Budget Workshop
The Petersburgh Town Board held its second Budget Workshop for the year on Monday October 23 and settled on a budget for next year. The Board’s on-the-spot calculations found that after they had finished adjusting all the figures, between increased spending and reduced revenue, they would need a tax levy increase of about $43,000, which would have been about a 5.7% increase. But since Town Bookkeeper Charles Guntner had estimated a year-end fund balance of about $150,000, the Board decided to apply $30,000 of that to reduce the tax levy, so that the tax levy increase will come in just under the tax cap of 1.84%.
Some of the elements of this week’s budget deliberations were:
Town Hall improvements planned for 2018 came to $26,800 and included replacement of the windows in the main meeting room; new tiles on the floor in the hall, renovations to the floor and the door in the bathroom, a computer security upgrade, replacement of the front door, and installation of security cameras. Budgeting for this required an increase of about $10,000 in the Capital Outlay section of the General Fund.
The budget for the Youth Program was increased by about $1500. Supervisor Webster said this was mostly because the minimum wage will be increasing. Garbage expenses were up by about $3,000 and garbage revenue was down by about $6,000.
The Historian’s budget was up by about $2,000 to cover part of a project to digitize some of the old Town records. The two oldest books of Petersburgh Town records will be photographed by a contractor from Stockbridge, MA. Former Town Historian Nancy Burstein initiated the project and found the contractor. The cost of this will be about $7,000, but Town Historian Peter Schaaphok will be donating $4,000 towards the cost of it. Schaaphok said he is donating the money that was paid to him as Town Supervisor last year, which came to about $4,000.
Once the records have been photographed, reproductions of the two books will be made which will be available for the public to look at, and the originals will be stored in archival conditions to preserve them. Digital copies of these books may also be made available, but the details of that have not been worked out yet.
The line item for attorney’s fees was increased from $17,000 to $20,000 because the Town is now paying fees for its regular attorney David Gruenberg and its environmental attorney Kevin Young.
Most of the salaries of Town Employees did not go up, but the Building Inspector salary was raised by $2,000 annually, from $10,500 to $12,500, and the Library employees got a 2% raise.
Highway
The Budget for gravel for repairing roads was increased, but the budget for equipment and for equipment reserve were reduced. Budgets for State retirement contributions and for medical insurance were reduced in both the General Fund and the Highway Fund, a saving of about $3,000 in each fund. Overall, Highway budget appropriations will be up about $9,300 next year, and Highway revenues will be about $20,000 lower because CHIPS revenue (State highway aid) is expected to be that much lower.
The Town’s outlay for library operations will be about $1500 higher next year, increasing from about $58,500 to about $60,000.