The Public Hearing On Grafton’s Proposed 2017 Budget Postponed By A Procedural Flaw
By Doug La Rocque
The Grafton Town Board was forced to open and immediately closed its scheduled hearing on the budget document Monday night, when they realized they had never voted to make the spending plan the actual preliminary budget.[private][/private] The Board then opened a special meeting, at which time they voted to move the budget from tentative and preliminary, immediately filed it with the Town Clerk and made copies available to the public.
The Board also approved a resolution to introduce Local Law #1, which would allow them to exceed the .6% state tax cap. This was followed by resolutions to set Monday, November 14 at 6 pm as the new time for the budget hearing. This will be followed at 6:30 pm by a public hearing on the local law. The Board also set Thursday, November 17 at 6:30 pm as the time for a special meeting to adopt the local law and budget. Supervisor Ingrid Gundrum took the blame for the scheduling mix up, telling those who had come to speak at the hearing, “it’s on me.”
Taxes Increase Reduced
At last week’s budget workshop, the proposed tax hike was 13%, a number that did not seem palatable to anyone. The new number for the Town’s side of the budget is 3%. The Grafton Fire District came in with a zero percent raise for this year, dropping the combined increase to 2.71%.
One of the reductions made at last week’s workshop was to reduce the transfer of monies for the Building Fund from $10,000 to $2,500. The proposal to bring the Highway Department’s Reserve Fund for Equipment up to $30,000 was also pared down to $15,000. This was accomplished by moving $7,000 left over in the Repair Fund to the Equipment Reserve, and adding only 8,000 more. The Board also looked at the proposed share of sales tax dollars to what was actually turned over by Rensselaer County, and decided they could comfortably increase that revenue projection by $14,000.
Debate Over the Loss Of Tax Rebate Checks
For the past two years, taxpayers in towns and school districts who stayed under the tax cap, have received a tax rebate, the amount based on a complicated formula used by the New York State Department of Tax and Finance. Former Councilman Rick Ungaro brought that up at the first budget workshop, and it was a concern echoed again at this meeting by Ungaro and several others. Councilwoman Lisa Dooley responded she has spent several days in discussion with the Tax Department over this, and said they have informed her there will be no rebate as it relates to town budgets this year – it will be only for school districts who stay under the cap. She told the meeting this is the plan through 2019, when the tax cap law is set to expire. This was met with some skepticism, but Dooley said she has the documents from Tax and Finance to back it up.
Another issue raised was why the Town’s tax base has decreased by over $100,000 this year, especially in light of the number of assessment changes in 2015. Again speaking for the Board, Dooley said she has confirmed the numbers with Rensselaer County but is at a loss as to why. She and Supervisor Gundrum hope to have an answer for the public hearing.
Use Of Unexpended Fund Balances
The Board was asked if they could use some of the unexpended fund balance to bring the tax hike down even more. The balance was slightly more than $241,000 at the beginning of the year, but the Board has had to use some of that over the past months. Supervisor Gundrum said the Office of the State Comptroller urges towns to keep about 25% of their total budget on hand, and she believes Grafton is close to that number. Speaking with The Eastwick Press after the meeting, Gundrum said the Board did use more than $10,000 dollars from the fund balance to bring the increase down to 3%. “What we want to telegraph as a Board is that it is not realistic not to raise taxes, and the .6% is not realistic at all. I think what we crafted will be palatable for everybody.”
Town resident Mike Smith brought up the issue that 14% of the Town’s land is owned by the State Park system, much of it prime land. Smith believes the state should be making payments in lieu of taxes. This is not a new issue, and has been fought by many Town Boards before, with no luck. Smith feels if the Town were to work together on this, and was willing to go beyond just their local state representatives to department hierarchy and the Governor’s Office, they might meet with some success. The Board indicated they are open to the idea and might re-visit it in 2017.[/private]