WAWARSING – There are state incentives being offered to villages interested in consolidating into surrounding townships, or dissolving completely, and to clear up misconceptions about what's what the village of Ellenville and town of Wawarsing held a joint meeting September 15 to discuss their options with representatives from the NY Department of State.

"There has been no decision made by the village," village mayor Jeff Kaplan started the session with.

While the decision to dissolve a village is primarily up to the village itself, he added that the state as well as the town and village are concerned with the ever increasing cost of residing in the village and are seeking ways to cut costs.

"I hate when people say 'I don't want to live in the village because it's too expensive'," Kaplan said.

According to Robert Roeckle, one of the two DOS reps on hand, the state legislature is looking at ways to minimize the multiple levels of local government and has passed legislation that provides a unified process for the consolidation and dissolution of local government entities, including two methods for entities to consider: board-initiated or citizen-initiated.

The board-initiated process starts with a study to determine the possible impacts associated with reorganization, be it via consolidation or dissolution. With a citizen-initiated process, there is no study and residents vote on a consolidation or dissolution plan, essentially sight unseen. If the petition and vote are approved the process continues; if the referendum fails, reorganization will not take place and the process may not be initiated again, for the same purpose, for at least four years.

Under previous laws, a study prior to vote was required; this has since been dropped. The nearby Sullivan County village of Bloomingburg is moving its process directly to a referendum on September 30.

Roeckle and Carl Ublacker, the other state rep on hand, noted that citizen-initiated referendums often fail; their recommendation was to do some sort of study or analysis before voting so as to determine the financial ramification of both consolidating and dissolving and the future of village and town services offered to tax payers, and what the affect would be on taxpayers' bottom lines.

One of the biggest concerns regarding dissolution in Ellenville — and the elephant in the room, according to village manager Joe Stoeckeler — was the village police department.

"I was a big proponent of moving forward and looking into dissolution until this issue popped up," Kaplan said, noting that his original belief that the department could be continued has been proved wrong.

Roeckle and Ublacker also talked about incentives. If the village dissolves, they said, the town would receive 15 percent of the dissolved municipality's tax levy, as well as 15 percent of their own tax levy back in state aid annually... forever, or until the aid is ended. In the village's case that equates to nearly $540,000 per year.

Beyond the police, the added hurdle of assets and debt was discussed. According to state reps, if a village was to dissolve into a town, the dissolved entity's assets (a village hall, for example) would go to the town, but any debt (sewer district, for example) or obligations would remain with the village.

"Clearly, we are not just going to see the assets of the village go to the town; we're not giving the revenue and keeping the debt," said Kaplan. "Quite frankly, the state doesn't handle it properly. For the state to say the village could maintain the debt but it's up to the town to do what they want with the assets — that's ludicrous."

There are options regarding the police — moving towards a townwide police department or involving the Ulster County Sheriff's department — as well as options regarding consolidation rather than full on dissolving.

At present, municipalities are not being penalized if they don't comply with state recommendations, but that isn't to say such things aren't headed down the pike. And it's that uncertainty, and possibility, that has Wawarsing town supervisor Leonard Distel and the village mayor concerned. "It's too premature to tell," Distel said, "we don't know what the governor plans down the road."

The next step, according to Kaplan, is to take another look at the process.

"In my opinion, I think the state legislature is not doing a good job at making this an easy process," he added. "The benefits start to get watered down when you don't have control of what's going to happen... We're looking to find ways to save tax payers money and we'll continue in that direction both in the village and town, and push towards that."