by Alex Brooks
The Grafton Town Board held a budget workshop on Thursday November 20, but it didn’t last long. Councilman Rick Ungaro presented a series of changes to the budget and made a motion, seconded by Councilman Mike Crandall, to adopt these changes to the budget . The vote was 2-2, so the motion did not pass. Town Supervisor Frank Higgins then made a motion, seconded by Councilwoman Barbara Messenger, to adopt the Preliminary Budget as the Final Budget. This also resulted in a 2-2 vote, so that motion did not pass either. But apparently it didn’t need to.
[private]Higgins wrote in an email, “Town law states that when a Board does not adopt a final budget for a given year the preliminary budget becomes the final budget.”
Having reached this impasse, there was not much left to do, and the meeting was adjourned.
The changes that Ungaro proposed were a series of adjustments to various line items based on his research into actual spending this year and his estimates of probable spending in 2015. These included cutting the Independent Auditing & Accounting line, the Assessors Contract Expense line, the Supervisor’s Secretary line, the health insurance line and the Refuse & Garbage contractual line and increasing street lighting contractual expense and the Dog Officer’s contractual expense.
He proposed to use the fund balance for three one time expenses: $40,000 for a new roof for the Town Garage, $2,100 for a new mower for the Town Park and a $100,000 payment to reduce the debt on the Senior Center.
A few days after the meeting, Supervisor Frank Higgins sent the Eastwick Press a statement by email about the budget.
He began, “The Preliminary budget which became the final budget for 2015 was developed at the first budget workshop held on September 20, 2014. It was developed by going through the budget line item by line item with input from all Board members, department heads and our bookkeeper. When the meeting ended everyone was in agreement that we had a workable budget.”
Higgins wrote extensively about his thoughts on Ungaro’s plans for the fund balance, “Of the $214,000 in the fund, the Board has already earmarked $40,000 for the Town Garage roof, $11,000 to upgrade lighting in the Town Hall and Town Garage and the original $12,500 for use in the 2015 budget, which leaves a balance of $150,500 in the Town fund balance (nest egg). In today’s world this is not a great sum of money and it would only take one bad storm or severe incident to wipe out this nest egg. Currently the Town is faced with several costly possibilities: replacement of the Jay Hakes Road bridge/culvert which had to be posted to a reduced weight rating due to its poor condition, and/or replacement of the ambulance, which is fourteen years old and in need of replacement. The Town Hall roof is also close to needing replacement.
“It would not be sensible to expend this nest egg money to pay down the Town senior center debt if we might then need to obtain loans (at higher interest rates) to replace these deteriorating assets. If Mr. Ungaro and Mr. Crandall want to reduce the fund balance Mrs. Messenger and I would welcome the movement of some of these funds into reserve funds for the replacement of Town highway and rescue squad equipment. Due to budgeting in a number of years past there are no reserve funds set aside for these purposes and the Highway Department has a mere $25,000 per year currently earmarked for new equipment.
“I would like to point out that the 1.56% increase to the Grafton budget aids in keeping the Town budget close to the inflation rate which impacts all of us. In so doing it lessens the need for large budget increases in subsequent years. Look at our neighbors – Berlin, a 14.93% increase this year, Stephentown, a 9.7% increase, Hoosick a 3.13% increase. Sensible budgeting and proper management of our fund balance will go a long way towards keeping our Town fiscally sound and avoiding painful tax increases.
“I should also point out that the 1.56% increase leaves our residents eligible for the rebate check offered by the State if we can show a 1% savings in our budget.”[/private]