Finance Committee 12-15-2014

FINANCE/TAX REDUCTION/MANDATE RELIEF COMMITTEE
Monday, December 15, 2014
Thomas Scozzafava, Chairperson
Ron Moore, Vice-Chairperson
Chairman Scozzafava called this Finance Committee Meeting to order at 10:38 a.m. with the
following committee members in attendance: Michael Marnell, Randy Preston, William
Ferebee, Gerald Morrow, Randy Douglas, Noel Merrihew, Charles Whitson, Shaun Gillilland,
Thomas Scozzafava, David Blades, Charles Harrington, Roby Politi, William Grinnell, Ed
Gardner, Ronald Moore, Stephen McNally, Daniel Connell and George Canon.
Department heads present were: Daniel Palmer, Judy Garrison, Mike Diskin, Dan Manning,
Charli Lewis and Joe Provoncha. Brenda Sullivan had been previously excused.
News Media present were: Lohr McKinstry - Press Republican and Pete DeMola - Denton
Publications.
Also present - Margaret Bartley, Sharon Boisen and Sue Montgomery-Corey.
SCOZZAFAVA: I’ll call the Finance Meeting to order. The first on the agenda is Joe Provoncha,
the County Clerk.
PROVONCHA: Good morning, I emailed or Chelsea emailed you the reports. It’s not turning out
to be such a bad year after all. Real Property is waking up and we’re going to be over from last
year. Mortgages are steady, I wouldn’t say strong yet. Taxes are coming in and overall it’s not a
bad year after all.
What I also emailed you for was online access to records and that’s this document here. We are
prepared to go online, I have outlined the County Clerk’s responsibility in regards to, concerning
his records and my obligation to preserve them and to record them and file them. We
questioned in the beginning what records should we make available to the general public and I
gave you a list and what we did was trying to figure out what it would be like if we were in a
court case and would we want our names out there and everything else, but they are still public
records. You can come into my office and get them. There is a confusion as to the terms
register and registrar and it was even in a document from the county that I am the registrar, I am
not, by law and it is the oldest title that we hold and it is in the Constitution, we are the registers
of land documents and from that they also give us authority to be clerks of the court, but we are
registers. Registrar’s are people that you appoint from your town board every year or every two
years, the county clerks are not, I shouldn’t say that, I will discuss that in a minute, but the
registrar that you appoint handles birth, death and marriage licenses, we don’t have them, so
the biggest fear of the general public when they hear that we are going online with our records
is that we’re going to put the death, marriage and birth records on. We don’t do that, because
they are not ours and like I said most county clerks are not registrars. I do know that there is
discussion in Chemung County, which Elmira is their County Seat and the County Clerk out
there, Katie Hughes called me in regards to some of these and she would say that they are
about ready to call the priest in for Elmira, it’s in tough shape, so they maybe occurrence to give
Elmira books, just as clarification. I am not looking for that, but that is the difference between
register and registrar and the register’s documents will be going online. It explains how to go
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online and search. We did a comparison of those that are online, I am looking at going $90.00
per quarter, $30.00 per month and that seems to be very reasonable compared to other
counties. If you are an attorney and you are in a subscription or you are a real estate agent and
get a subscription, you pay $360.00 a year, if that’s the way you want to do it and then every
document that you push, every time you push print it would cost you an additional .50¢ that
would go on your credit card. If you are just a non-subscriber you can still view items, but most
people who go on to see their deed, their mortgage, their discharge of mortgage or maybe their
APA permit, it will $5.00 every time you hit the print button. So, again not overly expensive and
then the next page tells you the years that the people will be able to search. There are a couple
that I would like to go over with you. We are trying to finish up and go back to 1973 with our
mortgages right now we are ’82. So, we are going to go back, as well as our local laws we
would like to go back to ’73 and our survey maps will be back to the beginning of time.
What are we going to add after that? We would like to put our appropriation maps on there. So,
overall it is a good selection, a good menu of things that we are going to be able to put on.
Now, I was going to ask for questions, but I know the first question is, yes your towns can have
it for free. That is usually your first question on this. There is a form that you fill out, the County
Manager has agreed to look at, I know that the supervisors will probably want it and I know that
maybe your codes person, your assessor would want it, but you just need to put out the offices
that you want and he will review it. As well as the second question, will county offices get them
for free and they too will fill out form that the County Manager will approve and I appreciate you
doing that for me, thank you.
If you come upon something, there was in your packet a news court order that says that the
submitter in many cases cannot submit to the County Clerk for recording or filing anything that
has a social security number, anything that has a minor’s name, anything that may have cause
of death and we can refuse it or they can cross it off or what have you. But the old, old records
may still have something and if you come upon something, all you need to do is notify us and
we will redax that is the word that we are using now, is redax.
So, I don’t know if you have any questions Chairman?
SCOZZAFAVA: Any questions?
GRINNELL: I noticed the DMV in Ticonderoga is still Tuesday and Wednesday, there was a lot
of discussion about going to three days a week?
PROVONCHA: Yes, but I have to come to a committee to do that, don’t I?
PALMER: Yes
PROVONCHA: I said that I would come to Mr. Gillilland’s committee.
SCOZZAFAVA: Okay, any further questions for Joe?
DOUGLAS: First I want to thank Joe for, we had an incident going on in my town with my town
clerk, we were trying to figure out a death certificate and coroners and doctors and we turned it
over to Joe and thank you so much, it has been such a headache for the family, which leads me
to the next question and I probably should have brought it at Personnel. Dan it is a question of
coroners picking up bodies and liability on the county and we’re going to really have to look into
that, because this pays a little role into what’s going on, I think. I think it has a little role in what’s
going on with my town clerk and the county clerk working on the issue right now with that. So,
we’ve got to do a little more research and I know you and I and Dan had a conversation with
former Chairman and John Kelley and Tom was in on that conservation, but it seemed to be
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escalating a little bit, so maybe we can put that on the forefront. I didn’t think that it was this bad,
but it seems like something, there’re more to it, between the coroners, the funeral parlors and
the clerks and the doctors and the autopsies and I think that there is a lot and I guess we’ve just
got to figure it out, so if you could help me with that and Joe once again thank you so much,
because we were lost, we didn’t know what to do, so thank you.
PROVONCHA: You’re welcome, Chairman.
SCOZZAFAVA: Anything further for Joe?
PROVONCHA: I’ve got one more thing.
SCOZZAFAVA: Yup, go ahead Joe.
PROVONCHA: Just something that I am going to read, I have to write it, so I don’t forget.
As this is the last Finance Committee meeting for the year I would like to extend my thanks to
this committee and to the Board as a whole. Essex County was the 5th upstate county to
commence electric filing, the 10th upstate county to commence electric recording, but the 3rd
upstate county to do both. Now Essex County is moving towards online access to the records of
the county clerk. The Clerk’s Office will be able to preserve for future generations 3 criminal
court books dating from 1858 to 1887.
This year the office worked hard to prepare, update and answer questions on tax searches
required for the tax foreclosures actions and we continue to work and process land documents
and process and file court documents.
We have been able to assist you, your town officers, your towns and your constituents in
situations in which that we could help.
The DMV offices continue to offer suburb services to our motoring citizens. We are continuing to
search of a solution towards record storage and we may have found it. We are also exploring
the opinion of expanding our scanning and imaging projects to tackle our massive file load
throughout the county.
I want to thank the Board for their indulgence last winter as I tried to find a comfortable mode of
transportation, whether it was a wheelchair, crunches or cane. As someone said it was a
breaking winter.
Thank you for your congratulations and resolution on my honor of receiving Pro Ecclesia et
Pontifice Award from our Holy Father as well as thank you for your congratulations on the
Liberty Bell Award.
I want to thank the Chairman of the Board, the Vice-Chairman, the Chairman of this Committee
and the Board as a whole, the County Manager, County Attorney and Clerk of the Board for
another successful year, Merry Christmas.
MORROW: Just something, I had one other thing. Did we ever move a resolution of
congratulations on you achieving the Liberty Bell Award?
PROVONCHA: That’s okay.
MORROW: No I would like to move it.
PROVONCHA: That’s okay, no that’s fine.
RESOLUTION OF CONGRATULATIONS TO JOSEPH PROVONCHA ON RECEIVING THE
LIBERTY BELL AWARD.
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This resolution was moved by Mr. Morrow, unanimously seconded.
MORROW: Before you leave I have one more thing, I talked to Mr. Provoncha about this and I
gave the resolution to the County Attorney. As we all know or read in the papers, the Village of
Keeseville will no longer be in existence after January 1st, December 31st and the State Vital
Statistics Department has met with the Town of AuSable and the Town of Chesterfield and the
Village is in a unique situation where they were in the Town of AuSable, which is in Clinton
County and the Town of Chesterfield, which is Essex County as we all know and the Vital
Statistics will be taken over by the Town of AuSable prior to their dissolution and some vital
statistics can’t be sorted out, so they have no problem with the Town of AuSable maintaining
those vital statistics, from now on it will be ours, the Town of AuSable and the Town of
Chesterfield. So what the State says is the towns have to pass a resolution to allow the Town of
AuSable to do that. We already did that at our town board meeting. Now it goes further that the
two counties have to do that, Clinton and Essex County. So, I gave Dan Manning a copy of the
resolution that we have to do. All they are saying is Essex County understands the situation and
we don’t have a problem with Clinton County, Town of AuSable taking over the vital statistics.
Do you want me to move that or wait until Ways and Means?
SCOZZAFAVA: You can move it.
RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE TOWN OF AUSABLE TO TAKE OVER THE VITAL
STATISTICS FOR THE DISSOLVED VILLAGE OF KEESEVILLE.
This resolution was moved by Mr. Morrow, seconded by Mr. Canon and Mr. Merrihew.
SCOZZAFAVA: Discussion? I think that Mr. Morrow explained it very well. All in favor?
Opposed? Carried.
PROVONCHA: We got the court thing straightened out too.
MORROW: Well we had big problems also, but thanks to Mr. Provoncha, he’s got that all
straightened out, because if they relinquish their records, because we have had people that
have, the Village of Keeseville dissolved their court system probably 10 years ago.
PROVONCHA: Twice
MORROW: Twice, they took it back for a short period and then dissolved it again, but then they
never relinquished their records to the two towns and when they finally did a few years ago the
two towns didn’t have authority to open the cases on the back logs of the people who had their
licenses suspended and everything else because they didn’t pay the fines and my court clerk
and the Town of AuSable court clerk had their hands full, thanks Mr. Provoncha for taking care
of that for us and having the Judge sign the thing for the two towns.
PROVONCHA: The Administrative Judge.
MORROW: Okay, thank you very much for that. People can start maybe driving legally now.
SCOZZAFAVA: Joe I want to thank you and I am sure that the Board of Supervisors on the
excellent office that you run and I mean that. I mean our constitutions talk about the
professionalism there and when they go there in need of something; I don’t think I’ve ever heard
that they weren’t accommodating.
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*******************
The next item on the agenda was the County Auditor with Brenda Sullivan having been
previously excused.
*******************
The next item on the agenda was the Real Property Tax Office with Charli Lewis
reporting as follows:
LEWIS: Good morning, we finished defining the re-levies, which include village, school and
water and sewer to the file. This year they total $6,083,126.20, that’s actually down $71,411.47
from last year. We’re expecting our last Board of Assessment Review changes to arrive today
and we hope to be printing the tax rolls by the end of this week.
SCOZZAFAVA: Charli on the re-levies; right? Is there a breakdown in the packet of that? I am
curious to know how much is actually village.
LEWIS: There isn’t a breakdown, but I can email that to you, because we do have it and you’ll
have a resolution with a breakdown of that.
SCOZZAFAVA: Okay, thank you
LEWIS: I would also like to extend my sympathies to Mr. Moore and the Town of North Hudson
on the passing of Jim Barber. Jim Barber was an assessor from 1986 to 2008 and we are all
heartbroken that he has passed away. He was an assessor for over 22 years and we worked
very closely with him.
SCOZZAFAVA: Okay any questions for Charli?
DOUGLAS: Are we going to be able to put in the tax bill the mandates, anything?
PALMER: Yeah, I got the information and Linda did it all. It’s all broken down I just don’t have
that graphic. I wish I could find that actual dollar bill graphic.
DOUGLAS: I have the one and you sent it back to me.
PALMER: Right, we have the one from the other county, but we need a blank one that we can
divide up into our numbers.
DOUGLAS: I wonder what county did that, I can’t remember.
PALMER: I don’t know, I think Linda’s got it on her desk, let me see if I can find it and I’ll try and
do that.
DOUGLAS: Thank you, I just think that it would show to our constituents, the mandates that
they might not ever realize. I think you did a very well thought our presentation on the mandates
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and the actual tax levy that we have for the purpose of putting out there, but I think that this
again will show them what our responsibilities are and what the mandates are too.
LEWIS: Right and we’ve given the numbers that we need for each town to Lori in the print shop,
so as soon as she gets that, she’ll print them and we won’t let any towns tax rolls go until they
have that with them.
DOUGLAS: Thank you
SCOZZAFAVA: Charli and I want to thank you also and your staff once again. I mean your
office, the Treasurer, the County Clerk, these are the three offices that our constituents use
more than probably any county service and you do an excellent job over there also.
LEWIS: Thank you very much, our staff takes a great deal of pride in the service that we give to
the taxpayers.
SCOZZAFAVA: Thank you.
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The next item on the agenda was the County Treasurer’s Office with Mike Diskin
reporting as follows:
DISKIN: Good morning and happy holidays to everybody. I sent in my report to you on sales tax
and bed tax, the Treasurer’s office expenses and revenues and cash flow. Sales tax is running
about 10% over last year, slightly over that. We’re about not quite $2.5 million over last year,
but you need to keep in mind that about $1.7 million of that is from the additional ¼%, without
that we’re still running about $800,000 over what we would have which about 3% more than
last year.
SCOZZAFAVA: Any questions on any of the report?
CANON: When would you expect to see a reduction on the sales tax because of the gasoline
prices?
DISKIN: Probably as soon as next month, because if they are reporting monthly, but definitely
by the end of the quarter, which was probably going to be in February at the latest.
CANON: That’s an impact.
DISKIN: Yeah
SCOZZAFAVA: Any other questions in regards to Mr. Diskin’s report?
DISKIN: I have a resolution that after I send my agenda out that I sent back out to you. In the
2009 bridge bond that we did, about $5 million, we have had that money that we haven’t been
using invested in CDs and earning interest and we’ve earned about, actually there’s an amount
of $50,125.80 in interest. I spoke to the Comptroller’s Office and said what can we do with this?
They said you can put it back in the project, which will help DPW with some of the shortfalls they
have had over the last 3 years with costs raising over estimates that they have had before. My
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recommendation is that we increase the revenue and appropriations in one of the projects and
we chose the Rolling Mill/Grove Bridge Project and the numbers are attached as far as
increasing the revenue and increasing the appropriation in that particular fund.
RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING AN INCREASE IN REVENUES AND APPROPRIATIONS IN
THE AMOUNT OF $50,125.80 IN THE ROLLING MILL/GROVE BRIDGE PROJECT.
This resolution was moved by Mr. Morrow, seconded by Mr. Grinnell.
SCOZZAFAVA: Discussion? Being none, all in favor? Opposed? Carried.
DISKIN: Just one last thing that I had last week, we did a bond anticipation note in the amount
of $435,000 for some additional bridge repairs. I have to tell you that the bond rate for that note
were outstanding. They are one of the best rates in the State in the last three months that I
reviewed, we got less an half of a percent, we got about .408%. There is no other bond note out
in the State in the last three months that got a rate that low. The next lowest was over ½ a
percent. So, I think Essex County is very well looked at when it is out there for that kind of thing
and the comments that I had is it was one of the most competitive bids that we had, that I saw
out there in the last two months. We had 8 bids on this and most of them are lucky to get 2 or 3
bids at that very most. Some of them only get 1 or 2. We had a very competitive bid, what I think
helps as well. It went to a company by the name of Jefferies, which is an investment firm. They
probably will turn around and sell this note to someone else or at least parts of it out there, they
won’t hold it themselves, like a bank would, but the papers will be signed on the 18th, this
Thursday in New York City and fortunately we’re not all going down there, we send our papers
down there already and they’ll do the closing for us, so we don’t have to spend time going down
there and doing that and with that I don’t have anything else.
GRINNELL: Yeah I think the Board should be very appreciative of the work that Mr. Diskin has
been doing on the County’s behalf, sometimes it’s overlooked and understated the interest, the
bond rates is all a reflection of what Mike does and I think we are lucky to have him.
SCOZZAFAVA: I agree
DISKIN: Thank you, but I have to tell you that a lot of this work as we all know as department
heads and as supervisors, a lot of this work gets done by our people below us and I have to
give a lot of credit to my deputy treasurers who do most of this, looking up this information. I end
up sending it to the bond counsel, but if it weren’t for the deputies up and calculating this
information and spending time with the rating agencies and the various companies when they
call this wouldn’t be as success as it is. So, I give a lot of the credit to the people in my office,
just like everybody does, but thank you anyways.
SCOZZAFAVA: Thank you, anything further for Mr. Diskin? If not, thank you.
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The next item on the agenda was the County Manager’s Office with Dan Palmer
reporting as follows:
PALMER: I didn’t have a lot; I did want to, I think acknowledge that I won’t say the budget
season was enjoyable, but it was I think very well done. I really do, I think the working
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relationship was well done and I think that we arrived at what was a really fair budget, but I do
want to acknowledge the tremendous amount of work that Linda Wolf does in this process, it’s
not always apparent, but I am somewhat demanding about what I need for information and poor
Linda has taken the brunt of that for the last few months and does every budget season, but I
did want to acknowledge what Linda does in that office, because she does a tremendous
amount, as do my other people and Tom too (laughter).
The other thing that I wanted to express is my appreciation to all for you for my reappointment
and the unanimous reappointment. It meant a lot to me, I think it meant more than maybe you
realize, but it did mean a great deal to me and I look forward to the next couple of years. So,
thank you very much.
SCOZZAFAVA: Thank you.
I have one question, I guess. I had a call over the weekend in regards to; apparently there was
an endowment left to Horace Nye for I was told $500,000; where is that?
PALMER: Yeah, that’s the Lerouix Fund, there is around $400,000 and some in there. Mike
Diskin, myself, Dave Blades, who else in on the committee, I can’t remember? Noel is on the
committee, when we get requests for the operators of the Nursing Home, we then take those to
the committee and they approve or disapprove. We just recently approved their purchase of
some Christmas gifts for the residents.
SCOZZAFAVA: That answers the question, it’s still under the County’s control?
PALMER: It’s under the County’s control.
SCOZZAFAVA: And it is still used for the Horace Nye?
MANNING: We did that as a stipulation when we closed.
PALMER: Right
MANNING: We keep control of that money. It was left by bequest in a will and so that we’re sure
that this doesn’t go to capital costs and improvements, it goes directly to resident benefits. The
gazebo was purchased at one time, anything that benefits the residents, not for infrastructure or
anything like that. So, we have control over that.
SCOZZAFAVA: Thank you
DOUGLAS: It comes across my desk and I sign-off after you guys review it, it comes over, I
sign-off. There have been numerous time and many items were purchased for the residents and
people may not realize it, because it happens and it is given out and rightfully so the things that
are needed. What was the worry? That is coming back and we were just putting in the general
fund and using it anyway we wanted?
SCOZZAFAVA: The concern that I had was it was turned over, that I had heard was that it was
turned over to the new owners and I said I don’t believe that that happened, but I wanted to just
double check.
PALMER: No, we maintain control of it. In fact you know it’s somewhat problematic now with the
private owners and how they purchase and the reimbursement, so in terms of the Christmas
presents they wanted to buy Christmas presents for the residents, but they didn’t know the
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amount, so what we ended up doing is we actually allowed them to come over and use the
county’s credit card to make their purchases and then that way we knew exactly what to take
out of the fund. We’re pretty careful about that fund, that money is intended for the residents, it
will be held in trust and it will be used that way and we’re pretty careful about it.
SCOZZAFAVA: Thank you.
Okay anything further to come before this Committee? If not we stand adjourned.
As there was no further business to come before this Finance Committee; it was
adjourned at 11:03 am.
Respectively Submitted,
Judith Garrison, Clerk
Board of Supervisors

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