Glenville residents would see taxes increase under a recently unveiled spending plan for next year.
The Town Board will be examining a proposed budget calling for a 3.4 percent property tax levy increase, which is within the state tax cap.
Glenville Supervisor Christopher Koetzle on Wednesday, Oct. 3, presented his proposed spending plan for 2013. It totals $18.5 million and calls for taxes around $69,000 below the town’s tax cap limit. The budget continues Koetzle’s push to reduce fund balance usage across the town’s three main funds, cutting that spending by more than $145,000 to total nearly $700,000.
“I think it is a good, sound and stable budget,” Koetzle said. “This could easily be a zero percent if we didn’t break that dependence on fund balance, which I think is tremendously important.”
Koetzle touted Moody’s Investors Services upgrade to the town’s general obligation bond rating to Aa3 from A1 in April as evidence supporting reduced fund balance usage. Moody’s said part of the town’s upgrade was due to reduced use of its reserves.
“Where other communities in this county have had their bond rating decreased, we’ve had ours upgraded, which goes against the grain,” he said.
Niskayuna was downgraded a notch last October, which along with Glenville’s updated rating brings the two communities to the same level.
Glenville’s tax base, though, falls more heavily on residents than in surrounding towns, with around 80 percent of taxes coming from residents. The town’s commercial sector accounts for around 15 percent, with other sources making up the remainder.
“Our residents unfortunately feel a larger burden of our tax levy than those of our sister communities,” Koetzle said. “This is why economic development is so important to the board.”
Koetzle said the town has made “tremendous strides” in expanding its commercial sector, but the payoff will only come once tax breaks expire.
Appropriations across the three main funds are increasing $184,000, or 1.6 percent, to a total of $11.8 million. The remainder of the budget is in special districts, which include lighting, parks, drainage, sewer, water and fire.
General fund spending would increase $32,000, or 0.9 percent, to a total of almost $3.6 million. The highway fund would decrease nearly $17,500, or 0.5 percent. The town’s outside village fund is slated for the largest spending increase at 3.7 percent, or almost $170,000.
The spending plan does not include any money for salary increases for the town’s three bargaining units — CSEA, police and highway — whose contracts are expiring at the end of this year. Koetzle said the town cannot afford to give raises.
“Increased compensation to settle union contracts is certainly going to be a challenge,” Koetzle said. “We got the pressures of a tight budget … and it is going to be difficult.”
He was confident, though, that employees and the town could work together to find solutions to its fiscal challenges. Koetzle said some of the challenges facing the town are an aging infrastructure, continuing the pace of economic development and purchasing new equipment.
Increasing funding for paving was a priority for Koetzle. The highway fund budget line for paving would increase $38,000 to total $148,000.
Koetzle said over the last two years the town has been “aggressive” in paving because “more and more roads are falling into disrepair.” He said if the town does not continue to invest, it would have to bond for repairs.
“I don’t want to see more debt,” he said. “These smaller investments today will lead to a better financial position tomorrow.”
Another priority was to continue providing $35,000 to the town’s Revitalization and Economic Development Investment (REDI) fund, which is generally set aside to help small businesses.
“It has been a successful program and I think there is more we can do with it,” Koetzle said.
The fund was established last year, with money offered to businesses seeking to replace signs and meeting certain criteria. The town offered the sign program again this year, but used the remainder of funds to develop a professional marketing strategy for the town.
Koetzle continued chiding Schenectady County legislators for approving a new sales tax distribution deal with the city that keeps distributions to towns flat for the next eight years. The current deal was for four years and expired at the end of November.
“The deal that was struck between and the county and the city on sales tax didn’t do us any favors holding our small share of the sales tax steady for