County, Towns Receive Checks

County Executive Robert Bondi (left) joins four supervisors last week at the meeting in Mahopac when checks were distributed from the NYMIR cooperative. The supervisors include Kenneth Schmitt of Carmel, Kathy Doherty of Kent, Michael Rights of Southeast and Robert Tendy of Putnam Valley. ERIC GROSS Putnam County, along with four of its towns and one village, received some positive news, about the economy—for a change— last week when NYMIR (New York State Municipal Insurance Reciprocal) announced that the five municipalities would be receiving return on capital as a result of sound investments made by the non-profit, statewide property and casualty insurance program.

Putnam County will be receiving a check for $39,468 while the Town of Carmel will benefit from a $19,373 reimbursement followed by $9,595 in Putnam Valley, $7,225 in Kent, $5,303 in Southeast, and $2,916 for the Village of Cold Spring.

Brian Miles and Michael Spain of the Spain Agency in Mahopac, NYMIR’s designated insurance broker for Putnam and Westchester, welcomed representatives of the various municipalities to a luncheon last week to celebrate the check disbursements.

Over $250,000 was distributed to 17 county, town, and village subscribers to the cooperative insurance reciprocal.

Miles said the NYMIR Board of Governors, made up of 13 governmental officials from across the state, decided to initiate a program that has returned “substantial portions of initial capital contributions that subscribing members make to the reciprocal.”

NYMIR Executive Director Kevin Crawford called the return “a testament to the strength of our program and the sound risk management practices of each of our members. The return exemplifies how municipalities can voluntarily collaborate to insulate their taxpayers from volatility, particularly commercial insurance markets that inflict pain on municipal budgets.”

County Executive Robert Bondi, who serves as vice president of NYMIR, praised the organization’s Board of Directors for “sharing with its members the fruits of longstanding commitment to risk management, underwriting discipline and a conservative investment philosophy.”

NYMIR is New York’s largest underwriter of municipal property and casualty risk with 600 towns, counties, cities. and villages subscribing from eastern Long Island to western New York.