Wednesday, April 16, 2008
County Controller Wants Facts on Merger
Exercising his duty as the County’s elected “watchdog” of finances, the Controller yesterday raised some serious questions on the proposed City-County merger. “I think [voters] want to see concrete, hard facts in terms of financially what's going to happen as well as structurally what's going to happen.” Maybe the Controller is expecting too much: all the committee had was 17 months, decades worth of studies on merging services, and numerous case studies from other City-County mergers around the country.
The predictable response from the County Executive’s office is that “more details are coming”. Remember that the merger study committee wants to have this issue on the ballot as soon as possible. It has taken years just to get one unified 911 system—how can anyone possibly believe that the proposal will sail through the legislature in time for an up or down vote within the next three years?
Let’s be frank: we do not know what the merged entity will be called, how many representatives there will be, what they will be paid, what taxes will be levied and where, how the merged entity will interact with other independent municipalities, what the ironclad assurance that City debt and pension liability will remain with the former City, how union contracts will be merged, and what happens to the authorities.
All the committee has to hang their hat on is that a merger will unify leadership and help the region speak with one voice, specifically on economic development. And even that case is not very convincing based on their own research commissioned for the study.
The Controller is wise to point out that the devil is in the details. Pie in the sky musings about how nice a merger would be are simply not enough.
The predictable response from the County Executive’s office is that “more details are coming”. Remember that the merger study committee wants to have this issue on the ballot as soon as possible. It has taken years just to get one unified 911 system—how can anyone possibly believe that the proposal will sail through the legislature in time for an up or down vote within the next three years?
Let’s be frank: we do not know what the merged entity will be called, how many representatives there will be, what they will be paid, what taxes will be levied and where, how the merged entity will interact with other independent municipalities, what the ironclad assurance that City debt and pension liability will remain with the former City, how union contracts will be merged, and what happens to the authorities.
All the committee has to hang their hat on is that a merger will unify leadership and help the region speak with one voice, specifically on economic development. And even that case is not very convincing based on their own research commissioned for the study.
The Controller is wise to point out that the devil is in the details. Pie in the sky musings about how nice a merger would be are simply not enough.
