A Deep Dive On the 2021 Budget
by Alex Brooks
Petersburgh Supervisor Dennis Smith presented his preliminary budget at two budget workshops October 5 and October 12. It took six hours or so to get through the budget, as Heinz Noeding had a lot of questions and comments.
One of Noeding’s principles was that budgets should not be constructed from previous budgets by simply rolling over last year’s figures and adjusting up or down based on whatever was known would be different in the upcoming year. Instead, he wanted a fairly specific list of things to be purchased in each category, with quantities and prices. Such information was not always available from the bookkeeper, the Supervisor or the department head, but each line was discussed in as much detail as possible. In this manner it took an hour and a half to get through the first page of the eight page budget.
Noeding’s other idea was that many of the salaries or annual stipends are too low and should be raised, with the idea that this would attract “better quality individuals” to these jobs over time. He said, “the only way to do that is better pay.”
Although there was some sympathy for the idea of raising salaries to keep up with the times, when it came to discussing stipends for town board members, there was some pushback. Supervisor Dennis Smith said even if they raise the annual stipend from $1700 to $2000, it will not attract “a significantly different group of people” interested in running.
Alan Webster said the stipend provided “has never been and never will be the primary motivation for running for office in small towns like this one. People run for office here because they love the community.”
Increases are under consideration for Town board members, the Justices, the Court Clerk, the Town Clerk, the Codes Enforcement Officer, and possibly others, but the Board said it wanted to see the budget numbers as a whole before settling on the amount of the raises.
Noeding proposed raising the Supervisor’s salary from $10,000 to $11,000, but Supervisor Smith said he didn’t want that raised, so it will remain at $10,000 for at least one more year.
On the subject of the Assessor’s salary, though, Noeding reversed course and said he suspected the salary might be too high. He wanted to know more about what the Assessor does, how much time he puts in, and so on. He also said the Assessor’s Clerk might not be necessary. Members of the Board said they would like to have Assessor Craig Surprise come in and talk to them about the job and the salary so they can better understand what’s involved.
Noeding then asked Bookkeeper Charles Guntner about the town’s accounting software and whether newer and better software might be available. Guntner said he had looked into alternatives a few years earlier, and found them to be more expensive, and he found none that looked clearly better than the current software. Noeding said he believes there are a dozen or so municipal software packages offered in the marketplace, and the Town should look at them to see if better software could streamline the Town’s operations in several departments.
Coming to the appropriations for ambulance service, Noeding suggested zeroing it out because no deal is in place to have Petersburgh participate in a tri-town ambulance service and he is skeptical about whether there will be because he believes it is too expensive. Other Board members did not agree, and the $35,000 of funding for a tri-town ambulance service remained in the budget, along with the usual $16,500 funding for Petersburgh’s volunteer ambulance. Supervisor Dennis Smith said Petersburgh is continuing to negotiate the cost of the service and is seeking to reduce Petersburgh’s contribution, but he also provided figures which he said showed that after adjusting for Petersburgh’s volunteer ambulance expenditures and for population differences between the three towns, the numbers that have been mentioned for Petersburgh’s annual contribution by tri-town ambulance organizers are “in the neighborhood of fair.”
Garbage Fees
The Board acknowledged that there is a problem with the budget in relation to garbage disposal, as expenses are rising but revenues are staying the same. The contract expense line for garbage last year was $65,000, and for the upcoming year it is $80,000. The income from permits and tickets, however, was $40,000 last year and is expected to be $42,000 in 2021. So if those numbers end up being as expected in the upcoming year, the taxpayers will be paying almost as much for disposal of garbage as the people throwing away the garbage will be paying. All seemed to agree that the price of both permits and garbage tickets should be raised, but there are some limitations on what is feasible there. First, as someone always points out when this comes up (this time it was Alan Webster), if the Town raises fees too high, more illegal dumping occurs, which creates an enormous headache for the Town, trying to respond with enforcement and cleanup efforts. Second, if Petersburgh fees are higher than Berlin fees, it creates a problem because people might try to buy garbage tickets from Berlin at the lower price, and Petersburgh’s revenue would crater.
With the transfer station agreement with Berlin up for renewal next April, the Board felt the next move is to meet with Berlin to discuss ways they may be able to work together to get Petersburgh’s garbage budget more in balance.
Revenues
The revenue budget did not seem to be impacted too badly despite COVID considerations. Total projected General Fund revenues (not counting local property tax revenue) were down about $8,000 on a budget to budget basis, from about $220,000 to about $212,000.
Highway
The budget as presented showed Highway expense projected to be down by about $90,000. About $50,000 of this came from two specific items. One is that the final payment on the loader will be made this year, so a $33,000 line for machinery will zero out in the upcoming year; the other is that projected health insurance expense is down by about $17,000 because less of the highway workers need it this year.
The other $40k seems to be because budgeters last year were feeling ambitious about road repairs, but in fact the actual amount spent on those repairs was more modest. Heinz Noeding’s take on this is that the budget should more accurately reflect what will actually be done this year rather than what someone hoped might get done, and therefore should be significantly reduced. Tom Berry, on the other hand, said if less road repairs were done this year, that means the roads will need even more repair next year, and the budget needs to reflect that. Noeding agreed to leave the figures as presented, but he asked the acting Highway Superintendent to create a scope of work with accompanying budget for the upcoming year that would show what work the Department is actually budgeting for.
Library
There was a lengthy discussion about the library budget. Heinz Noeding said he thought library spending should be lower in a year when the library was shut down for several months, but it seems to be about the same as usual. He said the Town Board asked in June that each department in Town submit reduced spending plans to be implemented in case the town’s revenues were to be reduced because of the pandemic, and they never got anything like that from the library. Supervisor Smith noted that they didn’t get revised budgets from any of the town departments.
Library Director Anita Wilson said the library was closed for three months, and during that time, “we all came in and worked.” She said there is always plenty to do for library staff, and they were providing curbside service for patrons during that time. She said she did hold back on new book purchases during that time so as to reduce spending, but she never understood that the Town Board wanted a written budget reduction plan, so she did not submit one.
As for the budget for 2021, she said the library is open now and she would hope to return to normal operations some time in 2021, and she would hope that would occur early in the year, so it would be pretty much a normal budget year, and she also noted that Upper Hudson Library System has told Petersburgh its computers are too old, so the Library hopes to replace two computers a year for the next few years so it can get more up to date with its equipment.
Alan Webster defended the library saying it is a critical community resource, and its budget is “money well-spent.” Noeding said he doesn’t doubt that, but he would like to see a more detailed budget showing what they plan to spend money on in 2021. Webster asked Wilson if she could provide a more detailed budget for the upcoming year, and she said she would work on that.
The Net Result Unknown
The budget as presented showed an increase in the tax levy of about 2.8%, but a great many changes to it were suggested, and final decisions were not made on many elements of the budget, so the total budget picture is not clear yet. The Board set another budget workshop for Monday October 26 at 7 pm at which they may be able to assemble a tentative budget and come up with a bottom line.