A growing community navigating the tensions of expanding residential development and desires for preservation, the Town of Canandaigua NY has experienced a 130% increase in expenditures for its planning, code, and zoning functions since 2000. CGR reviewed planning services, reviewed comparable communities, and outlined alternative options.

Northeast Ohio, home to Cleveland, Canton, Youngstown and Akron, faces long-term economic challenges.  It is also home to the Fund for our Economic Future, an unprecedented multi-faceted collaboration dedicated to regional economic transformation. With financial support from the Samuel H. and Maria Miller Foundation, the George Gund Foundation, the Chase Foundation, the Greater Cleveland Partnership, the Canton Regional Chamber of Commerce and the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber, the Fund engaged CGR to assess the cost of local government services and compare those costs with peer regions. This issue is one of 6 key challenges for the Northeast Ohio region identified in the Voices and Choices public engagement initiative undertaken in 2005-2006 by the Fund. Participants in Voices and Choices identified a regional goal to “encourage local governments to work together or combine services to reduce duplication.”

For this project, CGR built a comprehensive cost and revenue database for local governments in the 16-county Northeast Ohio region and comparison regions in Columbus, Dayton, Indianapolis, Minneapolis-St. Paul and Raleigh-Durham. We put this “data dictionary” into an interactive, user-friendly web format to allow anyone to ask questions and develop answers from the data. Our web design format helps meet the project’s goal of spurring more informed public discourse and decision making. News articles about this project can be found in the CGR In the News section of the website.

In NY, local development corporations (LDCs) are quasi-government entities that are generally created by local governments, but not subject to the same public oversight. No one knows how many there are in the state, no government office monitors them, and they operate outside normal government structures. The powers that allow them to take steps that benefit the public also leave them open to abuse. In a study funded by the Beatrice Bibby Fund at CGR in partnership with the League of Women Voters of Metropolitan Rochester (NY), CGR identifies the 16 largest and/or most active in the region, provides case studies, and urges state action.

For the Long Island Index,CGR conducted a landmark study comparing local government costs in the 2 counties on Long Island with 2 comparable counties in northern Virginia. Including school districts and special districts, Long Island has 439 local government entities compared with 17 in northern Virginia. Long Island governments spend 45% more, per capita, than their northern Virginia counterparts, and local property taxes are 55% higher on Long Island. Yet a separate comprehensive survey of both regions found that citizens in northern Virginia rate the level of service provided by local governments and schools higher, and say they have better access to government officials. CGR’s detailed analysis of school district and fire services illustrated that a fragmented management structure restricts cost-effective use of resources and thus, in New York State, is a significant contributing factor to high costs and high taxes for local government.