Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has unveiled his plan to consolidate New York state's local-government structure, which counts more than 6,000 special districts.

Cuomo's office has been studying the state's bloated bureaucracy for more than a year and says with New York facing billions of dollars in deficits, consolidation or dissolution may be necessary.

"Simply put, our system of local government is broken. It has been outpaced by globalization, regionalization, and an ever-changing marketplace," he said. "The density of local government in New York is astounding. There are 10,521 overlapping government units providing duplicative services (and) creating needless, wasteful bureaucracies."

In Erie County, the AG's office counted 939 special town districts, including 427 for lighting, 143 for water, 119 for sewer plus 29 school districts.

"My office last year showed we can save in Erie County anywhere from $2.6 to $4.4 million per year through the consolidation of all local assessment units into one regional countywide system," said Erie County Comptroller Mark Poloncarz, one of many public and private officials who are supportive of the reform measure.

Cuomo is pursuing a change in state law focusing on three components:

• The law is inconsistent regarding consolidation of local governmental entities. Under current law, there are differing rules for various types of governments.

• The law is filled with anachronisms, including provisions that conjure up images of "poll taxes." In some cases, a person may vote to dissolve or consolidate governments, such as special districts, only if they own taxable real property in the area.

• The law contains many legal barriers, and town boards are powerless to consolidate or dissolve certain types of special districts, while citizens are powerless to initiate certain types of consolidation or dissolution of special districts.

In New York state, special districts were created to assist towns facing population explosions caused by the migration of people away from cities after World War II. They were established to offer service delivery to properties in a specific area of a town.

Special districts have grown dramatically since 1940, when there were 2,000 special districts. By 2000, that figure had grown to more than 6,000.