PENN YAN — In spite of intervention by the county’s Senate and Assembly representatives, the state has declined to significantly increase its payment for a shared services radio tower to improve communication on the west side of Seneca Lake.
County Administrator Jessica Mullins said that on Sept. 16, state Sen. Tom O’Mara and Assemblyman Phil Palmesano sent a letter asking that the county’s application for matching funds — which the county calculated to be nearly $300,000 but the state cut to about $15,000 — for its collaboration with Cayuga County be reevaluated.
Ten days later, Yates received a response from the state.
“They reevaluated our application for the matched funds in the amount of $298K, and their decision of amortizing over the 10-30 years will stand,” Mullins wrote in a note to the county’s Public Safety Committee. “They did, however, adjust a change order in the application to be amortized over 10 years, which was previously missed, which will bring our match amount up from $15,692 to $26,664.”
The county had appealed Sept. 11, saying that “$15.6K is disheartening to Yates County as we saw this project as being a great match for this state program.”
“Our hopes were to have the (state) Department of State understand that the actual first year savings/cost avoidance amount of $298K is the amount we would have paid out if not for partnering with Cayuga county on this project,” Mullins wrote in her note. “That amortizing the land purchase over 30 years and tower site construction over 10 years is not applicable in this situation as the Shared Services program is sunsetting after this year.”
The tower in use, in the Seneca County town of Ovid, is owned by Cayuga County. Yates officials learned the tower offered adequate protection and decided to use that tower instead of building a new one. Yates County determined the partnership saved $298,444 in up-front, first-year costs.
Yates applied to the state Division of the Budget to take advantage of a match program that rewards collaboration between municipalities for new shared services that reduce the property tax levy. While the state Division of Local Government Services had approved the previous savings amount, the budget office reduced that number drastically before settling on a number about $275,000 less that originally promised.
