Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Location: An Island off the coast of North America
449 posts, read 1,132,058 times
Reputation: 119
Advertisements
I've heard talk from people that live in villages and want the village to have it's own police and/or schools. What are your opinions on that? Should Massapequa Park have it's own school district? Should Lindenhurst have it's own police? Should hamlets that view themselves as sections of a village (I.E. North Lindenhurst) be in different school districts from the village?
What would be the motivation for this? It's definitely going to cost a lot more because you'd have to pay NCPD pay rates. The same goes for teachers. One way this would make sense is if you completely dissolve the NCPD and start from scratch at reasonable pay-scales. Otherwise go look at village taxes in villages that have their own PD (Malverne, Garden City, Lynbrook, Hempstead) ... it's like $3500-$5000 for village taxes in those villages. (compare to ~$500 village taxes in Massapequa Park which doesn't have its own PD).
Absolutely not, that's moving in the wrong direction. A large part of why our taxes are so high is duplication of services - too many layers of government, too many separate districts for schools, maintenance, services, etc.
I've heard talk from people that live in villages and want the village to have it's own police and/or schools. What are your opinions on that? Should Massapequa Park have it's own school district? Should Lindenhurst have it's own police? Should hamlets that view themselves as sections of a village (I.E. North Lindenhurst) be in different school districts from the village?
massapequa park doesnt have thier own police. they use nassau's 7th precinct. the money collected in MP goes to MP, not nassau.
I've heard talk from people that live in villages and want the village to have it's own police and/or schools. What are your opinions on that? Should Massapequa Park have it's own school district? Should Lindenhurst have it's own police? Should hamlets that view themselves as sections of a village (I.E. North Lindenhurst) be in different school districts from the village?
No villages on Long Island, or anywhere in New York, have their own school districts. I don't believe they're granted that power in the village charter. In most cases, school districts are an entirely separate government entity from the town (er.. hamlet or village) they share their name with.
However, cities can (and do) have their own school districts. In both Glen Cove and Long Beach the city government operates the schools. Long Beach is kind of a unique situation because the city district serves areas outside it's boundaries as well.
Now as far as should these smaller municipalities handle services normally provided by the town or county? I don't really know. In terms of cost, I think you'll find that sometimes the village does it cheaper, sometimes it becomes considerably more expensive. Freeport, for instance, generates it's own electricity independent of LIPA and they have consistently lower rates. When a village provides a service normally provided by the county or town, it's residents pay a discounted rate on their town/county property taxes for those categories. So someone living in Rockville Centre is paying both an NCPD tax and village police tax, but the NCPD rate is considerably lower than it would be in an unincorporated area.
From a common sense standpoint, of course it should be cheaper if all these services were consolidated under one branch of government... but since our towns and counties aren't all that great at running things in a cost effective manner - a lot of times it actually works out where "duplication of services" is cheaper or negligible. Lots of people seem to feel having more localized government is a benefit as well. Other times, the villages are just as poorly run and awful at spending money as their larger counterparts.
The town/village PDs do cost more however they provide a much higher level of patrol coverage than they would get with the county PD. Lindenhurst which uses the Suffolk County PD gets only 2 officers per shift ... and depending on activity in the surrounding sectors, sick leave, etc they could have 1 officer or even no dedicated coverage; in comparison neighboring Amityville with it's own PD has a minimum of 3 officers and a sergeant on patrol at all times.
The problem with the county PDs is that they have a "one size fits all" approach with random sectors drawn on a map without regards to crime, population, commercial activity, etc. The town and village PDs allow for a more personalized service ... but at a higher cost.
County police departments used to be very common, there used to be about a dozen in NY ... Nassau and Suffolk are the only ones left. I wonder why?
I've heard talk from people that live in villages and want the village to have it's own police and/or schools. What are your opinions on that? Should Massapequa Park have it's own school district? Should Lindenhurst have it's own police? Should hamlets that view themselves as sections of a village (I.E. North Lindenhurst) be in different school districts from the village?
You think your tax's are high now? ENOUGH with the multi-levels of goverment!
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
