County Executive’s Corner: “Sharing Space, Saving Money”

By County Executive Ed Day

We are building on our progress of renewing, refocusing and reimagining county government. We recently announced an exciting new shared space initiative; a way to streamline the delivery of services to residents and save taxpayer dollars by providing non-profits space within county buildings.

With the support of the County Legislature, we will pass a new local law creating a more efficient way of assisting our valued non-profits who already contract with the county to provide services by actually leasing space to them and better focusing the overall effort to provide services to our residents.

The Local Law is being sponsored by Minority Leader Lon Hofstein and co-sponsored by Chairman Toney Earl and Legislator Harriet Cornell. I was proud to have them join me during the kickoff event at Building A in the Robert Yeager Health Complex and happy to hear of their strong support for passing this initiative.

We were also joined at the kickoff by the CEO’s and Directors MHA Rockland, MHA Westchester, BRiDGES, VCS Inc., Cornell Cooperative Extension and Nyack Montefiore Hospital.

This new law will allow us to quickly react to changing market conditions and offer space within the Health Complex to these non-profits and others who may be interested in the future.

As these non-profits are already partially funded by Rockland County, this co-location will allow them to save money on rent, create new opportunities for cooperation between us and support the interests and well-being of our residents. It is a fact that a core role of County Government is the delivery of services to the people. But I also view our ability to not only deliver these services efficiently but in a manner that respects the ultimate funder of government – you the taxpayer – as the goal we should strive for.

We are accomplishing that in a truly unique way. This shared space initiative is another example of how we are doing things differently and thinking outside the box. It showcases the work we do with our talented employees, department heads and commissioners to innovate and improve our delivery of services.

But most importantly, we are putting taxpayers first. Constantly looking for ways to save money while still improving services and ensuring Rockland is ready to move forward.

This new initiative accomplishes all of those goals and more. Put simply it is a win for residents receiving services, a win for non-profits and a win for all our taxpayers. Rockland County was named the Healthiest County in New York State and we are continuously looking for ways to maintain that rating.

This step forward will help transform the Health Complex into a modern, professional human services hub; a “one stop shop” so to say. An effort that will improve health outcomes and the wellness of the people of Rockland through the delivery of a continuum of critical services.

Now is the time to make the changes that will benefit Rockland residents for generations to come and I thank Legislators Hofstein, Earl and Cornell for their support of this initiative.

  county executive’s corner, ed day