Geneva Progress
Possible Economies for
City Taxpayers
Memo originally forwarded to Geneva City Council in
early 2008. Date of this final draft is 9/28/2008.
In light of the fiscal dilemmas of many cities in the
US, compounded by the growing recession, state and local
governments more than ever are reviewing the way they do
business and how they perform their critical functions.
For at least a couple of years, the State of New York
has started to openly discuss the opportunities to
improve the allocation and conservation of limited
resources by pooling and consolidating services across
multiple municipal jurisdictions. With over 1600 local
government entities in New York, the opportunities for
streamlining “government” abound.
For example:
The Town and Village of Seneca Falls are investigating
(with a grant from NY State) ways to consolidate some of
their operations.
In June 2008, the Town of Clay voted to merge its police
operations into those of Onondaga County Sheriff’s
Department to improve both administrative as well as
operational efficiency.[2]
Certain infrastructure functions are simply natural
areas for reducing costs through economies of scale.
For over 25 years, the Town of Geneva has purchased
water from an extension of the City of Geneva’s water
system rather than build its own plant.
Road and highway maintenance and repair are another area
where consolidation makes good sense.
In the recent past, formal attempts have been made to
initiate discussions between the Town of Geneva (“Town”)
and the City of Geneva (“City”) to determine where the
opportunities lie for cooperation and consolidation that
will save tax payers real money. These talks have not
gone very far because of the wide discrepancy between
tax rates of the two communities and a lack of
leadership to take the next steps.
While this long-running debate unfolds, the City has
started planning for the 2009 City budget. We need to
take a hard look at our finances for two reasons: first,
because there is an immediate payoff in lowering or
eliminating the potential for a tax increase and second,
we need to put ourselves in the best position possible
to encourage consolidation of services with the Town by
demonstrating that we are committed to improving City
operations.
Redundant
Dispatching Functions at Geneva Fire Department
One area where there appears to be immediate
opportunities for saving taxpayer funds is the
elimination of redundant activities such as the City of
Geneva Fire Department’s 9-1-1 dispatching system.
Unlike all other communities in Ontario County, the City
staffs its own emergency communications through the
Geneva Fire Department. This activity is a hold-over
from a bygone era when dispatching and communications
technologies were more primitive and less effective. As
a result, fire response dispatching needed to be handled
at a local level. For example Geneva’s system of pull
boxes, technically called the Gamewell System was a huge
advance in fire emergency technology 40 years ago. But
over the last 15 years it has been eclipsed by a host of
innovations in communications and technologies that
offer a broader and more robust range of options that
combine high speed fiber optics, Internet, cell phone,
and microwave communications.
The State of New York now has a system of 62 county
emergency services that are all interconnected for
redundancy and back-up in case of statewide or national
emergencies. In addition, individual counties can back
one another up when one county system has problems. Fire
departments all over Ontario County as well as other
counties throughout the state get their fire and
emergency notifications from specialized county offices
of emergency services that typically come under the
purview of the County Sheriffs Departments. These
centralized 9-1-1 operations dispatch fire, rescue,
police, and medical responses for virtually all
emergencies.
Based on my knowledge of the current system and setup in
the City of Geneva, I believe there is a real
opportunity for the City to disband its redundant 9-1-1
dispatching service and allow the Ontario County
Emergency Management Service to take over saving City
taxpayers somewhere around $200K plus per year when
fully implemented with no loss of response
effectiveness. I further believe that a transition to
the County operation could be effected quickly after the
appropriate technical and administrative issues are
addressed and with no disruption of service. It is also
very possible that Geneva’s full-time dispatchers could
transfer to the County operation.
Rationale for Making the Switch
1. Advances in technology long ago achieved the needed
sophistication to allow emergency communications to be
centralized at the County level.
2. The Geneva system is redundant at this point for all
calls which come by cell phone or land line. (Cell phone
calls may already be going to the County 9-1-1 system.)
with this signal being indifferent to where it goes. The
only unique aspect of Geneva’s 9-1-1 system is that the
Gamewell Pull Station system features approximately 100
hard wired pull stations that send a signal directly to
the Geneva Fire Department dispatch system on Geneva
Street. With the use of some additional technology, this
system could also be tied into the County’s 9-1-1
system.
3. No other local fire department in Ontario County
handles 9-1-1 services. Geneva is almost unique in this
activity both regionally as well as for its size. In
fact it is highly unusual that a small community has a
need to do its own 9-1-1 emergency response. Name almost
any City in New York State and there is a 95%+
likelihood that all emergency services are dispatched at
the county level. If you can’t think of a City consider
the following cities among the list: Ithaca, Waterloo,
Cortland, Syracuse, Auburn, Canandaigua, Binghamton to
name just a few.
4. Separating the dispatching function at the local
level from the fire and medical response functions
inherently eliminates potential conflicts of interest
when problems or discrepancies arise in emergency
service.
5. By switching all dispatching services from the City
of Geneva to the county level, the City will be also
transferring the operational risk from a small pool of
citizens to the greater pool of citizens represented by
the County. This will strengthen our financial security
by reducing our liability exposure and possibly reducing
the City’s cost of insurance.
6. Hard savings are based on the analysis presented
below. The information was taken from the City of Geneva
2008 Budget document dated October 18, 2007.
Notes: It is assumed that the City will incur additional
savings in equipment and replacement costs on an
on-going basis. Also, it is anticipated that these
numbers will increase for the 2009 budget.
Recommended Need for More Information
The information presented has been assembled over a
period of time and with considerable thought as to the
implications. This is an appropriate time for City
Council to consider this opportunity during this 2009
budget planning process.
Nevertheless, there is a need for more research and data
gathering that will serve the City and its residents
well. I do not have the time or status to get this
information and feel that the City Manager and his staff
would be better suited to objectively complete and fully
verify this work.
On doing the research I have the following suggestions:
First, interview Geneva’s dispatchers and Fire Chief to
obtain a thorough understanding of how an emergency
9-1-1 call is currently handled in the City from any of
the sources – cell phone, land line, pull-box,
word-of-mouth.
Call several local communities in Ontario and adjoining
counties to see how 9-1-1 emergency response services
are handled. May I suggest: Canandaigua, Ithaca, and
Auburn.
Call Ontario County’s Emergency Management Office and
discuss the cost and technical and administrative issues
that need to be addressed to make a successful
transition to the county system.
Ontario County Emergency Management Office
Jeffrey Harloff, Director
2914 County Rd. 48
Canandaigua, NY 14424
(585) 396-4310 Fax: (585) 396-4583
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[1] Prepared by Robert K. Camera, 163 Lafayette Ave.,
Geneva, NY
[2] Based on the news reports (TV 5, April 8, 2008), the
move is expected to produce a savings on the Town Budget
of over $1 Million/year which will reduce property taxes
in the Town of Clay by 20%.