No Tax Levy Increase in 2019 Budget
by Alex Brooks
The Petersburgh Town Board held a public hearing on its 2019 Budget on Monday November 5, attended by The Board, the Town Clerk, the Town Bookkeeper, two citizens, and this reporter. The budget is pretty much as it was when last seen at the Board’s last budget workshop. Total spending planned for the year including General Fund, Highway, Library, and special districts, is $1,279,947.
Planned General Fund spending is $581,023, an increase of a little over $70,000 from this year, and Highway Fund spending is about $13,650 less than this year’s budget. This makes a total of about $56,500 budget to budget increase in spending in both funds together, which is about 5.5%, but since General Fund revenue is expected to rise by about $20,000, only about $36,500 of additional money is needed in the coming year, which is closer to 3.5%. However, the tax levy in the coming year will be exactly the same as it was this year, because the Board decided to use enough fund balance to make that happen after they learned from Town Bookkeeper Charles Guntner that the Town will have a significant fund balance at the end of this year. Guntner said at the Budget workshop a month ago that he estimated the fund balance would be about $300,000 by year’s end.
The meeting began with Supervisor Alan Webster listing areas of the budget in which spending increased. These include an additional $35,000 for repaving the parking lot between the municipal buildings, $8,000 additional for fuel and utilities for the Town buildings, $10,000 more for attorney fees, $4,000 to hire a grant writer for the Town, and $15,000 to renovate or replace the garage doors on the Town Garage. There are also 3% raises for Town employees who asked for raises. On the other side of the ledger, though, the Town has finished paying off the bond that was taken out to renovate the Veterans Memorial Hall, when it was re-christened The PVMCC. That payment was $23,800 this year, and will be 0 in 2019.
Councilman Dennis Smith commented on one other item in the new budget. The amount budgeted for Town aid to the Ambulance Squad was increased from $14,500 annually to $16,000 annually in the 2019 budget, at the request of the Ambulance Squad. Smith noted that the amount shown in a recent public notice that the Town of New Lebanon pays to the Chatham Rescue Squad annually for EMS services is $173,000. He said if the Petersburgh Ambulance were to run into problems either from financial shortages or from volunteer shortages, the Town could be looking at something similar to New Lebanon’s arrangement. He said all of the volunteer ambulance squads in the small Eastern Rensselaer County towns are struggling, and they have been meeting together and trying to find solutions, including possibly mergers, but no consensus has emerged yet on a strategy going forward. There was a discussion following this comment about the local ambulance squads and their prospects.
At the Special Meeting which immediately followed the Public Hearing, the Board unanimously approved the 2019 budget.