SKANEATELES --
If you're looking for the local government in Skaneateles you can go to the town hall. You could also go to the Skaneateles Village Offices around the corner. The village is in the town but they have their own departments. At least for now. Next year a new law goes into effect in New York that is aimed at helping local governments consolidate and combine.
The Mayor of the village of Skaneateles says the law is aimed at eliminating villages like his and the supposed tax savings could cost some taxpayers.
"When you talk consolidation, the talk is of dissolving villages,” said Robert Green
The Mayor explained that the village has its own sewer, electricity, police force and special streetlights. He says they all would need to go onto town tax rolls.
"What's going to happen with village dissolving is that village residents taxes more than likely will go down, town residents taxes - the residents of the town that currently live outside village boundaries - their taxes will go up because they will have to pick up some of the cost for those services."
County Executive Joanie Mahoney says that's not the case. She says those services exist within special tax districts and only people who live in the district would pay for them.
Mahoney added that the times are changing and tight budgets make some consolidation inevitable.
"We're going to go in that direction anyway and what I've said for the past two years is, let's go there in a planned careful way,” said Mahoney. “Let's talk about what we want to look like in the end and not let it get to crisis point where people are making decisions out of desperation."
Mayor Green and other New York State mayors say the new law is rushed and should allow for more time to determine if the consolidation will save money.
