In school, you may have studied about government, about the federal government and the state government and maybe even about local government. You may not know, however, that in New York State in addition to your local city, town or village government, you have a county government. 

Each level of government has its own responsibilities, although at times these responsibilities can overlap. 

For example, Westchester County government operates an extensive parks system – one of the best in the country – open to all Westchester residents. (This includes Playland!) Your city/town/village may have other parks under its direct control. 

Your local city/town/village may be responsible for collecting garbage and recyclables, but it is the county government that is responsible for getting rid of this garbage and seeing that the recyclables are in fact recycled. 

The local governments and the county all have some responsibilities for keeping roads in good shape, but Westchester alone runs a public bus system, the Bee-Line buses. And it is the county government that coordinates emergency services and health services in the county, among its many, many other responsibilities. 

You may have learned in school that the federal government and the state governments have three branches – the executive, the legislative and the judicial branches.

The same is true for each city, town and village, which each has its own mayor or supervisor, its own legislative branch and its court system. The Westchester County government also has three branches: the County Executive, the Board of Legislators and the County Courts. 

The county executive is currently Andy Spano, who serves a four-year term. The Board of Legislators is made up of 17 people elected to two-year terms. The offices for the county executive and the board are in the Michaelian County Office Building, 148 Martine Ave., White Plains The independent County Court is housed in the nearby County Courthouse, which is also where justices to the state Supreme Court work. 

We know all these layers or government and elected officials can be confusing at times – particularly because Westchester has 6 cities, 16 towns, 20 villages and 3 town-villages. And sometimes people live in the boundaries of one community, but their mailing address is something different. 

On this website we hope to help you understand more about your county government in particular, but there are links to the other local, state and federal governments as well. 

You will find links to the county’s Consumer Department, to the county’s water quality website and to the county’s programs to make sure you never smoke. You will find a calendar of events for things going on in the county, a link to Playland. 

But because we know Westchester is only part of your world, we have a whole lot of other things on this site which we hope will be useful.