For Immediate Release                                               Contact: Collin Nash or Sid Nathan

February 20, 2009                                                                             (516) 869 7794

Kaiman, Panelist at Regional Conference

Manhattan, NY—Wearing his Regional Ambassador hat, North Hempstead Supervisor Jon Kaiman shared his insight on shared services as a means of cutting costs at the recent Association of Towns Conference in Manhattan.

The annual conference, sponsored by the State Comptroller’s Office of Local Government and School Accountability, featured panel discussions on a myriad of topics intended to help local governments manage more effectively.

Hundreds of municipal leaders, including Supervisors and Council Members, attended the four-day event, Feb. 16-19, at the Hilton Hotel.

Supervisor Kaiman, a recent appointee to the Long Island Regional Planning Council, joined five other panelists for a Feb. 17 mid-afternoon session titled Shared Services Amid Cuts in State Aid and a Slowing Economy.

The fact that towns can reduce costs to local taxpayers by identifying shared services opportunities with neighboring municipal entities prompted North Hempstead to form the Office of Inter-municipal Coordination in 2006, Kaiman told some 120 officials attending the session.

Pointing to North Hempstead’s estimated 107 municipal entities, including park, water, garbage, police and fire districts in addition to 11 school districts and 31 villages, Kaiman said “sharing services can be a particularly attractive option in challenging economic times such as these.”

Supervisor Kaiman cited a number of North Hempstead’s inter-municipal agreements, including:

• The Repaving Program through which town resources were used to repave driveways in the Herricks School District, saving taxpayers approximately $100,000
• The Fuel Dispensing Program, which enables participants—six special districts have signed on to date—to get gas and diesel the town purchases through a state contract at reduced rates
• And the Salt and Sand Distribution Program, an arrangement which allows the four participating villages to store sand and salt purchased from outside vendors at the town facility at a cost of $100 for storing and dispensing the material.

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