Thursday, August 21, 2008 

(315)  798-5800

Picente: Sharing Services Delivers Results For
Oneida County, Community Partners
 

Oneida County Executive Anthony J. Picente, Jr., today unveiled a $300,000 piece of highway equipment that Oneida County secured through New York State ’s Shared Municipal Services Initiative and which it will share with communities across the county.

“At a time when local budgets are being faced with increasing costs for basic services, the purchase and/or rental of big ticket pieces of specialized equipment is becoming a luxury for communities. Communities are in the predicament of facing a choice between proper maintenance of roadside ditches and drainage courses and the need to live within budgets,” Picente said. “Because of the outstanding collaboration that already exists between the Oneida County Department of Public Works and our local communities, we were able to identify this piece of equipment as a priority and work together on an application that secured the funding.”

John J. Williams, Oneida County Commissioner of Public Works, said that the rubber-tired telescopic boom excavator (Gradall 4100 Class) will allow highway departments to maintain roadways and minimize the potential of closed roads, damage to culverts, and ditch overflow resulting in washouts.

 “This particular machine is not only expensive to rent but the availability is limited during the heavy construction period. For some rural communities, the cost of purchasing a specialized machine like this would require almost a doubling of their town budgets,” Williams said. “County ownership of a machine we can rush to any town in an emergency will also save rental costs for our communities.”

Picente and Williams praised Assemblywoman RoAnn Destito, who developed a dialogue with state and county officials to help the county’s effort and who, along with Senators Joseph A. Griffo and David Valesky, worked to support the grant application.

“Commissioner Williams and his Department have done an excellent job of working with the towns to share services,” Destito said. “I am a big believer in lowering the costs of delivering important services by sharing, collaborating and consolidating so that the people of our area receive the services they need at the lowest possible costs.”

This project is part of a long-term effort by the Oneida County Department of Public Works to establish a central pool of costly, specialized pieces of equipment so that Oneida County communities can work collaboratively to address issues common to all communities.

“Although this addition to the Shared Services program is new, sharing as a way of life in Oneida County is not new,” Williams said. “There are 43 communities in Oneida County that are on record in support of Oneida County’s Shared Services Program in regards to the purchase of costly, specialized pieces of equipment. For the past seven years, we have worked closely with all communities in the county, and the results of our partnerships are that we are able to provide services without breaking all the towns’ budgets.”