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A journalist, a candidate, three council-member spouses and a legislator walk into a courtroom...  It may sound like the beginning of a joke, but that's all that showed up Saturday for the Lansing town Budget Forum, billed as an informal chance for citizens to ask questions about the $4.86 million 2014 town budget that will begin a gradual property tax rise after five years of reductions.  The highlight was a presentation by Councilwoman Ruth Hopkins that actually made the budget and the thinking behind it understandable.

"On the bright side our county is doing better than other counties in New York," Hopkins said.  "The Town of Lansing is doing better than the other towns in the county in terms of growth.  We have the best growth pattern over the past ten years.  I think we can expect to have that growth pattern, especially in the housing area."


Town taxes are on a slow roller coaster, coming down every year for the past five years, and now projected to go up over the next four years.  Next year the tax rate will go up by 4%, from $1.38 per thousand dollars of assessed value to 1.43.  By 2017 projections show the tax rate will go up to $1.72.  The 2014 budget for the Town is $4,851,773.00.  Additional taxes for special districts such as water, sewer, draining and lighting districts is $1,429,514.95 (paid for by properties within those districts).

Hopkins presented facts that put these tax rises in perspective.  First, when Lansing charges $1.43 on its 2014 tax bill most other towns will be taxing $1.70.  In 2009 Lansing was taxing 14% less than other towns.  And in the period from 2009 through 2013 Lansing taxes actually went down from $1.83 per thousand in 2008 to $1.38 in 2012.  Last year the tax rate remained at $1.38.  If the projection holds and the tax rate is set at $1.77 in 2017 it will still be lower than Lansing's 2008 high of $1.83.


Finally, town taxes are only 6% of the total property taxes Lansing property owners pay.  School taxes are highest at 59% of our tax dollars.  25% goes to Tompkins County.  The Lansing Fire District gets 4%, Solid Waste 1%, the water district 4% for those who are within the district, and the Lansing Community Library  accounts for 1%.

The assumptions the Board used in projecting future revenue set the Cayuga Power Plant at a $30 million assessment.  This year it was valued at $74 million.  Next year it will be valued at $60 million in the last year of a PILOT (Payment In Lieu Of taxes) agreement, and its future after that is unknown.  On top of that the Ithaca Mall was assessed at $10 million less than last year.  These two reductions alone have been major contributing factors in a tax base of total assessments that has decreased by $25 million even though the town has seen other normal growth of $21 million (1.6%).

Hopkins said that the two choices are to keep spending reserves to keep the tax rate low, or to gradually raise the tax rate to preserve a fiscally sound budget.

"Choice 1 might be to continue to use the reserves until we run out.  Then we will need a 24% tax increase in order to get back to a sustainable level," she said.  "The second choice is to gradually increase the tax rate, staying beneath the tax cap each year if we can.  Even increasing it gradually we're going to be looking at increases that are greater than we've seen in the past."


The big one, of course, is the cost of employee benefits which tend to rise exponentially, and are out of the Town's control.  The cost of materials for road maintenance is also a variable that is somewhat out of the Town's control in that it is responsible for maintaining the roads whatever the cost is.

"If our growth is greater than it's been those increases would be lower," Hopkins said.  "If the sales tax is much greater those increases could be lower.  This is a scenario based on the information we have right now."

Hopkins said the Board's approach is to take the second option, gradually increasing taxes to keep up with rising costs without decimating the Town's reserves.  In 2014 the levy will be under the state tax cap by $2,484.  The levy and the tax rate will go up by $10 per year (based on a property valued at $100,000).  And the Board pledged to set a policy for using and maintaining its reserve funds.

"During the budget process I think it's safe for me to say that there wasn't a single board member that wanted to have to do this," said Bookkeeper and Deputy Supervisor Sharon Bowman.  "At the end of the day everybody came to an understanding that despite not wanting to have to raise the tax rate, the picture going forward is worse than if we had taken gradual steps.  As hard as it was, there was a consensus."


That amounted to setting goals for this and future years' budgets:

• To minimize taxes and to stay below tax cap
• To stabilize the budget, tax levy and tax rate and avoid drasQc changes in tax levy and tax rates.
• To maintain fund balance (surplus fund) at no less than 25% of operaQng budget or 3 months, per NYS Comptroller recommendaQon
• To establish mulQ year budget planning in support of the stabilizaQon goal
• To reduce heavy reliance on surplus funds to cover operaQng budget
• To allocate some of surplus to capital reserves for capital assets and to set policy governing the size and use of the reserves. (Highway equipment, Roads, Parks and recreation equipment, Technology, Buildings)

"The picture two years ago and the assumptions that were made when the Town Board lowered the tax rate were based on the knowledge we had then," said Councilman Robert Cree.  "These are only assuming these assumptions hold true.  I would never have guessed that the mall would have gotten a lower assessment."

On Wednesday the Board approved the 2014 budget in a 3-2 vote with Cree and Councilman Ed LaVigne dissenting.  Cree and LaVigne have both expressed reservations about hiring a full time rather than a part-time planner, but he says that was only one of many issues he had with the budget.

"My decision was based on the use of the fund balance, salary and benefit concerns that we couldn't address, and a few other smaller items that I just thought taken together made me really uncomfortable this year," Cree says.  "Each of the items on their own certainly have explanations, while not entirely satisfactory to me, but that's just my opinion.  To some extent I felt like too much was being thrown into this years budget that maybe could have waited another year.  In any event, this was the first year since being on the board that I wasn't comfortable with the overall process and end result and could not bring myself to vote yes."

A copy of the presentation and the budget are posted on the Town Web site.

"Hopefully the picture is going to look a lot better than we anticipate," Bowman said.  "But going forward I think the Board is in a situation where they have no choice but to begin to gradually raise taxes."

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