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The Village of Lansing Board of Trustees passed a $2.9 million budget Monday.  Mayor Donald Hartill said that the budget will keep the tax rate steady at last year's rate.  But he cautioned that expected reductions in sales tax and other revenues may mean putting some Village projects on hold.

"We're clearly going to have some challenges. One of the biggest income items is sales tax," Hartill said. "A lot of it is generated by motor fuels. Certainly my motor fuel consumption has gone way down and I'm assuming everybody else is in the same boat. So what we're going to have to do as we out more through the year, make some prioritized  decisions as to what projects we actually go forward with. We're actually in pretty good shape in terms of our roadways are in good shape. It could delay some of this stuff by a year without too much trouble."

Hartill said that because of uncertainty about revenues in the coming fiscal year some projects may be delayed.  A major sidewalk project on Dart Drive is planned for the coming construction season.

"For sidewalks, things like that, we'll just have to play it by ear because we're clearly in a very fluid situation," Hartill said.

The tax cap calculation is based on the previous year's tax levy, prohibiting a rise higher than the cap unless the super-majority (60% or more) on a municipal board votes to override it.  Village Clerk Jodi Dake says that this year's tax levy does, indeed, rise above the tax cap, but it will not have an impact on tax bills because of a higher assessment for village properties.

"Basically what we do is we decide what we need to get done and then finding our rate," she said. "We kind of back into it, but we have to pass that override because the levy is over the limit we're allowed. But that's just because our assessment went up."

The Board also voted to override the New York State tax cap, which limits how much a municipality's tax levy may rise.  For the past few years the tax rate was raised by ten cents per thousand dollars of assessed property value in order to make up for a tax drop before the state tax cap was passed in Albany.  Hartill said that without those rises in the tax rate reserves used to pay for road work and other municipal projects would become unsustainable.  But Monday he affirmed that last year was the last year the upward adjustment would be made.

The $2.9 million budget represents a 10.63% decrease from last year's budget, largely because there was more spending on municipal projects like roads and parks than is anticipated this year.  $774,734 will come from real property taxes, and $26,122 from Payment In Lieu Of taxes (PILOT) agreements.  $757 is anticipated from non-property tax items such as cable and utilities.  About $27,000 is anticipated from license and permit fees, park and community room rental fees and other sources.

Major revenue streams that are not from taxes are sales, highway, and mortgage taxes.  The budget anticipates $70,000 in mortgage tax, and $90,000 in Consolidated highway Aid.  The new budget estimates $700,000 in sales tax, the same as the figure from last year.. 

"So far June-February 2020 we have received $604,802," Dake says. "We still will be receiving three more months of sales tax so we should make that budgeted number even with the pandemic."

Hartill said the assessment rise is partly due to new construction in the Village, and partly because existing properties were reassessed.

"Because of the building of the construction in the Village, our assessments gone up well plus some of the other properties that weren't built on also went up in assessment," he said.  "Currently the city, uh, has probably at least a $10 million shortfall on their $70 million budget. The County is the same way. In the Village, we've actually been very conservative in our spending and have adequate capital reserves. And so of all of the places in New York, we're probably about in the best shape. But even so, I want to be very careful going forward."

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