NEW BERLIN – In this year’s election season, New Berlin’s unopposed town supervisor says the challenges for the community are an unpredictable economy, dropping state aid and maintaining highway and ambulance services at their current levels.
Serving two-year terms at a time, New Berlin’s Town Supervisor Ross P. Iannello has worked for the community for the past 11 years and this November, he will be the only candidate for the position on the ballot.
Also re-seeking election are current town council members Halys Davis and Robert Gardner. Both incumbents are seeking reelection unopposed for four-year terms on the Town of New Berlin Board.
“Fiscally, this year has been a real challenge and next year is looking to be even worse,” said Iannello.
The world recession and the more local impact of collapsing Wall Street revenues have left representatives in Albany looking to cut aid at nearly every corner. The direct reduction in eligible aid has already been felt locally with the revised estimate to the Consolidated Local Street and Highway Improvement Program (CHIPS), which often contributes ten of thousands of dollars to towns across the county.
Iannello said the program was drastically cut in early 2009 but was re-instituted at the previous rate due to last-minute changes by Albany lawmakers and federal stimulus money. However, the outlook for the program’s contributions in 2010 is anyone’s guess.
“When you don’t know if you’re going to get $20,000 or $50,000, it can play havoc on a small town such as ours when it comes to responsible fiscal planning,” said Iannello.
In addition to the direct effect of a loss in aid, Iannello said an indirect loss of funds was taking place at other levels of local government.
“It’s all about revenues and expenses. Every year we collect a lot of tax money and hold it to pay our bills and we used to get back a decent return on the interest, but not we only get a ridiculous half a percent,” he said.
Iannello explained that in past years it was not uncommon for the town to place around a million tax dollars in an account that earned roughly 4 percent interest, but since the recession began the Federal Reserve has pursued a policy of reducing collected interest in hopes of getting people to spend money to move the sluggish economy.
“Half a percent of a million is a lot less than 4 percent of a million. You don’t even need to do a whole lot of math to figure out that’s a big difference,” he said. “It’s things like that, that are happening all through the process and they’re causing a lot of headaches.”
The supervisor said another primary focus in his next term was to encourage different layers of government to work together better.
“We need increased cooperation between everyone to make things work in the next couple years. No more turf fighting at different levels of government; it only cost us more money,” he said.