Westchester County Legislator Mike Kaplowitz (D, Somers) is to be commended for his efforts to provide some real reform to a very dysfunctional government. As reported in our story this week on page 11, Kaplowitz has taken a bold stance.

In the wake of a series of disclosures pointing to poor fiscal oversight and excessive spending within the Westchester County Board of Legislators, Legislator Kaplowitz has introduced a plan he hopes will help restore the public’s trust. We hope so, too.

Kaplowitz took a look at the committee set up to review internal controls and procedures in the county -- and wasn’t impressed. For starters, the committee was hand picked by the legislature’s Board Chair Bill Ryan, who himself is being called in to testify about some of the expenditures he approved. That prompted observers to question the likelihood of this committee proposing meaningful measures to rein in the spending of taxpayer’s money.
Not coincidentally, that is what Kaplowitz is calling his four-part plan: real reform. The plan doesn’t just call for spending controls; it is a broader blueprint for reforming county government.

Kaplowitz’s proposals make sense, especially in this time of economic strife. Consider a sampling of his ideas: one computer per legislator/county worker; no cars for county legislators; a 5 percent reduction in staff; a 5 percent reduction in spending in 2008; restricting increases in legislators’ salaries to the cost-of-living index.

Such is the stuff of good government, and everyone should be on board. Unfortunately, if unsurprisingly, no one in county government exactly closed ranks with Legislator Kaplowitz after he announced his plan. That’s too bad. We thank him for taking “real reform” seriously.
Many of the municipalities in this area should take notes, especially about the significant proposed cuts in spending proposed by Kaplowitz. Some municipalities get it; Somers, which happens to be his hometown, has decided not to forge ahead with its Community Center at this time. It was a tough decision but the board realized that the community won’t support floating a bond in these hard economic times, especially after the community didn’t support paying for the library’s maintenance and repairs.

Other municipalities seem to have their heads in the sand. The City of Peekskill, for one example, has hired a planning consultant to review space needs for its departments. With the loss of revenues plaguing municipalities in general, especially as mortgage revenue streams have dribbled to a trickle, there is a better use of everyone’s time and money than to look at how city government needs to grow. Planning for the future needs to happen – just not now. We need to see a light at the end of the dark tunnel that is our economy before we start worrying about adding offices for council members.

Nor is it a time to make sizable land acquisitions. There was a very detailed plan presented at the Peekskill Committee of the Whole meeting Monday. The plan is to build a 36,000 square foot fire house, two stories (except for the towers) on property that the city doesn’t own. The council says that the site is still under discussion. That’s good, because there are a number of businesses at the Crossroads that would have to be relocated in order to make this happen. Staff is “looking into land acquisition.” This isn’t the time to Talk about putting the cart before the horse.

Let’s reel it in, everyone, and show some fiscal restraint.