Tax increase near 5 percent as last-minute change adds to expenses
Glenville Residents can expect to see their taxes rise with the Town Board unanimously approving the 2011 budget, which saw a last-minute change reestablishing a full-time position.
The town’s 2011 adopted budget reached $11.7 million and included a residential tax increase of 4.7 percent. A total of $1.1 million will be used from the town’s fund balance and the budget holds an increase around $200,000 in appropriated expenses from 2010.
Councilman Alan Boulant presented an amendment to the budget to restore the dog control officer position back to full-time over concerns of services being affected by the reduction.
When we were looking at the budget and we were making the cost cuts that we could make to help the budget, we made some changes and eliminated some positions. We originally took DCO to part-time to save money, said Boulant. `I just felt that the service the town was going to get from a part-time position was not going to be adequate.`
Boulant said there are around 2,400 dogs in the town and village and there are two parks in the town with an additional dog park approved to be developed. Also, municipalities are taking over dog licensing due to a change in state law, which Boulant estimated to result in $5,000 revenue for the town.
The board approved the amendment in a 4 to 1 vote to reinstate the position and add the estimated revenue, with Councilman Mark Quinn voting down the amendment.
`I’m still not fully convinced of this full-time position,` said Supervisor Christopher Koetzle before casting his approval vote. `After talking this out with board members, staff and management I’m inclined to vote yes to restore full-time with the caveat I do want us to be vigilant and look at this again as we go forward in the next six months or so and see if we’re properly staffed.`
Union negotiations for health insurance concessions weren’t completed before the budget vote, but Koetzle said progress has been made and the town hopes to reach an agreement with the unions soon. Any cost savings or pay raises from union concessions couldn’t be included in the budget.
`It has been positive, I think, generally speaking,` said Koetzle about union negotiations.
Former Democrat supervisor Frank Quinn said to the current Republican board that the previous town board was in the same economical situation and gave a zero percent tax increase. He also said the town had overshot health insurance estimated increases.
`You reduce the number of costs by reducing the number of employees,` said Quinn. `It is a fallacy that the reduction in the number of employees automatically reduces services.`
Valerie DiGiandomenico, former councilwoman, also criticized the budget and pointed out individual line increases she thought didn’t make sense or she didn’t understand the reasoning.
`The present board ran on the ticket to control spending, which went from $11.5 million in 2010 to $11.7 million in 2011,` said DiGiandomenico. `There was no tax increase in 2010 without pay raises for any of these unions.`
Boulant spoke out about the previous board members comments and questioned them for not doing more while they were in office since they were criticizing the current board. He also pointed out using $1.3 million from the fund balance last year was wrong and the current board was `setup to fail.`
`The reason that some of the highway stuff has gone up because we have to replenish infrastructure costs that were robbed from the general fund to make it a zero percent tax increase last year,` said Boulant. `I don’t see where we can cut [services], we need to increase revenues.`
Koetzle echoed Boulant’s comments and said if they used more of the fund balance they too could have a zero percent tax increase.
`I tell you where we could get 4 percent to a zero [tax] increase, we could use the same amount of fund balance that they used last year,` said Koetzle. `We can go back and do the $1.3 million and we will have a zero percent increase.`
He also noted the additional $500,000 in FEMA funds given to the town, which were included in last years budget and helped ease the burden on residents.
`We do not do our budget like witchcraft, those days are done,` said Koetzle in response to previous board member’s comments.“
