The residents of Seneca Falls have voted to dissolve their village, with the Town of Seneca Falls taking over many of their services. In cash-strapped New York, there's no doubt that folks across the state will watch to see how things proceed.

Seneca Falls is the largest village in New York to vote to dissolve itself, and others - including Brockport - are considering the move. An article in this morning's Democrat and Chronicle makes it clear that both sides in the Brockport debate have their eyes on Seneca Falls.

Unfortunately, Seneca Falls may not provide a good test case for one aspect of dissolution: savings for taxpayers. The D&C article reports that the Town of Seneca Falls - not the village - has a $0 tax rate because of its host community agreement for Seneca Meadows Landfill. The town gets $2.6 million a year under the agreement. Some of that money can be applied, as needed, to reduce the cost impacts of consolidation, says the dissolution proposition. Communities like Brockport-Sweden don't have that kind of revenue source to tap into.

Some of the other details are consolidation boilerplate. The town will take over services like water and refuse collection, which are paid for through fees anyway. Residents of the former village will be responsible for its debts, not the rest of the town residents. And police services would ideally be provided through a special police district covering the former village - which means only residents in that district pay police costs. A town-wide police force is possible if the state won't sign off on the police district.

A dissolution study by the Center for Governmental Research estimates that village residents will see a 48 percent decrease in the tax rate.