KINGSTON � The audience section of Ulster County's legislative chambers was awash in a sea of green during the March 2 legislative session, as members of the county's highway department, in their county-issue neon green shirts, turned out to protest the shared service initiative that seeks to transfer many of the services the department provides, including snowplowing, to individual towns.

Noting the Herculean efforts of the county snowplow crews during two recent snowstorms that saw state of emergency statuses declared in several of the county's townships, highway employee Jack Becker asked the legislature who would be responsible for the maintenance if Hein's plan is implemented. "Are the legislators going to clean the roads?" he said.

Becker, a longtime employee of the Ulster County Highway Department, said that the plans to implement the initiative have all the "county workers feeling threatened right now," and warned the assemblage, "we're not just employees, we're voters."

Based on the recommendations specified in a shared municipal services study commissioned by the county in May 2008, the hallmark of the plan is the transfer of responsibility from the county to the individual townships for snowplowing and light maintenance of the county roads within those municipalities. The county would pay municipalities a set rate, which, Hein said, would exceed the towns' actual costs to provide the service, yet still be less than the current cost to the county.

Legislator Dean Fabiano, who serves on the shared service implementation committee, said he's reserving judgment of the initiative until "all the numbers are in," but added that, at this juncture, the negotiations are "far apart on the money and far apart on the trust � we've got to agree on a fair price"

County Executive Mike Hein cites the program's potential to save millions of taxpayer dollars through service consolidation and county highway department staff reductions of up to 25 percent. The snowstorms of February 23 and 25 cost the county nearly $213,000 in overtime costs, according to a report issued by the county comptroller, Elliott Auerbach.

Local CSEA union leader Terry Gilbert estimates that some 200 county employees came to the legislative session to protest the proposed initiative. The union leader said that while he and the county executive enjoy a working relationship with one another, he refuses any negotiation that will involve more job cuts within the county.

Ulster County employee Tod Schmidt told the legislature that the initiative represents cost shifting from the county to the towns. "It's not shared services, but shed services," he said.

Gilbert maintains that the job cuts Hein implemented at year's end stripped the county work force to bare-bones levels and that services will be impacted if further cuts are executed. He vowed to fight the initiative with a show of force at all future legislative sessions.

The county executive disagrees. In his State of the County address, Hein argued that Ulster County couldn't afford to continue to be the area's largest employer. "Not only does it strain already overburdened taxpayers, it is fundamentally not a sustainable model."

For the 2010 budget, Hein trimmed 100 jobs from the county cork force through attrition, early retirement, and lay-offs. Thirty county employees received a pink slip in December, of them, 24 people have taken reassignments to other unfilled positions within the county. Gilbert said he worked tirelessly to help place those people into other county jobs. There are still some 48 vacant positions accounted for in the 2010 county budget, but all departments are under a spending moratorium.

An initial report detailing the implementation committee's findings about shared services is slated to be available at the March 23 meeting. The county executive hopes to have a final plan in place by September, in time for towns to figure into in their 2011 budgets.