Noam just finished a town hall tour of the county, during which he had the chance to share his plan of action for Westchester and to hear lots of good ideas from county residents about how to make Westchester an even better place to live, work, and raise a family. Noam wants to highlight just three of the ideas presented to him over the past couple weeks; Monday he urged the repair and reopening of Sprain Ridge Pool, yesterday he shared a great idea about our bus system, and today is a suggestion about the internal organization of County government.
If you weren’t able to make it to one of Noam’s “Getting to Know Noam” meetings, you can watch an abbreviated version of his presentation here, and you can still submit your own ideas to the campaign.
Many thanks to everyone who participated.
Idea Number Three: Share Services Within County Government
One of the key goals within my plan is establishing a framework for shared services that would allow municipalities and school districts to work together to generate efficiencies, economies of scale, and savings.
As a mayor I know that every municipality is searching high and low for ways to cut costs, and if the County took a leadership role in this process there would be a lot of grateful citizens. We could be linking efforts to pave roads, maintain vehicles, and utilize technology; we could coordinate our flood mitigation projects, back office administration, and sustainability planning. And that’s just for starters.
A supporter pointed out to me that this same principle should be applied within the County government. Various County departments could share human resources and accounting staff. We could consolidate purchasing and handling contracts with outside vendors. There’s lots to be saved — and wouldn’t this be a much more sensible way to cut costs than by slashing staff that deliver vital services to the people of Westchester?
I am grateful to all who suggested good ideas, which we can add to our plan of action. Keep ‘em coming.