Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Consolidation Not . . .

We are a bit late in commenting about the story of New Hartford and Whitestown sharing a financial officer, but New Hartford Online did a nice job of analyzing the situation.

While it's nice to see two municipalities cooperating with each other, no one should get the idea that this represents the government "consolidation" that many are seeking. No one is proposing that the two towns rid themselves of their current financial employees and replace them with this new officer -- much less than contracting with the county to perform the services. Rather, this is proposed in addition to what each town already has and, therefore, represents an expansion of local government - - while the population holds steady or declines. It's more government and more taxes being spent -- more "same old same old."

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