Recommended reading
Tom Precious has been reporting on the recommendations of a state commission to control the cost of local governments and school districts. Here's a link to the report.
As Tom reported two weeks ago:
"New York today boasts 5,528 different local government entities -- far more than the 4,200 the commission believed existed when its work began last year. They include 1,607 general purpose units, like counties and villages, another 1,804 special purpose entities, like school and fire districts, and 2,117 "other" entities, which include community colleges, IDAs and water and sewer authorities. The numbers don't include thousands of more government entities, like planning boards and soil and water districts.
Erie County leads the state with 939 special districts, and they accounted for 32 percent of the $440 million in tax revenues collected by towns in 2004, according to a state comptroller's office report last year."
In other words, we're at ground zero of the problem.
