
MASCARENAS: Yeah
TANSEY: There be another part.
HUGHES: Do you think we should do three
departments before the 3rd?
MASCARENAS: Data Collectors, do not
exist in any other county.
TANSEY: In Real Property?
MASCARENAS: So, about ½ of their payroll
is town driven.
TANSEY: Is it? I didn’t even know that.
HUGHES: I didn’t know that either.
MASCARENAS: The assessors work, they’re
completing a lot of that work on behalf of assessors.
HUGHES: I would like to recommend that
we get really good with Community Resources and Legal. Let’s get really good
with that and we can maybe branch out. Because IT is going to be very
important, too, right? I’m not saying it’s not.
MASCARENAS: No, they all are. Community
Resources, that low hanging fruit, that’s 100% town that we know.
HUGHES: I want to take the Attorney
side.
MONTY: I originally had that
conversation with my assessor. I don’t mind having two people from the County
in town.
BRASSARD: I know what Bill does for me.
I want Community Resources.
HUGHES: Okay
STANLEY: I’ll go Legal with you.
DOUGAN: Put me on both.
HUGHES: You want to do both?
DOUGAN: Yeah
TANSEY: I’ll do what you tell me.
HUGHES: I’m not in charge, I’m asking
what you would like to do.
TANSEY: I would like to sit on the
meeting with Community Resources and I will sit on the meeting with County
Attorney, too.
MASCARENAS: Bill, likes to learn.
TANSEY: I do, I love learning.
HUGHES: So, Mike Mascarenas is on both.
I’m going to do Attorney, Matt is going to do Attorney, Matt’s going to
Community Resources, Jim’s going to do both.
STANLEY: Steve will do Community
Resources.
HUGHES: Steve McNally will do Community
Resources. Is that it?
MASCARENAS: They can piggyback off of
me. They’re here for budget purposes, so when we have questions about finances,
when we get into that, I can say, Linda, go pull this, Jen, go pull this, this
is the information that we need.
MONTY: I’ll do both.
STANLEY: So, people being on both, we’re
not going to be able to do this after meetings next week.
HUGHES: Yeah, the more people we have on
each one, the more difficult it is to schedule something that works with all of
our times.
STANLEY: But, I guess what I’m saying
is, by not splitting up evenly into the two things, it can’t be done at the
same time, so they will have to be at separate days or separate times.
HUGHES: Oh yeah
MASCARENAS: And I can be at one or
either.
HUGHES: Okay
MASCARENAS: So, don’t use that as a
reason. I know enough about them.
HUGHES: Okay
MASCARENAS: I ran one of them.
HUGHES: So, I will take responsibility
for organizing the Attorney one. Who wants to take responsibility for
organizing the Community Resources, conversation?
BRASSARD: I will
HUGHES: Matt, will, okay. Can we do
that?
MONTY: Yeah
HUGHES: Someone takes the lead for that
meeting.
BRASSARD: I’ll just email.
HUGHES: Yup, just do the emails.
MONTY: And you’re going to work on the
template?
MASCARENAS: Yup
HUGHES: We’ll work on the template. I’ll
start putting some stuff up on the shared Google Document, so we can all see
the same things and you don’t have to send things to me, you can put it right
there, but if you want to send it to me for time, you can and I’ll put it up
there for you.
STANLEY: Now, keep in mind from the
middle of February through March, is the issues with Association of Towns, NACo
and then NYSAC.
MASCARENAS: I think once we start
rolling it will be easy. It’s getting that initial, what do we want? What are
we trying to capture for information and what are we needing it for? Once we
get that initial, it will roll pretty quick, because then they’ll have their
marching orders, what we need financially, right? And the Department Heads will
know, kind of what are templates are for services.
HUGHES: And what’s nice about each one
of these departments, too, is they’re relatively smaller, you’ve got 4 people?
TANSEY: 4
HUGHES: They got 4-5 over there. So, if they want to bring all their staff
together to meet with us, and we have a meeting of 8,9, or 10 people, it will
be a manageable conversation.
MASCARENAS: I would like it, if they
want to do that.
HUGHES: Yeah, I’m okay with that,
because I think the staff should be involved in providing that feedback.
MASCARENAS: It humanizes the Board, with
the staff here that don’t get to see you much.
HUGHES: Yeah, yeah, so I think that’s a
benefit.
MONTY: Okay
HUGHES: So, three tasks before the 3rd,
three different things we’ll get done.
MONTY: Yup and I think that will get us
on the right plane to just take off and go and after we get together again, as
a group, we’ll re-task and figure out which direction we’re going.
HUGHES: Love it
MONTY: And any thoughts that come up
between now and then, by all means, share with the Google Document or Ken and
myself and I’ve been saving all the emails and responses that I’ve gotten back
from departments on what they actually do for towns, except for Linda’s.
Linda’s was all of everything, not you, Linda Beers.
DOUGAN: I will share this, because I
tried to breakout, under traffic control or highway admin or engineering or
maintenance and roads, solid waste, I tried to share, buildings and grounds,
all the things, areas that I think we do some work for towns and I made a
reimbursement column off the side, where we’re already, because somethings
we’re already reimbursed, you guys do work for us, we do work for you, when it
comes to your highway crews. I don’t think we need to talk about that a lot.
MASCARENAS: I do, you know why? Because
I’ve been saying for a couple of years now, I believe they need to be
standardized. I think it’s silly, because the Town of Keene choses to pay a HEO
more, I pay more, then they pay me for my guy? That seems weird. Why is my guys
worth less than that guy? Or we pay more than towns in a lot of towns. To me, I
would like to see a standardized rate for HEO, MEO, in every town, because when
you’re paying the rate. So, we’re paying the actual rate of that employee,
right now and you’re paying us the actual rate. What’s the billable rate?
Right, so you just submit hours, if everybody can agree and it escalates by
3-4% on an annual basis. That way there’s fairness and equity in it. Some towns
can do work cheaper, having us do it then themselves, because they’ve chose to
pay a higher rate.
BRASSARD: Take like Newcomb.
MASCARENAS: Newcomb’s a good example.
BRASSARD: Newcomb is a perfect example.
MASCARENAS: Right, they pay their guys
such a high rate.
BRASSARD: I think Moriah and the County
are pretty even, right now.
MASCARENAS: Yeah, I agree with that,
there’s some policy and procedure there, as well. I mean you guys heard the
story of the town that we were paving for, that they all stopped at 2:00 in the
afternoon and we stayed there until 6:00 PM. We’re paving their road.
MONTY: And my guys stay at that town and
work, I have to pay them overtime, because if they stay with the County, as
they should, if he’s paving, my guys stay there, and when the town repays it,
because of the handshake agreement between superintendents and 1:00, they’re
out the door.
HUGHES: And I do think that handshake
agreement, where there’s no cash exchanged, right, is still a service that’s
provided and I think that needs to be externalized, I really do. We can say,
this is something we do and we already have a solution for how we handle that.
DOUGAN: Right, after Covid or as we were
coming out of Covid and all of us are struggling for people, we said things
like, I’m going to focus on helping the town that finds a way to help me do
other things. Even if it’s not paving itself. If you’re the town that always
gives me trucks, then I’m going to try and find a way to also do your paving
for you.
HUGHES: Right
DOUGAN: We’re all kind of coming out of
that, but last year was a storm. So, I wasn’t able to pave for a lot of towns.
MONTY: And a lot of times…
DOUGAN: But, it’s a little bit of policy
on how we would make some of those decisions, because again, I do answer to all
you guys. You guys all appoint me, every 4 years or not.
MONTY: And I think you’ll find, also
find on top of what Jim, just said, there’s a lot of us who drive over county
roads to get to town roads and we don’t do anything. I harp on my highway guys,
if we’re driving down, I am going to use County Route 10, to get to some of my
town roads on the other end, why not drop the plow? You’re driving over it,
drop the plow. What’s it hurt and stuff?
DOUGAN: That’s only the towns that are
real close to us when it comes to plowing, but you’re right.
MONTY: But, there’s other things. I can
do the brushing in my town. I can do ditching for you.
BRASSARD: I get in an argument with
Jamie, all the time. I’m like 80% of the people that live in Moriah, don’t know
if that’s a County road or a Town road, it’s true.
MASCARENAS: We’ll pay to do it. Do you
want to mow, you do our mowing, we’ll pay you to do it.
STANLEY: On the flip side, it gets to
the point where you got people, why are you doing that stuff for the County?
Because if we don’t do it for the County, it’s going to cost more for the
County to come over to do it, without our guys there. It’s like, are you going
to cut off your nose to spite your face, just because it’s not your job? Like at
the end of the day, you’re paying for the services of the County and the Town.
It’s getting done. Like my previous Highway Superintendent, kind of was really
like, well, the County’s taking advantage of us. No, they’re not, to your
point, you’re going across that roads, anyways. We’re not going to stop doing
the County contract, the Board’s not going to allow you to do that, otherwise,
you’re going to take 3 less guys.
MASCARENAS: Right, because it pays for 3
employees or 4 employees.
STANLEY: And it just comes down that
whole thing. It’s a symbiotic relationship between the Towns and the County.
MONTY: And you throw in the fact that
Highway Superintendents are elected, in most cases and not appointed, I don’t
have any standing to dictate to him what he does.
STANLEY: You don’t, but you have a
standing on purse strings.
MASCARENAS: Finances
MONTY: Oh, absolutely.
Anything else before we end. I think
we’ve got our tasks.
HUGHES: This is going to be a good
conversation.
AS
THERE WAS NO FURTHER BUSINESS TO COME BEFORE THIS TASK FORCE, IT WAS ADJOURNED
AT 1:05 PM
Respectively Submitted,
Dina L. Garvey, Deputy Clerk
Board of Supervisors