By Doug La Rocque
The last couple of years have seen a lot of disagreement between members of the Grafton Town Board over the budget and the budget process. This year Town Supervisor Ingrid Gundrum said she expects the process to be more timely transparent.[private] Gundrum said she is sending out notices to all department heads this week that their budget requests are due back to her by September 20. She is also seeking more input into the makeup of the budget. This includes a meeting with all members of the Highway Department and Deputy Supervisor Tom Withcuskey to, as Gundrum puts it “help identify and bring clarification to all the issues that impact the largest portion of the budget.” She said she plans to strictly adhere to the timeline outlined for Class B towns by the Office of the State Comptroller. Under that timeline, the Supervisor must file her budget proposal with the Town Clerk by September 30. The Clerk must then present the Tentative Budget to all the Board members by October 5. The Board can then make changes to it if they wish. The revised document, called the preliminary budget, must then go before a public hearing with the final document due at the end of November.
New York State has imposed a budget cap of .06% for 2017, which towns can only exceed by first introducing a local law to override the cap, conducting a public hearing and then voting to approve the override. Gundrum said it is too early to say for certain if Grafton will have to go that route, but at this time she believes the Town will be able to stay within the limit. Last year, Grafton was one of the few towns in Eastern Rensselaer County that stayed under the budget cap.
Ambulance Update Supervisor Gundrum is now more optimistic about the Town’s chances of securing the NYS grant of $150,000 for a new ambulance. It was indicated at a recent meeting the process had bogged down in what was labeled as the bureaucracy of the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York (DASNY), and might even be in jeopardy of cancellation. She said they have been working with DASNY on the particulars, have been able to provide the agency with the information they require, and even have their own contact person for the grant. DASNY is the state agency that is charged with dealing with all the particulars of such grants.
As far as the bid process for a new ambulance is concerned, Gundrum said that is now moving forward with the help of Councilmembers Eric Buckley and Allison Kirschner. The original bid was canceled because of flaws in the proposal. The second bid drew three respondents, but again questions about the specifics of the bid caused the Town Board to reject it. Gundrum said any future bid request will wait until they have more feedback from DASNY as to the future of the grant.[/private]