Cayuga County to consider dissolving much-debated Department of Public Works

The Ways and Means Committee passed a resolution Tuesday to schedule a public hearing on the proposal at 6 p.m. March 24, immediately before the full Legislature meeting.

The proposed law would repeal the Legislature's October 2018 decision to unify several entities — the highway department, buildings and grounds department, parks and trails; and weights and measures — into the Department of Public Works.

After the department was created, Director David Gardner fired Deputy Director Carl Martel in August 2019 and then resigned two days later. The Legislature then passed an emergency resolution a few weeks later to reinstate Martel in an effort to prevent a lapse in leadership.

During a special meeting in September, several legislators called for the department to be dissolved as a single administrative unit and its entities once again function as separate departments.

"After considerable deliberation and assessment, the Cayuga County Legislature is of the opinion that such disparate departments run more effectively and efficiently when oversight is central within each department," reads part of the full draft of the 2020 law.

Types of leadership roles within each of the departments and their salaries are still to be determined, said Chairperson Aileen McNabb-Coleman after the committee meeting.

"We’re just looking to put the structure back to what it used to be," she said.

When Ryan Foley, D-Auburn, asked during discussion who would be heading the plan to restructure, McNabb-Coleman and Tucker Whitman, i-Sterling, suggested they were inquiring about how to move forward with no official information to give yet.

McNabb-Coleman said she plans to send legislators an organizational chart from the highway department and salary information from Human Resources to "create a full picture" before the February full Legislature meeting on Tuesday. The Legislature will vote Tuesday on setting the public hearing.

Though she believed the titles would be generally the same, McNabb-Coleman said it would likely lead to a discussion about whether the departments would benefit from a high-level administrator and general foreman position.

"Personally I think the highway department's in need of a general foreman in addition to a highway superintendent," she said, adding they plan to ask staff for their help building the overall structure of the departments going forward.

“It looks like everyone’s on board for a change so far so we’ll see where it takes us for Tuesday,” she said.