244-D - Joint recreation commission.

§  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.