BY JIMMY LAWTON
North Country This Week

OGDENSBURG – City Manager Stephen Jellie is taking aim at the county legislature as he unveils plans to study a host of shared services.

Jellie’s plan includes a combination of ideas he’d like to see studied as well as partnerships he’d like to move forward.

He says the goal is identify duplicated services and see if they can be eliminated in an effort to reduce government waste and control costs.

Initiatives he says are already underway to some degree include the transfer of police dispatch to St. Lawrence County, a partnership on remediation of contaminated properties, and transfer or property tax foreclosure jurisdiction.

He also says he wants to review and address issues related to the city and county’s partnership on HAZMAT response.

But even as he began rolling out his plan, Jellie criticized the county for “stalling” on some of those efforts in the past and said the time for delays is over.

One of the issues he said is the city’s effort to transfer dispatch service, an initiative included in the state Financial Restructuring Board’s recommendations to improve city finances.

“That’s an effort that’s been underway for years, and there has been no progress, and I don’t want anyone to think we have made progress,” he said.

Jellie wants to perform various consolidation studies, which include law enforcement consolidation between the city police department and sheriff’s office, consolidation of employee healthcare, and consolidation of employee human resources and payroll services.

While the sudden push for such a broad number of studies and plans may seem like a lot, Jellie says many of the ideas aren’t new. He says the county has been stalling on them.

“The county administrator and I have discussed ‘shared services’ and ‘consolidation of services’ since last fall; unfortunately we have made very little progress. In fact, during the Oct. 7, 2020 Sales Tax Negotiation Meeting I discussed this very topic with then-Chairman Joe Lightfoot, however he declined to advance those discussions,” he said.

For his part, St. Lawrence County Legislator Chairman Bill Sheridan says he has not been contacted by anyone from the city, but based on the reports he’s read, he plans to establish a team to work with Ogdensburg.

“It’s certainly something we will have to put an awful lot of thought into. Some of these proposals would be quite involved. I plan on putting together a negotiating panel to study these issues and take a look at our options and do what’s best for the county in the end,” he said.

Sheridan said he hopes something mutually beneficial comes out of the effort and is optimistic it can go smoother than negotiations over the sales tax.

“We have an obligation in this county to work with the city of Ogdensburg and we’ll take the requests seriously,” he said.

Trumpeting the horn often blown by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Jellie said consolidation is necessary to eliminate waste of taxpayer dollars. He says most shared services initiatives currently held between municipalities fail to achieve that goal on the scale that’s needed.

“We can share salt bins and snow plows but until we have the wherewithal to do what the governor wants us to do, we aren’t going to see any real savings,” he said.

“Instead of just doing these window dressing activities, why not discuss consolidation of law enforcement? Why not discuss an entire group health insurance program instead of each of us doing our own? The county has to stop stalling,” he said.

Jellie acknowledged that failed sales tax negotiations from the county did delay efforts on other areas that should have been moving forward, but he blamed the county legislators for that failure and said that the county seems to hold a vendetta against the city.

“I ask the county, is it your intent to make the City of Ogdensburg go bankrupt?”

He said aside from legislators Jim Reagen, Dave Forsythe and Rita Curran, there have been no efforts to work with the city.

Jellie said he believes the county is trying to wait out the terms of the current Ogdensburg administration.

“The county has had their way with Ogdensburg for many, many years and it’s time for that to change,” he said.

Jellie says he believes the county should be taking on more of the expenses shouldered by the city.

“I think the model is upside down,” he said.

Jellie says he believes small municipalities are being forced to carry more, too much of a load that should be burdened by the state and county governments.

It should be noted that the county does in fact provide many services for all county residents, many of which are mandated, but not funded by the state.

Jellie say he wants to see serious effort put forward to study the potential shared services as quickly as possible.

“I think we have to have a buy-in from the county. I think the state of New York has been very clear they will provide grants for these efforts. There is no shortage of support from the governor,” he said. “So let’s come to the table Chairman Sheridan,” he said, adding that it was efforts by Ogdensburg that helped put him in the chairman seat because the city did not believe Former Chairman Joe Lightfoot was giving the city a fair shake.

Sheridan said he’s hopeful Ogdensburg and the county can iron out their differences and said he has a lot of respect for Joseph Lightfoot, who he says was a key player in getting the county’s finances in order, and Ogdensburg mayor Jeffrey M. Skelly.

“I can respect both sides, the mayor is fighting for Ogdensburg and is doing what he thinks is best for the city and there is Joe Lightfoot, who is a man of his convictions and has been key in getting this county into such good shape and wants to make sure it stays that way.”

Sheridan said one of the more difficult tasks outlined in Jellie’s plan would be consolidating police services. He said such a restructure would need serious investigation as St. Lawrence County struggles to combat a major drug problem.

“There is a challenge, there is a lot of things to consider and it’s going to take some time to do this in a fair way.”