Just days after Schoharie County’s CORC voted to support Administrator Steve Wilson’s “Stop Kicking the Can” plan, Friday, the Board of Supervisors overwhelmingly rejected its three main pieces:
Creating the Office of Human Resources, hiring a Deputy County Administrator to run it, and staffing the OHRFM with existing employees.
The County Operations Review Committee was created in 2021 to look for efficiencies that would lower the cost of delivering services.
Unless they can find a better way to track and monitoring spending, Mr. Wilson argued, that’s not going to happen.
Every year since 2017, spending has increased $1.5 million annually—on top of inflation—while the fund balance on December 31, 2021 was nearly $34 million.
“The budget we’re formulating is too high. It’s not realistic,” Mr. Wilson told CORC members last Monday.
“With better information, the [supervisors’] Finance Committee will be able to make more thoughtful decisions.”
Some CORC members argued that moving employees out of existing offices wouldn’t work; they’d just have to be replaced.
And, with the right tools, they could track spending where they are now.
Others argued against creating another department until they see how the new financial system works.
Still others pointed out moving employees to different jobs would be a CSEA nightmare.
“Give us the tools and training to do better,” said County Treasurer Mary Ann Wollaber-Bryan, whose office would have been the hardest hit.
“You don’t have buy-in from a single department head. What does that tell you?”
A handful of other county employees criticized the plan at Monday’s CORC meeting; Friday, 50 of them packed supervisors’ meeting as Mr. Wilson went through “Stop Kicking the Can” one more time.
Gilboa supervisor Alicia Terry, CORC chair, suggested they not vote on it, but take more time to “debate and discuss” the issues raised Monday and the mistrust they’ve created.
CORC member Harold Vroman of Summit spoke in favor of the plan; Alan Tavenner of Schoharie, another CORC member, had questions.
“I’m elected by the people, who are my boss,” Mr. Vroman said. “When I see tax money that should be in their hands, I want to do something about it.”
“If it sounds like I’m on both sides of the fence, I am,” said Mr. Tavenner after running through a list of pros and cons.
Most other supervisors urged taking smaller steps first.
“Steve’s done a good job of putting together the best plan, but I don’t think we’ve given our people here an opportunity to work on these things,” said Esperance Supervisor Earl VanWormer.
The motions to create the OHRFM and hire a deputy county administrator both failed by a 2-1 vote, and so there was no need to vote on the third resolution, staffing, said County Attorney Mike West.
The CORC has more work to do—including looking at how to improve tax collection rates—and will meet again on April 4.
“I think this is a legitimate subject,” said Steve Weinhofer of Broome, speaking for most of the supervisors.
“The time isn’t right now, but it opened everyone’s eyes and got people talking about how to become more efficient.”