ELMIRA – Chemung County Executive Tom Santulli and County Treasurer Joe Sartori held a joint press conference today to announce the forming of a Municipal Financial Services Division within the offices of the County Treasurer and Budget and Research. The purpose of the office will be to provide accounting, budgetary, general bookkeeping, payroll processing and reporting services to local municipalities within the County.
“In the spirit of shared services, and to provide taxpayers with cost effective and quality services, the County will be offering to the towns and villages an array of financial services,” said Joe Sartori. “A municipality can select services tailored to fulfill their specific financial requirements. Through the efficient utilization of County personnel, it is felt these services can be provided at a lower rate than would be possible if each municipality were to perform these functions in-house or individually through contract with outside agencies,” added Sartori.
“As I have said many times, we are all one County, one taxpayer,” said Tom Santulli. “We are all charged with doing more with less, to reduce the tax burden on our residents and businesses. We will always be looking for creative ways to achieve this goal. Offering the services of our full-time financial staff to our local municipalities seems like another step in the right direction.”
Chemung County Legislator Rodney J. Strange attended the press conference and applauded the creation of the new division, “I believe that this new initiative willsave municipalities thousands of dollars that will help reduce the cost of local government,” Strange said. “Our financial team of County Treasurer Joe Sartori, County Finance Director Steve Hoover and their staffs will be invaluable to those municipalities that choose to take part in this new form of shared services.”
At the November legislature meeting, the legislature passed a resolution encouraging municipalities to share services in order to save taxpayer dollars.