The Greenburgh Town Board will vote on the 2007 budget this coming Tuesday, December 19th at 4 PM at Town Hall. I submitted my proposed budget to the Town Board at the end of October. The members of the Board have been working hard - reviewing the proposed budget since early November. There are two budgets that I submitted: a B budget (unincorporated Greenburgh only) and an A budget (the villages and unincorporated Greenburgh. If you combine the A budget and the B budget the total budget is 72 million dollars. The Town Council members are recommending that expenditures in the proposed budget be reduced by only $37,000 out of a total of 72 million dollars.
In the B budget the Board reduced expenditures by $111,000 from a budget of $47,242,815. In the A budget the Board members are recommending an increase in expenditures by $76,000 from what I had proposed.
The Town Board members are able to reduce the taxes by cutting into the fund balance. In the B budget I had originally recommended a tax increase of about 1%. The Board is recommending that an additional $750,000 be deleted from the fund balance -which will enable taxes to go down by less than 1%.Taxes in the A budget will go down by more than 10%. The issue before the Board on Tuesday is this: Should we use up more of our fund balance now in the B budget and provide residents with a very slight tax cut? Or, would it be more prudent to use less of the fund balance now and keep tax increases lower during the next few years --rather than have fluctuations in tax rates, as we have seen at the county level (a few zero percent increases followed by substantial double digit hikes). I think people want stability and predictability.
The Town Council members made some good positive changes. I am enthusiastic about the community policing that will start in Mayfair Knollwood. I am very pleased about the $20,000 additional funds for leaf collection - this is good public policy and will enable the town to pick up leaves faster. I am grateful that the Town Board is open minded about the SAT/summer BizCamp. The Board members indicated that if the Community Center Advisory Board endorses the camp they can implement the initiative. I am pleased that the Board has agreed to fund the TZ bridge review and will support the comprehensive plan initiative.
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13 comments:
typo:
the B budget, as originally proposed was $57,354,008, not $47 million.
As long as the SAT camp is charged to the town entire, OK by me.
oh -- what the heck, just add it to the next lawsuit.
Post would be easier to read if it were broken up into paragraphs.
Heck, you should try to read his e-mails with all the run-on sentences clumped into one blob. A basic business writing course would serve him (and us) well. Obviously he'll be voted out at next election, and hopefully we get a Supervisor who is a professional executive manager.
Let us not forget that the majority of the Town Board will be passing a budget that will not reflect their legal obligation to honor their annual $650,000 contract with the Valhalla School District.
This is despite the fact that the same majority, (with the exception of one individual) unanimously ratified that very contract several years ago.
The majority of the Town Board will be reflecting their intent to break a contract despite having no evidence of any authoritive legal body granting them that right.
their "legal obligation" -- please spare me or send us the legal opinion on this
"legal obligation" = contract
so if you and I signed a contract that I would pay you $100 to kill my ex-wife, that would be a legal obligation
Four of the five existing Board members thought it was legal as well as a gaggle of lawyers.
Still waiting to see the authoritive legal body that says otherwise.
PS- Sorry to hear about the divorce and worse yet about your willingness to kill someone.
Four of the five existing Board members thought it was legal as well as a gaggle of lawyers.
Still waiting to see the authoritive legal body that says otherwise.
PS- Sorry to hear about the divorce and worse yet about your willingness to kill someone.
I'm glad that the Town Council and Supervisor seem to be working together on this budget. It's interesting that the Council is making so few changes out of a 72 million combined budget. Rumors of conflict between the super and council may be greatly exaggerated. It's important that everyone work together.
From the Valhalla Voice
"Found Money
Take a look at the Valhalla School District revenues from 03-04 through 06-07 and you will find a very curious increase in interest income, which averages $70,000 for three prior years suddenly jumps to $220,000 in 06-07. That is an incredible jump of almost 200%. Certainly the budget could not generate that much interest. Rates in general are not up appreciably and the district is not investing in the Cayman Islands, so where did come from? They are floating "rising interest rates" as the reason for a 200% increase in interest. Let's put that into perspective interest rates have not risen 200% and at current rates the district would need an extra $3.5 million to invest for the entire year to get that return. With a fund balance capped at $700,000 there is no way they could project $220,000 in interest unless they already had it and had not reported it from prior years. You can see that suddenly in 2006, the district stopped presenting comparative years, so it was impossible to detect this unexplained interest increase. Could this have something to do with the magical $1.3 million that our chearleader CPA was "so excited" about at the last board meeting? The magical $1.3 million that does not appear in the district's revenue projection for the 06-07 budget, but which he says has been used to reduce taxes. Would it be too much to ask the district to put the Auditors report on their website and maybe look for a more professional and less excited CPA firm"
I think a firm accounting is long overdue.
Read about the budget vote. Glad it passed unanimously.
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