We’ve made progress over the past several years that I’ve been serving in the State Senate to begin, we hope, putting the brakes on runaway local property tax increases. But there’s a long way to go.

New York’s school property tax relief program, commonly known as STAR, now provides $5.1 billion in property tax relief annually. This fall also marks the second consecutive year of our direct property tax rebate program. Beginning in 2006, a cap on local Medicaid costs has been widely credited for restraining increases. Under the cap, the state is relieving localities of additional Medicaid costs above a growth rate of 3.5 percent last year, 3.25 percent this year and 3 percent next year and in subsequent years. The state Health Department recently announced that this year the cap will produce nearly $200 million in Medicaid cost savings for localities, including more than $1.7 million in savings for Steuben County.

But the issue of high property taxes continues to rankle, rightly so. Medicaid costs remain extraordinarily high in New York. We’re hopeful that a new Medicaid Inspector General -- once that office is running at full throttle -- will begin to crack down on the abuse, fraud and waste that plagues the system and thereby further, and we believe significantly, ease the burden on property taxpayers. And while short-term responses like STAR and direct property tax rebates are necessary, it’s imperative that we begin to also approach the issue from a long-term perspective. It’s the reason a state-level Commission on Property Tax Relief is currently at working developing its recommendations on how best to provide a fundamental, long-term restructuring of a tax burden that’s become too hard to handle for too many homeowners. We must explore additional Medicaid reform, local government efficiency, mandate relief, public school financing and economic development -- all of which affect the property tax burden.

Local government efficiency is getting some noteworthy attention. It’s going to be a hot-button issue in 2008. That’s because last year a new Commission on Local Government Efficiency & Competitiveness was created to study how New York’s 4,200 local governments can provide public services more efficiently and more cooperatively as part of the effort to bring down local property taxes.

This new 15-member, interagency panel recently issued its final report, "21st Century Local Government."

So the report's out and, as expected, it's already sparking worthwhile debate.

This 15-member commission, chaired by former Southern Tier Congressman Stan Lundine, was created last April to study and make recommendations on how New York’s 4,200 local governments can provide public services more cooperatively and efficiently. Commission members include Tom Tranter, Jr., president and director of government affairs for Corning Enterprises, and the former Chemung County executive.

"To make real progress in containing our local property tax burden, aggressive service consolidations and government restructuring are needed," the commission stated in the report's executive summary, "This is a complex undertaking, and one that will require a continuing partnership with local governments and an ongoing effort across many state agencies. State and local programs both need to be reviewed on a continuing basis."

The commission has estimated that at least $1.1 billion in cost savings to local governments could be realized through the implementations of its recommendations, including measures aimed at:

-- centralizing some services at the county level or between counties, such as tax collection, vital records, and jails;

-- making it easier for municipalities to form cooperative health benefit plans for their employees as a way to reduce insurance costs;

-- facilitating local shared-services agreements for the provision of highway services;

-- allowing counties to join together to employ a single public health director;

-- setting up restructuring committees to examine service sharing and consolidation within local schools; and

-- easing the procedures for the consolidation of towns and villages.

The overriding goal, of course, is to undertake local government efficiency and competitiveness initiatives as a key part of the overall effort to reduce the local property tax burden, particularly across the upstate region. Toward this end, I believe "21st Century Local Government" will stands as a central blueprint for legislative actions that can help bring down local property taxes by encouraging greater efficiency by local governments.

Early reactions to the commission's report appear positive. The state Association of Counties, Council of School Superintendents, and Business Council, for example, issued support for various recommendations. Of course, there will be opposition and resistance too.

But it's a beginning. It frames a necessary debate within New York government. We're anticipating a report from another state-level commission created last year, the Commission on Property Tax Relief, that will further spark the discussion.

That's all good. These concepts and ideas have been kicked around since I can remember, but now we're effectively consolidating them, getting them all together in the same room, so to speak, so that we can air the concerns, start to settle differences, more fully recognize the reality, and, most importantly, start to act.

I've long been an advocate of shared services at the local level. We know that many of this area's local leaders, such as Chemung County Executive Tom Santulli, have recognized the value of cutting costs at the local level through consolidations, shared services, and the like.

"It is incumbent upon us to seek out ways to provide tax relief to our overburdened property taxpayers," Mr. Santulli recently said.

The Legislative Commission on Rural Resources (LCRR), which I currently chair, has also made local government effectiveness a key focus of its work. Recently, for example, the Legislature approved legislation (S.3228) developed by the LCRR, which I sponsor, to allow two or more adjacent towns to elect a single justice to preside over their town courts. It's a move echoed in the commission's report, and it should soon become state law.

The fact is that shared services and other local government efficiency initiatives have to play an increasingly important role in the ongoing, comprehensive effort to keep property taxes under control. We need to keep encouraging these options for localities looking for ways to cut costs and ease the local tax burden. We simply can’t overlook the potential for local governments to take their own steps toward greater efficiency and cooperation.