Association of Counties Report

Roger Neel/WNBF News [April 24, 2014][/caption]Broome County Executive Debra Preston is coming off a couple days of work in Albany during the New York State Association of Counties’ 2016 Legislative Conference.

Preston says a couple issues the counties feel are hobbling them: the property tax cap that makes funding services and projects difficult and state mandates that don’t come with any funding to cover them. The Republican says the tax cap calculations are complicated and it appears that Broome County has zero growth in the tax rate for 2017 to fund projects.

Preston says under local budget planning, school districts have formed efficiency plans and the county has worked with other municipalities to put together required service-sharing and cost-cutting ideas.

The county Executive says continued work on that could go toward getting State Department grant money for larger-sized shared services projects. Preston says she plans to call that group back together in March to discuss efficiency plans.

Meetings February 2 looked at the heroin epidemic, drone safety and food waste recovery.

Preston said she was in the process of also gathering information about increasing the age of criminal responsibility, that could take younger offenders out of jails. With the County currently in the process of building on to the current lockup, Preston says he wasn’t sure if the measure would have any impact on the local jail population and housing needs.