Why does it cost $1,500 more per resident to run the Finger Lakes city of Geneva than it does to run the central New York city of Utica?

Why is the annual tax burden $600 more per person in the Adirondacks’ Hamilton County than it is in Erie County?

Those are the kinds of questions you might have after looking at a new Web site that allows New Yorkers to compare spending, taxing and services at every village, town, city and county in the state using figures for 2007.

The Benchmark New York site is a project of The Public Policy Institute of The Business Council of New York State and the Empire Center for Public Policy, part of the fiscally conservative Manhattan Institute for Policy Research.

“It doesn’t so much give you answers as it gives you a whole new set of questions,” said E.J. McMahon, the Empire Center’s director.

The site is expected to be used in local political campaigns and as a source of fact-checking statements made by candidates.

The tool allows users to rank municipalities by several categories of spending, taxing and services and to compare cities, villages, towns and counties.

For example, it shows that taxes per capita were $1,131 in Albany, but $737 in Syracuse. Yet Albany spent less per capita ($1,811) than Syracuse ($1,921).

The Web site could be used to pierce the often secretive world of local government finances, where some officials insist most spending is set by state and federal mandates and comparisons are rare. The site will soon provide similar comparisons among school districts, which would allow taxpayers who vote on school budgets the benefit of comparing similar or nearby district spending and taxes.

“Without benchmarking, you don’t force the question,” said Kenneth Adams of the state Business Council. In business, the customer sets the price, but in the public sector, “government sets the price. We’re told what we have to pay in taxes,” Adams said. “This is to let citizens determine the value, just like consumers of everything else.”

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