Schuyler, Yates awarded $50K consolidation grant

SCHUYLER, YATES COUNTIES—It was announced Tuesday, Nov. 12, that Schuyler and Yates Counties were given a $50,000 Local Government Efficiency Grant. This money will be used to begin a study of potential efficiencies of shared services between the two counties in order to bring down operating costs.
Schuyler County Administrator Tim O’Hearn said both counties agree nothing is off limits to consider, either for consolidation or sharing services. He said the counties were only given $50,000 of the initial $100,000 they were seeking for the study because the maximum allocation under the Department of State guidelines is $25,000 per applicant. O’Hearn said given the scope and unprecedented nature of the request, he had hoped the state would make an exception. O’Hearn said while they have been looking at a few options for efficiencies since the announcement, nothing has happened yet for either county.
“We hope to connect our open access broadband networks once completed,” O’Hearn said. “As vacancies occur we are also looking at options to share staff, but to date nothing has materialized. Now that the study will be moving forward I expect more discussions and exploration of immediate opportunities to be more efficient.”
As far as moving forward with the grant money, O’Hearn said he expects within the next year a consultant will be selected and a report completed. He said implementation will occur after the completion of the report and will be dependent on the scope of services being addressed.
Yates County Chairman Taylor Fitch said being awarded this grant money is the first step in the process of potentially consolidating services between the two counties. The counties had initially announced they were planning to look at potential efficiencies back in April and May, saying they will not rule out any viable option even if it includes merging the two counties. Fitch said Yates County has not looked at any additional efficiencies since the initial announcement, as they were waiting for the grant to be awarded before conducting the study. He said while the legislature has a few “background ideas” in mind, they have not looked at any specific area for implementation yet.