Archive: News

The County Legislature will consider recommended amendments to the County’s 2009 tentative budget that would meet the Legislature’s 2009 3 percent tax levy increase goal and maintain the County’s surplus fund balance at close to the $1 million level that has been urged by County Administrator Steve Whicher.  The recommendation from Legislators acting as an Expanded Budget Committee came after a series of votes during the committee’s tenth and final review session since receiving the Administrator’s proposed budget nearly two months ago.

The proposed amended budget, recommended by a vote of 9-4, applies $80,000 in contingency funding to keep the levy increase below 3 percent.  The amended budget would increase the tax levy (the total amount of property tax revenue needed to balance the budget) by 2.99 percent.  Because of the effect of the 2008 assessment revaluation, the countywide average tax rate would decrease by 13.5 percent to $5.93 per thousand dollars assessed property value. Voting against the proposed amendments were Legislators Will Burbank, Dooley Kiefer, Frank Proto and Mike Sigler.  The surplus fund balance in the amended package stands at $924,856.

An initial proposal which would have increased the tax levy increase by 3.21 percent failed by a vote of 6-7, with Legislators Burbank, Proto, Sigler, Jim Dennis, Leslyn McBean-Clairborne, Greg Stevenson and budget chair Nathan Shinagawa voting no.  After that measure failed, Legislator Martha Robertson proposed the addition of more than $100,000 in unallocated revenues to reflect the effects of a pending payment in lieu of taxes agreement between the county’s Industrial Development Agency and the AES-Cayuga generating plant.  That motion was withdrawn, however, after Administrator Whicher advised that the tax effect of that agreement would not be felt until the 2010 budget year.

Earlier in deliberations, Legislators discussed various approaches to deal with the issues of the tax levy and fund balance.  A proposed package of target reductions for the county library, the Lansing library and the Sheriff’s Office to bring the levy increase down to the target level was unsuccessful; a proposal to increase the tax levy to boost the surplus fund balance to $1 million was withdrawn for lack of a second; and the proposed use of contingency funding to reduce the tax levy failed initially by a vote of 6-8.

Administrator Whicher again warned Legislators of the dangers of focusing on the tax levy goal and spending down the County’s reserves.  With as much as 20 percent of funds evaporating at the State level, with some of that passed down to counties, he predicted a “very severe challenge” coming from reductions in support over the next year, which should not be underestimated.

Earlier, Legislators made two adjustments to the recommended budget, neither of which affected target spending.  $30,000 in multi-year funding was approved to support anticipated rental expense for the County Office for the Aging, which needs to relocate from the County Courthouse, and $50,000 in earmarked contingency funding was approved to continue support for purchase of energy efficient low-emission vehicles by County departments.  

The proposed addition of a Purchasing Assistant position in the Finance Department was discussed extensively, but failed to win approval after a series of votes.  The committee also declined to support  allocation of $2,000 in target funding for the Downtown Ithaca Alliance to supplement $15,000 in tourism program funds to support coordination of festivals downtown.

The amended budget will next be considered by the full County Legislature, as soon as its next meeting tomorrow night, October 21.  Once approved by the Legislature, what will then be known as the Legislative Tentative Budget will replace Administrator Whicher’s tentative budget as the basis of budget deliberations.  The Legislative Tentative Budget will lie on the table until after a public budget hearing on Monday, November 10.  The final budget adoption vote is currently expected to take place Tuesday, November 18.  Prior actions may be revisited until the time of final adoption.

----
v4i41