NORWICH – The Town of Norwich needs a show of good faith from the city before it will even consider looking at other ways the two municipalities could share or combine services, one town official says.
That good faith measure: looking into the possibility of creating an intermunicipal fire district between the two governments along with the town of North Norwich, says Norwich town Councilwoman Joanna Chiarino.
State officials said Wednesday they aren’t sure if it’s legally possible to create a fire district covering multiple towns and a city.
Limited research Wednesday and Friday did not uncover evidence supportive or un-supportive of a city/town district.
However, John Clarkson, the executive director of Governor Spitzer’s appointed Commission on Local Government Efficiency, said that having such intermunicipal discussions can still be beneficial to both sides. Chiarino hopes the talks, scheduled to begin Dec. 7, act as a “starting point.”
“We need to have cooperation on both sides before we think of going in on something else,” she said. “We’re certainly not going to jump with both feet into a study where the city finds out what it wants and the town has no say.”
Earlier this month, the Norwich town board opted out of taking part in a mostly state-funded study that Albany claims would’ve examined how the town and the city could jointly reduced duplicated services and cuts costs to taxpayers.
Chiarino and the town board have made it clear they’re not interested in merging, and cited the city’s lack of cooperation on previous tries to examine the feasibility of the intermunicipal fire district as deterrent to collaborating in other areas.
City of Norwich Mayor Joseph Maiurano says the city plans to fully cooperate in upcoming fire district discussions.
The city/town merger and consolidation discussions revved-up in September when the Commission on Local Government Efficiency and Competitiveness announced 150 state-wide initiatives to cut-back on government redundancy. Based on recommendation from local governments, the commission asked that the city and town look at a possible merger.
“The core of the issue is finding out where there is the potential to save money,” said Clarkson.
Under current state law, if the town and city consolidated, their combined annual state aid – about $1.1million for the city, $30,000 for the town – would be permanently increased by 25 percent. Based on 2007 figures, that means the consolidated government would see an extra $275,000 per year.
The commission is considering making recommendations to the legislature this spring that would change state laws to give more incentives to small governments to consolidate or merge.
Right now, the commission will act as a resource to municipalities.
“We’re not going to recommend what Norwich should do,” said Clarkson. “We’re here to assist in any way we can with the resources we have. We just ask that people keep an open mind.”
Town officials believe merging would not work because the town and city have different needs. Also, the city has a much higher tax rate than the town, a burden that the town feels may be passed along its residents if there were a merger.
Clarkson said it’s not unusual that towns lack interest in merging. He said there examples of cities and towns combining successfully. Saratoga Springs, Rome and Oneida are all combined cities. They operate with two separate tax structures; one for the urbanized residents, and one for the more rural (town) residents. He said the urban residents usually pay more in taxes because they require more services.
“That’s one way to work around those issues,” he said.