For quite awhile now, members of the East Greenbush Police Department, the Schodack Police Department, North Greenbush Police Department and the City of Rensselaer Police Department, have been meeting to discuss "sharing" expertise amongst themselves and to also explore merging services where feasible to stop the waste and save tax dollars!
EGPD,NGPD and Schodack Police have used this concept sucessfully for years with the formation of the Community Emergency Services Team or SWAT team that was formed back in 1993. The Towns currently also share accident investigators and evidence technicians amongst the departments. Firearms training and annual re-qualifications are currently being looked at for ways to combine and save time which would ultimately save budget dollars.
The concept began locally sometime back in 2008. East Greenbush Officer Jim Condo contacted representatives from the surrounding agencies to discuss the overlapping services and to investigate where they could combine and eliminate waste. Those meetings were difficult at first, but as the concept grew and became more enticing to each administrator because of the budget savings, the meetings became more than just a "brainstorming" event- they actually investigated several options including combining departments or at the very least , combining the communications portions together into a central dispatch for the four agencies and possibly the Village of Nassau. This idea has grown legs and with the support of each Department Chief , will continue to progress forward .
Why is this being mentioned you ask? Well, its actually very simple. Each day , we read the financial forcast for the region as well as the United States as a whole. The Times Union just ran an article highliting the Guilderland Police Departments overtime costs and true- the Town of Guilderland is bigger than East Greenbush, but their budget takes the same hit as East Greenbush when it comes to overtime funding.
Over the past few weeks , we've seen the New York State Police getting crucified for the raises they got when the State was actually cutting peoples jobs, and the amount of money those Troopers got in their raises made ALOT of taxpayers furious. Governor Cuomo reversed the pay raises and that seemed to have remedied the issue - all beit temporarily.
East Greenbush has some of the finest emergency services in the Capital Region. Our Police Department is second to none. They have been very deligent in keeping the people of East Greenbush safe and regardless of whether or not a political hopeful cares for them, the Police just keep doing their job. They are to be commended for their recent arrests and dealings with some HEROINE users and dealers in Town.
The continuing exploration of these shared services between Police Departments should not go un noticed and should be encouraged at all levels of Town Government. Its not easy work for the officers involved , but they keep trying - to everyones benefit. Excellent work ladies and gentlemen! You are to be applauded for your efforts !
Excellent ! It's efforts such as this that never seem to get mentioned. This is what the people of East Greenbush need to know about.
ReplyDeleteIt can't always be about writing tickets and making shoplifting arrests at Walmart. It is refreshing to learn that they are making the effort to reduce costs. Thank you !
If shared services seems to be a good idea that is acceptable to voters how do people feel about the Governor's town merger concept?
ReplyDeleteThe principle is the same...a merger enables there to be economies of scale. School districts do not need anywhere near the high paid staff they now have, the same is true for most all other town operations.
East Greenbush is a small town with massive spending on the school system, our three fire districts, our utterly out of control ambulance squad, our town hall operations, even our library. Would a merger make sense? Businesses and labor unions merge all the time. They merge for precisely the reasons Governor Cuomo is advocating. Are circumstances right for the people of East Greenbush to consider getting on board with Governor Cuomo's concept?
Shared Services has been attempted and worked on for several years. The Governors concept is simply that , a concept , an idea. The only people who will screw the entire concept up is .......yup - POLITICIANS!
ReplyDeleteThe people of East Greenbush, North Greenbush, Schodack or any other neighboring municipality will be caught up in the power frenzy that is guaranteed to ensue when the politicians try for the "ultimate power grab".