Sheriff Road Patrol Chargeback gaining traction?
There is a rather lengthy article in the D&C today where the Webster town supervisor is advocating a sheriff road chargeback. Here is the deal. As you know, if a town has a police department like Webster and several other towns - you are paying for a local police department, as well as, paying disproportionately for the Monroe County Sheriff road patrol.
See, the Democrats have discussed this before, most recently in December just before the budget was passed and this idea was shot down by the 3 vote County GOP majority. In fact, the Dem proposal would have raised money to replace that lost by school districts due to Maggie’s unFAIR plan.
You would have to go back and dig up all the GOP quotes on why they claimed this was, in their mind, a “bad” idea. Someone remind us, please, of ex-county majority leader Bill Smith’s commentary. I’m sure it was articulately numbing.
Read the article, but it looks like the 1 seat GOP majority is looking at the chargeback. As least they say they are .
From the D&C article. Nesbitt is the Webster Republican Town supervisor.
“Why should my residents pay for something that they are not getting?” said Nesbitt, who represents a town of more than 41,000 people.
While Republicans in the county legislature have opposed a chargeback to towns that use the sheriff’s road patrol, the tide may be turning.
“I think that Supervisor Nesbitt is asking the right questions,” said new Majority Leader Dan Quatro, R-Webster, but the issue needs more studying from financial and public safety aspects.
The county says not so fast -
But the whole point may be moot. Citing opinions written by the state attorney general and comptroller, County Attorney Daniel DeLaus Jr. said the state prohibits counties from enacting chargebacks to municipalities for road patrol services. If Monroe County did want to change the law, it would have to file a home rule request with the state.
OK - but didn’t we do something similar with the Maggie’s unFAIR plan, the tax intercept? I also like the comment - If Monroe County wanted to change the law - So file a home rule request… Geez, how hard can that be?
I suppose if the GOP was really interested in a fair distribution of taxes….
In the D&C article they quote my town supervisor ( Greece-Auberger) that the chargeback would open Pandora’s box. Guess what, Maggie already did that with the MCC chargeback that favors the eastern suburbs. Whenever I read these quotes I realize that the Greece town leaders put the Republician party in front of the residents of our town.
In Yates County it works differently. Small villages like Dresden (pop. 300) has to pay EXTRA for the County Sheriff to patrol there, even though they pay Yates County Taxes for the Sheriff Department
The D&C article quotes the Webster supervisor as pointing out the tumult that the question of abolishing the Wheatland town department raised in that town a few years back.
What he didn’t say was that when town residents were surveyed a couple of years after the change to the sheriff’s department there was no loss in satisfaction and Wheatland saved a ton of money.
Town and village police departments are archaic vestiges of an earlier time that have outlived the complexities of modern law enforcement and the expansion of crime beyond municiple boundaries established long ago.
Publius is entirely correct - Forget the chargeback - just lower local taxes by eliminating the local police departments.
I’m sorry, I misspelled muncipal.
mea culpa…