Amongst some disagreement and dissent, the Ulysses Town Board voted 4-1 last week to adopt a revised 2009 budget that will decrease the tax levy by at least 4 percent.
Town Board member Rod Ferrentino voted against the budget over items added to the budget by other town board members.
The approved budget has a levy of $539,104, a $24,656 decrease from 2008. The board added up to $60,000 to the budget proposal in fund accounts for contingency funds, stream testing and comprehensive-plan action items.
Town Supervisor Doug Austic indicated that the adopted budget, with the items added since his proposal, will result in a reduction in the tax rate of 32 cents to $1.28 per $1,000 of assessed value for the general town fund and highway fund.
The fire protection contract with the Village of Trumansburg is $312,906 or an additional tax of about 97 cents per $1,000 in assessed valuation.
“All in all the Ulysses taxpayers will probably not see a great decrease in their total town tax bill, but we will at least stay static or a little ahead of the game,” Austic said. “The tentative budget (I proposed) would have given a bigger benefit, but the board has the right to add what they want to my budget presentation.”
At last Monday's meeting, Ferrentino protested the $5,000 earmarked for stream monitoring and $11,000 added to the contingency fund, the latter of which may be used for a village community building.
“I'm not confident that's a good use of taxpayer money right now,” Ferrentino said. “I think it's wrong. We need to keep taxes as low as we can.”
Austic and Ferrentino maintained that money can't be contributed to a fund or project without a solid plan.
“Right now, we don't have a plan,” Austic said, referencing stream monitoring and contingency funds.
Board member Liz Thomas disagreed.
“Obviously I feel the changes we've made in the budget are worthwhile,” she said. “It is difficult to tell our exact direction in advance, but now we have a bit of money to create more concrete plans and move ahead in these areas. As far as them increasing anyone's taxes, these amounts are rather small.”
Town Board member David Kerness agreed with Thomas.
“Village and town surveys identified supporting the community center as a high priority item,” he said. As for stream water testing, “this may or may not be done only because there is an issue as to what to test for, where to test, frequency and what the test criteria are.”
“All the budget items have better then 70 percent chance of being spent and if not will be added to our Unrestricted Fund balance,” Kerness said.
“My assessment of the whole situation is that we probably will not use the increases added by the board,” Austic later said. “So at the end of the year, the fund balances will be increased and residents will have to pay more taxes than I had proposed.”
“It's a bit nerve-wracking to me to be cutting taxes when we are heading into such uncertain economic times,” Thomas added, “but we do appear to be in very strong financial shape based on the numbers Doug has provided.”
Current 2008 Proposed 2009 Change
TOTAL SPENDING $2.174,954 Million $2.800060 million +28.7 percent
TAX RATE per $1K $1.28446/1000 $1.60471/1000 -20 percent
Fire Contract $274,350 $312,906 +14 percent
Fire Tax rate $.99670/1000 $.97271/1000 -2.41 percent
TOTAL LEVY $563,760 $539,104 ~(approx) 4 percent
