We’ve been talking for years about the idea of countywide code enforcement.

It’s time to stop talking and start doing.

Countywide code enforcement was included in the county’s 2021 Countywide Shared Services Initiative – an initiative launched by former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in 2017. Over the course of four years, then, countywide code enforcement was discussed by those participating in the shared services talks. A plan was approved in 2021 and a study launched. That study was completed and discussed by county legislators this month.

That’s a lot of talk that makes us look busy without accomplishing much.

County legislators recently heard about the results of a study by the Center for Governmental Research in Rochester on the topic. The study’s authors paint a picture of a code enforcement system that needs a helping hand. Completing inspections for fire and property maintenance are a common complaint of the 24 code officers interviewed for the study, as is getting local judges to hold property owners responsible for issues that need to be remedied. Local governments also have a hard time filling positions, leading many to try to share code enforcement officers or scramble to find their own.

It could take years to implement a full countywide code enforcement system, but how long would it take to engage the county’s municipalities about implementing countywide handling of fire inspections, which CGR analyst Kieran Bezila noted is “something that is not getting done as it should be locally.” Rather than spend years studying and debating all of the moving parts that a true countywide code enforcement system entails, the county and municipalities could attempt to move faster on one relatively uncomplicated piece of countywide code enforcement like fire inspections and solve a public safety problem at the same time. The major questions to answer are which towns, villages and cities are lagging on fire inspections, how many code officers are needed to fill the gap, how much those officers should be paid and how municipalities using the service will contribute toward the cost of the officers performing the inspections.

That’s a lot to do, but it should be manageable to solve the fire inspection problem by the end of the year while more complex issues are researched and discussed. In our view, it’s better to actually be active than to spend years talking about possibly taking action sometime far into the future.

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