Many Schoharie County property owners will see their 2010 property tax bills decrease after the final changes were approved in the $71.6 million budget.
Supervisors put the finishing touches on the spending plan Friday making more than $400,000 in cuts.
The final outcome was a budget with a tax levy, $17.5 million, almost the same as this year.
Tax rates should drop between 1.5 and two percent on average, said Chairman Earl VanWormer, though the changes in rates will vary by town.
The initial budget proposal introduced last month held a tax levy hike of about 6.9 percent with the average tax rate increase of five percent.
On Friday, Supervisors approved finance committee recommendations which included $466,000 in budget cuts, and $400,000 in additional spending before making some changes of their own.
The biggest change was to use $183,000 more in unappropriated fund balance to reduce the tax levy to this year’s level and to drop the average tax rate about two percent below this year.
Voting against the budget were: Larry Bradt of Carlisle, Mike Brandow of Conesville, Bob Mann of Blenheim, Phil Skowfoe of Fulton, and Harold Vroman of Summit.
Several supervisors Friday praised the work of new budget officers Alicia Terry and Paul Brady but some said the budget should have gone further since 2011 may be an even tougher year.
Mr. Mann said there was “no heavy lifting done in this budget.”
Some expenses were postponed in the hopes that the economy will improve but “that sets us up for a much tougher 2011 budget,” he said.
The purchases postponed will have to be bought next year when there will be less stimulus money plus an increase in employee retirement costs, Mr. Mann said.
The county should be looking at merging some departments and reducing staff, he said.
“We’re treading water here,” he said. “Hope is not really a plan.”
Mr. Vroman, the head of the finance committee, said board members were told that this year was going to be tough and they listened.
The finance committee, Ms. Terry, and Mr. Brady, did a lot of work and went over the budget line-by-line, he said.
There are no job cuts in the approved budget though positions were left vacant, but next year may be a different story, Mr. Vroman said.
“There’s going to be some tough decisions for 2011,” he said.
Supervisors worked hard to bring down the tax increase, Mr. VanWormer said.
“People are hurting,” he said. “We definitely didn’t want to increase taxes.”
The board reviewed more than $465,000 in cuts made by the finance committee. Most of the larger cuts were in the area of fuel. There were some additions including nearly $48,000 for a supervising public health nurse and $26,000 more for a director for the Office of the Aging. Both changes were made after November 5’s public hearing at which several people spoke in favor of funding both positions.
In public health, there was a corresponding cut of $57,400 for a deputy director.
After reviewing those changes, board members made some of their own.
They rejected a proposal to raise spending by $35,000 by increasing the contingency account to $385,000, but approved a motion by Mr. Mann to increase advertising by $7,000 to $67,000 and to create a new line of $23,000 for promotional activities to fund town historical functions and events, the arboretum, the Iroquois Museum and other institutions through the new occupancy tax.
A line for $13,500 to fund the town events, the arboretum and museum were zeroed out and it was explained that these would be paid for through the occupancy tax and funding would be determined by the new occupancy tax board which was appointed Friday.