There’s a lot to County Executive PJ Wendel’s 2026 budget that should sound familiar to county residents.

The county needs more money. It needs to increase the amount it’s taking from taxpayers even as the tax rate goes down by a nickel. We’ll spare you financial gloom and doom speech about what happens when property values stop going up every year and those low tax rates no longer support the county government’s appetite for new revenue. We’ve sounded that alarm enough over the years. Just remember that eventually the bubble will burst.

There’s a lot to unpack in terms of what the county wants to spend your money on, so we’ll pick just one for today. Wendel is proposing a $500,000 line item in the budget for a Government Efficiency Fund to support local municipalities that pursue mergers, consolidations and shared services. According to Wendel, unlike existing programs that reimburse costs after the fact, this fund would provide upfront financing to help municipalities reduce redundancies, streamline operations, and ultimately lower long-term property taxes.

This is the type of funding – whether it comes from the county’s surplus or the budget itself – that could do a lot of good. For as much as we rail about county taxes, those who own property know that county taxes are often the lowest number on their property tax bill each year after school and municipal taxes. It’s worth an investment from the level of government that taxes people the least to possibly lower taxes levied by the governments that tax the most.

We hope that towns, villages, cities and even school districts take Wendel up on his offer. And Wendel and his administration need to take the lead to push areas for consolidation that makes sense. There are a lot of duplicated services – courts, assessing, clerks, highway supervisors and code enforcement to name a few – that could be consolidated and potentially save town, village or city taxpayers money. Our population is shrinking and, if you haven’t noticed from some of the sharing of positions amongst school districts, we’re starting to have problems filling positions like transportation supervisors and psychologists. We have a feeling the local government side of the taxing equation is in a similar boat to school districts.

There are state programs that will help a merger on the back end. Wendel wants to help with financing on the front end. That means another excuse for keeping the status quo has just been taken away. We hope that means this $500,000 will be money well spent.