What size building does Tioga County need?
Using the Sutton Associates report of November 1996 where they assessed the actual needs of all the individual departments within the county, a structure to hold Social Services, Public Health, Mental Health, Tioga Employment Center, Veterans Services, DMV, and Information Technology will require about 60,300 square feet. This size will have a smaller parking requirement as well. Some people advocate a larger building for “future growth” of government. Let me point out that “growth” in government is always accompanied by “growth” in taxes. I’m an advocate of reduced government and its accompanying reduction in taxes. What size building can we afford? The county has approximately $14.7 million dollars in the capital projects account. This includes about $8 million of the tobacco settlement funds. With this funding, the county can afford to build a structure of about 60,000 square feet. What is a “campus” approach? Think of a college campus, where English is one building, Math another, a
