County Board approves $1 transfer of surplus vehicles

Westchester County can now transfer surplus or obsolete paratransit and shuttle buses to municipalities for use in conjunction with programs that benefit Westchester County residents.

The new law gives the Commissioner of the Westchester County Department of Public Works and Transportation the ability to transfer title of the paratransit and shuttle buses to municipalities for the sum of one dollar ($1). Municipalities will first submit an application for various vehicles and then be placed in a scheduled lottery that will occur once a year. The transfer of the used vehicles will be “as is” and be used solely for the public purpose as set forth in the municipalities’ applications.

“I am pleased that, working together with my colleagues on the Board, that we will be taking care of important transportation needs at the municipal level while also helping to downsize the County’s fleet of vehicles, many of which are still in great shape,” said Legislator and Majority Leader Peter Harckham (D-Katonah), who introduced the $1 surplus vehicles bill initially in BOL committee meetings. “Best of all, we’re saving County taxpayers money in terms of maintenance and storage costs while lowering tax levies in those communities who would have bought these vehicles for substantial cost on the open market.”

Legislator Michael Kaplowitz (D-Somers) noted, “Speaking to leaders in the communities I represent, they are in desperate need of buses that can transport seniors among others, and acquiring these perfectly good vehicles for only one dollar will be a huge help.”

In the past, when Westchester County auctioned surplus vehicles to municipalities and fire departments, it was accomplished though an Inter-Municipal Agreement (IMA) that was time-consuming and legally intensive. Because of the cumbersome nature of the IMAs, the sales were put on hold in 2009.

The new bill streamlines the application process with clear-cut criteria, puts the requests through a vetting procedure and puts all the applications on equal footing. Transfer of vehicles will be to County “municipal corporations,” which includes a city, town, village, board of cooperative educational services, fire district or school district.

Buses purchased originally through federal or state funding will be subject to limitations spelled out in those grants.

“This new dollar surplus vehicle bill will be a big boost for us,” said Jeff Daday, president and former chief of the Croton Falls Fire Department. “We’ve been trying to get a transit bus for the last ten years in order to move personnel around during emergencies and fires, but budgets have been tough and we’ve been focusing on pressing equipment purchases instead. I’m grateful to Legislator Harckham and the rest of the County Legislators for getting this done and also keeping the taxpayers in mind.”