It happens every year. When Ellenville property owners receive their tax bills and they see the costs for being both a village and town resident, they often ask if there isn't a way to reduce taxes. Often, the question is raised as to why must village residents pay two levels of taxation? That kind of thinking, that New York is overburdened with too many tax-levying entities, has moved all the way up to Albany where Governor Eliot Spitzer has pushed the idea of shared municipal services to decrease taxes that have forced many businesses and residents to leave the state.

With regard to Ellenville and Wawarsing, the first municipality on the chopping block is always the village since towns are legally mandated to exist by New York state law while local residents vote to incorporate villages. But what if things were different?

Ellenville Mayor Jeff Kaplan, along with the support of New York State Assemblyman Kevin Cahill, has looked at the Ellenville-Wawarsing consolidation question in a unique way: rather than doing away with the village, what if the town dissolved and its responsibilities were passed on to county governments?

As recent as an October 16 "Meet the Candidates" night, the Ellenville Journal reported Kaplan's public comments on the question of consolidation.

"There's a reason for a village government, that is, service in an area where there's a dense amount of population. I sort of question the need for towns, more than the need for villages."

In follow-up interviews, Kaplan elaborated on his view of the subject of consolidation of services in the area, saying that one of the issues at hand is that New York residents may be looking in the wrong place to cut government costs.

"There are a lot of layers of government in New York state. We really should look at the entire landscape [and ask] what purpose does each entity serve, and what services do we need? We should look area by area and see what services are provided by what entity, and who is best equipped to give that service."

Kaplan offered Wawarsing's hamlet of Ulster Heights as an example of an area in the town that receives few town services, saying, "They get no water, they get no sewer, there's no police protection. So basically what they get from the town government is highway-street department. That street department's duties can just as well be served by the county street department — they don't need a town government for that."

Kaplan then listed the services village residents receive from their government. "You get water, you get sewer, you get police protection, etc. Most of the budget is for these services and if the village didn't do it, someone else would have to. So my point is, there isn't a lot that a town does for many areas of the town that couldn't be easily incorporated into what the county does. It would be much more difficult for the town to take over what the village does. So if you're looking for consolidation of government, it's an easier consolidation for the county to do the job of the town than for the town to do the job of the village."

Kaplan continued, saying that such a hypothetical consolidation might involve drawing up different boundaries for the area — an act, Kaplan made sure to mention, which could only be done by the state, and not any local governing body.

"You'd probably look at the areas of your town, and say, 'We should really expand the area that we call the Village of Ellenville, make it into a city, and incorporate areas that may even reach out into Napanoch,'" said Kaplan.

"And it's not like Ellenville would take over Napanoch, they may reinvigorate the whole thing by calling that area something different altogether, with different districts within the municipality. But if you truly wanted to say, 'We have too much government, what can we do to consolidate?' I think that that's the direction that you should be looking at, consolidate the areas that really don't offer much in the way of services to begin with into a county government, and increase the areas where there are dense populations that you are providing services to."

In an October 29 interview, State Assemblyman Kevin Cahill threw his support behind Kaplan's ideas, revealing that the merging and consolidation of local governments was the topic of his senior thesis when he was a college student.

"There's a great inefficiency in New York State governmental structure, in that we have, literally, tens of thousands of local government entities," said Cahill. "What has happened over the course of, really, the last hundred years, is that bureaucracies have emerged, they've become entrenched, and they've become costly. So, I fully support the same concept that Jeff is talking about in terms of finding ways to cooperate between levels of government, finding ways to merge those governments where it's possible and where it makes sense. And in fact, I supported an addition to the budget last year in the state of New York of twenty-five million dollars to go out and look for opportunities like that in the state of New York, to actually find places where we could combine services, where we could bring about efficiencies in local governments. Municipalities are entitled to seek funding under that program to accomplish just what Jeff is talking about."

Cahill went on to say that, "[Municipalities] can apply for funding for the purposes of encouraging any kind of municipal consolidation or cooperation," and that this problem goes beyond simply town or village governments, but extends also to other "special" districts, such as library, school, or fire districts. "When you add them all together, I think there's something approaching 20,000 governments in New York State," said Cahill.

In addition to the $25 million dollar fund, the Local Government Efficiency and Competitiveness Commission was set up; it is a group which is responsible for looking for consolidation opportunities, such as combining sewer districts, finding a way to combine municipal services, or the dissolution of a corporate entity like a village or a town.

"It could very well be that we find ways to provide these services at a cooperative basis that allows us to be more efficient," said Cahill, who also reported that he is currently in the process of drafting legislation to take a modern look at the consolidation of the schools across the state of New York, the last time any such look was made being in the early 1950s.

When asked if there have been any other areas that have successfully emerged from local government consolidations, Cahill pointed to Connecticut as a great example of what can be achieved through such efforts.

"The whole state of Connecticut went through this exercise about six or seven years ago to very great success. Across New York State, we're seeing the beginnings, the seeds of this, but there's no question about it: Mayor Kaplan is way out front on this one, and he needs to be applauded for that."

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