Highway Consolidation Study - Schoharie County

vavoid the cost of new equipment for the County and may use alower-paid operator;• Re-examining the plow routes used by the Towns of Blenheim andJefferson and by the County; and,• A new, shared facility to replace the Town of Blenheim’s garageand the County’s Blenheim depot.The tax payers in the Town of Blenheim could benefit from divesting thehighway operation to the County. Since the model already exists in theTown of Esperance, skeptics of the transition would not have to go far tolearn about the merits and drawbacks of the relationship. It is notuncommon for this type of wholesale transition to take time. Thus, in theshort term, there are several shared service opportunities that would makesense between the Town and County that could lead to higher levels ofpartnership in the future.ConclusionIt is important to recognize the interesting geographic and demographicdiversity within the county, which ranges from denser development withinand around the villages to large and sparsely populated towns in many ofthe hills in the western, southern and eastern sections of the county. It isthis very diversity that caused many on the study committee to adviseagainst drawing significant conclusions from the cost efficiencycomparisons used in the baseline section of this report. The comparisonsare meant to be high level “broad brush” strokes to give the readers of thisreport a starting point in analyzing the various operations across theCounty. The models in Section I offer a more in-depth approach toanalyzing alternatives and should be used as the basis for future decisions.There is already a strong working relationship between neighboring townsand villages. Many town highway superintendents remain unconvincedthat divesting any of their services to the County is a viable model. Thissuggests that additional opportunities for shared services and/orconsolidation might best be pursued among groups of municipalities thatalready share common interests and geography. Thus, we conclude thatthe Committee should consider not only County-wide options, but optionsthat meet the needs of smaller regional groupings. This will expand thepotential for achieving the types of improvements envisioned for thisproject.No municipality or County in this State achieves wholesale change inshort order. The contents of this report provide Schoharie County withempirical data and suggested alternatives for reconfiguring highwayservices within the County over time. Some of the alternatives will