244-d. Joint recreation commission. 1. Two or more municipalities which have established recreation commissions, as provided in section two hundred forty-three of the general municipal law, may join for the purpose of establishing a joint recreation commission.
2. The board of municipalities desiring to establish a joint recreation commission shall informally agree on the use of facilities, personnel, and the distribution of financial support. After informal agreement has been reached, the common council or board of each participating municipality shall pass an ordinance embodying the terms of the agreement, before the agreement becomes final. Failure of one of the municipalities to pass the ordinance within ninety days after the informal agreement has been reached shall void the arrangement as to all parties; but the remaining parties may proceed with a new agreement.
3. A joint recreation commission shall be organized and function in the same manner as a recreation commission and shall be composed of all the members of the commissions of the participating municipalities. A joint recreation commission, however, may create an executive committee from its membership composed of an equal number of members from each participating municipality. Under the same limitations as the recreation commission, the executive committee may exercise all of the authority of the joint recreation commission, except that any executive committee member by demand may require an issue to be submitted to the joint recreation commission.
4. The joint recreation commission shall determine its total budget request. The members of each participating municipality shall present to their appropriating body the total budget and shall set forth the amount chargeable to their municipality by the terms of the agreement and ordinance. In case their appropriating body does not appropriate an amount sufficient to meet its proportionate share, the joint recreation commission may reduce the expenditures attributable to that municipality or treat the reduced appropriation as a repudiation of the agreement and terminate the relationship according to the provisions of subdivision six of this section.
5. A fiscal officer of one such municipality shall be the custodian of the moneys made available for expenditure for such purposes by all such municipalities and that such fiscal officer may make payments therefrom upon audit of the appropriate auditing body or officer of his municipality.
6. A municipality may withdraw from a recreation commission board at the close of a fiscal year by repealing its adopting ordinance and filing a copy of the repeal ordinance with the other participating municipalities. The joint recreation commission may terminate the participation of a municipality when it does not contribute its proportion of the total budget agreed upon in the original agreement and ordinance. The termination shall occur at the conclusion of the fiscal year in which the joint recreation commission makes its finding.
The joint recreation commission at the conclusion of a fiscal year in which a discontinuance occurs, shall fairly and equitably distribute to the participating municipalities all moneys remaining in the fund.
Last modified: February 3, 2019