Town of Colonie Supervisor Paula Mahan will present her 2013 tentative budget at a Town Board meeting Thursday, Sept. 27, and she says the plan stays within the state 2 percent tax cap.
The tentative budget totals $82.1 million, which is a $760,000 increase over 2012, Town of Colonie spokeswoman Sara Wiest said. The increase is due to the cost of all mandatory increases for employee health care and New York state pension expenses, she said. The proposed budget has a net tax rate increase of 12 cents per $1,000 of assessed property value, which would bring the tax rate to $3.13.
“I am proud that we have created a balanced budget that allows us to provide our residents with the same level of outstanding services while staying within the 2 percent tax levy cap,” Mahan said in a statement.
Weist declined to discuss any cuts or other changes that might be in the budget, but said the town “ended 2011 with a $700,000 fund balance, the first positive fund balance since 2005,” which was verified by an independent auditor.
“Our success over the years in making Town government more efficient, eliminating the deficit and balancing our budget put us in a strong position for 2013,” Mahan said in a statement.
Weist also declined to identify the town’s actual tax levy limit, or the year-to-year tax increase the town would be allowed to adopt without a supermajority vote, derived by a complicated series of calculations. Last year, that figure ran above 2 percent for many area municipalities. She also would not say how much the tax levy would be raised by under the plan, saying that information would be available when the budget is presented on Thursday.
A public hearing on the budget will take place in November, along with a presentation on the budget by Comptroller Craig Blair. The final budget needs to be adopted by the Town Board no later than Nov. 30.