(New York, NY – Insurance News 360) – On Dec. 18, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced a proposal that makes county-wide shared services panels permanent and that the state would provide $225 million in funds to match the savings from those plans.

“This year, we made unprecedented advancements in providing real, tangible savings for property taxpayers across New York and with this proposal we seek to build upon this work,” Governor Cuomo said. “While forces in Washington seek to raise taxes on hardworking middle class New Yorkers, we, with our partners in local government, will continue to work to cut costs, find efficiencies and lower property taxes.”

In the first year of the panels’ existence, 34 counties submitted nearly 400 projects for more than $200 million in savings. As part of this proposal, the governor made state funding for local government performance aid conditional, as long as those shared services panels continued. Approximately $125 million is authorized for planning, implementation and shared services.

Another feature of the proposal is the reduction of local health insurance costs by simplifying creation of local healthcare consortia.

Over the past 10 years, employee benefit costs for local governments have grown at an average of 5.2 percent annually and now account for more than 20 percent of local government spending. One way to lower health insurance costs is to pool local governments health plans into healthcare consortia. There are examples, where leveraging the buying power of many governments could lower costs, save local tax dollars, and not affect employee’s plans.

Governor Cuomo directed the New York State Department of Financial Services to publish guidance and provide technical assistance to local governments in order to ease the process of creating health consortia, specifically for smaller municipalities. They must also work with local governments to ensure that legal and policy impediments to shared services are considered.

Source: New York Department of Financial Services.