Mayor's Desk: How Your Local Government Works

What's a Mayor to Do?

On Monday, a resident came in to see me, to ask why I, as mayor, just didn’t do “X, ” that the action involved was just costing us money, and it should be stopped. After a fairly lengthy discussion of the reasons, he said that he had not understood that the Mayor didn’t have absolute powers. 

I have been asked why I don’t act as Gov. Christie does, why I don’t impose changes on the unions, why I don’t take this action or that action. So I thought I would explain to you how government operates in Harrison, what authority the mayor has, and what is reserved to the full town board.   

The mayor runs the day to day operations of the town, working with the department heads. Once the annual budget is adopted, the mayor oversees those expenditures. As with any organization, there are daily decisions, adjustments to be made, problems that arise and need to be resolved. Most of these I, as mayor, can and do resolve, again working with our department heads. There are also meetings with people who want to relocate their business here, or create a subdivision, or other actions which would have an impact on our quality of life or real estate taxes. Each has to be evaluated and encouraged, or discouraged.  It does make my days interesting. 

On an annual basis, I start working with the comptroller and other department heads during the summer to prepare the budget for the following year. It may not be adopted until December, but there is a great deal of hard work that goes into it before it is presented to the full town board. I am proud to say that the employees have worked with us to bring down our expenses, and we have succeeded in that effort. If it were not for mandated expenses, our 2011 budget would have been flat – without any tax increase. 

There are powers that, by law, the mayor does not have. Those powers are reserved to the full town board. At town board meetings, the mayor presides, but each member has equal voting power. One person, one vote. We have twice-monthly meetings to discuss matters, and approve or disapprove them. Generally, the vote is unanimous, but there are disagreements.  Then, the majority rules. Our meetings are broadcast live on channel 75, and repeated at noon, 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. every day until the next meeting. 

If you look at the Agenda for those meetings — they are posted on the town’s website and on Channel 75 — you will see, among other actions, that all appointments – hirings – are approved by the full board, also certain expenditures, even if included in the budget, and all contracts. There are also public hearings – usually special exception use permits, generally after the applicant has been before the planning board and received approval there.

The board votes on each agenda item, which then is written up by the town clerk as a resolution, and those resolutions become the permanent record of the actions of the board – they become our history. We have a complete set of these resolutions dating back to the 1920’s, but there is also a record book from Civil War times. 

There are also powers that even the full town board does not have. One of those is to change the terms of union contracts. These can only be changed though negotiations. 

There have been actions taken by governors in other states to unilaterally eliminate some provisions of union contracts. Here, changes can only come through negotiations. 

I hope that you now have a clearer understanding to the division of powers in local government. Obviously, this is the five-minute version, but it is all clearly laid out in NYS law. And, it works. Harrison is a great place! 

 A case in point is the governor’s budget. Everyone agreed that there had to be cuts in order to bring down the deficit. Cuts for education have received the most press, but there is one item that has not been mentioned but will directly affect some of our residents. I refer to the STAR exemption. Previously, every homeowner was eligible for this exemption, and those who could prove their income was below a certain level received a greater exemption. Under the current state budget, those with incomes over a certain level will no longer be eligible for any such exemption. 

The state sent to the assessor a list of such residents in Harrison. Copies of the state’s notification have been mailed by us to these residents.  (They saved the postage.) 

Letters were also sent to certain residents whose income the state could not determine from their tax returns. I strongly urge those residents to contact our assessor’s office at 670-3060, in accordance with the directions in the state’s letter. 

These letters are not a scam, they have nothing to do with the recent theft of e-mail addresses. They are real letters from New York State, but affect only certain residents. 

NOTE:  THIS CHANGE IN THE “STAR” EXEMPTION DOES NOT AFFECT MOST RESIDENTS.  IF YOU DID NOT RECEIVE A LETTER, THEN YOU ARE NOT AFFECTED.