NORWICH – It took more surplus than members of the Chenango County Finance Committee were comfortable with, $1.34 million to be exact, but proposing a 2010 budget that calls for only a slight burden on taxpayers was deemed more important.
After crunching the numbers and reviewing departmental requests for equipment, the county’s primary decision-makers will present a budget for consideration to the full board of supervisors on Monday, one that calls for only a .6 percent tax increase on spending of nearly $81 million.
A proposed average countywide tax rate of $13.75 will fluctuate, either increasing or decreasing, in all 22 municipalities based on state-established equalization rates. (See sidebar.)
The amount is a far cry from the nearly 5 percent increase projected just two weeks ago. The amount was shaved down to 4.73 percent after the county treasurer’s office found “housekeeping” errors in the public safety and information technology departments - a freezer billed twice and the new IT director’s salary over-reported. Later, a Chenango County Sheriff’s Office request for a dump truck was denied and a rubber tired loader for the Department of Public Works was moved into this year’s budget.
The board of supervisors will be asked, also on Monday, to decide whether to purchase the $250,000 loader - again with county surplus. DPW Director Randy Gibbon said the current loader was more than 20 years old. “We are driving junk. The towns have better equipment than we do,” he said.
The equipment list for all departments, most of which is partially funded by either state or federal cost-sharing, totaled more than $1 million before the changes.
In addition, Gibbon was asked to hold back on road work planned and based on projected New York State Consolidated Highways Improvement Program funding.
The changes brought the increase down to 2.13 percent. The amount was further shaved to less than 1 percent after a $340,000 application of surplus. (A million dollars of applied surplus was already included in the original estimate.)
Based on assessors’ data and equalization changes, Real Property Tax Director Steven Harris reported 4 percent in countywide growth from new construction this year. The amount of surplus to apply was selected in order to make the property tax increase reflect that growth.
In recent years, supervisors have agreed to apply $1 million or more to balance the budget. The amount applied was $1.5 million 2005, $1.35 in 2005, 2006 and 2007 budget years, but just $1 million in 2008 and this year.
The county began the year with $16.6 million in surplus. Chenango County Treasurer William E. Evans called surplus, a “tax stabilization fund” that is tapped “under extreme fiscal stress.”
“It only buys us some time. This is economy driven by things like lower sales tax and cuts in administrative aid,” he said. Take-backs of nearly $1 million in federal Medicaid assistance funding for administration expenses in the county’s social services department “is standing between us and having to apply surplus,” he said.
Finance Committee Vice Chairperson Dennis Brown, D-Pharsalia, led a lengthy discussion of property assessments, and said the towns of Coventry and Greene completed revaluation projects that had “unfairly compromised” towns that have low equalization rates, such as Pharsalia, Lincklaen and German.
“They have made a choice to assume they are worth state values. Is it not fair for the rest of the county to take advantage of that ... get money out of them?” he asked.
Evans called the state’s equalization rate process a “fallacy,” but said the Finance Committee doesn’t control it. “We can’t control the equalization rate, towns do. I’m not defending it, but our focus should be on our spending plan and the levy,” he said.
The supervisor from Pharsalia also suggested cutting employee raises, both union and non union, by 50 percent. “Our biggest cost is employees. We pay too much and we have too many of them,” he said. “There’s only 50,000 people in the county. Look at the relevance of scale. We have no real growth, just what the state says is value, no population increase, and more elderly people with less income growth.”
Finance Committee Chairman Lawrence N. Wilcox, R-Oxford, agreed, saying, “Everything has to be on the table.”
Lincklaen Supervisor Wayne Outwater said his committee, if he were appointed chairman of Personnel against next year, would recommend no pay hikes in 2010. Union raises of 4.4 percent added $500,000 to the budget for 2010; non-union raises, $153,000.
The county’s treasurer, however, said he worried about “burning up the good will of the people we are going to need” in order to cut-back government and suggested not cutting raises.
“Do it when people can plan for it,” said Evans. “Get the information out there and stick to it, that it is implicated to all contracts and the compensation schedule.”
Town of German Supervisor Rick Schlag wondered whether it was time for the county to “just say no” and tell New York State to keep Medicaid.
Before turning to the agenda on Monday’s final budgeting meeting, Wilcox said the committee had “worked diligently to cut costs and apply what we need to protect our people.” From one whose made his livelihood dairy farming, the committee’s chairman said he knows what happens when revenues are cut.
“You have to cut back yourself to stay alive,” he said.
Wilcox proceeded to direct department heads and county supervisors to use the remaining days of 2009 to reduce programs and employees. He said money in the 2009 budget could be saved.
“We need to get very serious about that. We need to change the way we do government,” he said.
The committee asked Chairman of the Board Richard B. Decker to dictate a warning to department directors to make no new expenditures, no travel, no new hiring, no overtime, and no refills for the remainder of the year.
“Come Jan. 1, we all have to buy into the fact that we are going to make some hard choices. We are going to need all of the supervisors on board,” said Decker.