County-wide shared services projects could offer tax savings

Jan. 3—Otsego County is slated to participate in two projects under the county's shared services plan for 2024 with the goal of capturing property tax savings by enabling collaboration between local governments.

Tammie Harris, director of the Otsego County Planning and Solid Waste departments, presented the results of the 2023 planning process to the county Board of Representatives Wednesday, Jan. 3.

The 35-member shared services panel included the county chief executive official, the mayor of each city or village and the supervisor of each town of Otsego County.

Entities that could participate and be project partners, but not vote on the panel, included school districts, BOCES, special improvement districts and fire districts.

Shared services plans contain new actions that result in new property tax savings, and can't be existing agreements.

The group was tasked with identifying collaborative projects with each other, other counties or municipalities in different counties.

Examples of previous proposed actions include shared equipment purchases, accounting software and EMS and stream restoration management programs, which were completed to various degrees due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Harris said.

Otsego County completed plans for 2019, 2020 and 2022 and state match applications for the town and village of Otego joint equipment purchase.

The panel, with 21 out of 35 panel members in attendance, voted Dec. 20 in favor of two projects. By mid January, the county needs to provide the finalized plans to the state.

The first identified project is between Montgomery, Otsego and Schoharie counties for a shared leachate line.

The plan is to install a pipe to convey leachate — formed when water filters through garbage in a landfill — from the the closed MOSA Eastern Landfill in Montgomery County to the Amsterdam Wastewater Treatment Plant.

The Montgomery-Otsego-Schoharie Solid Waste Authority expired in 2014.

Harris said the property tax savings were calculated by looking at the overall cost estimate of installing the pipe versus the potential cost of contracted hauling to truck out the leachate.

Currently, Montgomery County trucks out the leachate in-house, but is struggling to keep CDL drivers on staff, especially ones willing to truck leachate, and the equipment used to truck the leachate has started to deteriorate as well, she said.

The estimated total project cost of the pipe is $3.17 million. The annual cost for contracted hauling would be $626,200.

Funding for the pipe would come from a state Local Government Efficiency grant for Montgomery and Otsego counties, and Schoharie County identified ARPA funds for its share of the project.

Spreading the cost of the project over a 40-year useful life at an amortization schedule puts the estimated cost of the project at $79,250 a year, which means an overall annual savings of $546,950.

Breaking that savings down by county, Otsego would see an annual savings of $218,780, since it shoulders 40% of the share based on the existing landfill post closure agreement.

Montgomery County, at 42% of the share, would save $229,719 annually, and Schoharie County shares 18% and would save $98,451 annually.

Harris said the other identify project is a special operations team between Otsego County and the city of Oneonta.

The county has equipment for response to hazardous materials events and weapons of mass destruction events and a few people who are trained as hazmat technicians on staff.

The Oneonta Fire Department has six staff members who are trained as hazmat technicians.

The project would create a complete team that can adequately respond in a timely manner rather than relying on the state to respond locally.

The savings were calculated by looking at what the county would have to spend to build up individual hazmat teams versus combining with Oneonta, and what Oneonta would have to spend on the equipment needed to be able to respond to a hazmat situation.

The annual cost savings to the county by sharing trained personnel with the city would be $288,000. The annual cost savings to Oneonta by sharing equipment totaling $317,000 amortized over a five-year useful life with the county would be $78,400 for a total annual cost savings of $366,400 in avoided costs.

The next steps for the project partners are to develop any needed memorandums of agreement, creating a timeline for how to roll out the projects and initiate any grant processes.

Once implemented, the projects will show actually generated taxpayer savings, which means the county can put in a match application to the state for additional funding.

Harris said the shared services plan is slated to be available mid-January online at www.otsegocounty.com/departments/planning_department.