Archive: News

When the valuation of properties within the boundaries of a municipal taxing authority go up, property tax payers have a reasonable expectation that their taxes will go down.  The tax rate should be lower.  And the levy, the real dollars taxpayers pay their portion of, should also be less.  That's not what happened in the Town of Lansing last year.  While the rate went down, the levy was up by more than 15%.  Most of the money was used to rebuild depleted reserves to prepare for the tanking economy.  This year the levy is down by a fraction of a fraction, and the tax rate is down by another -4.59%.

"It is certainly a very difficult budget season," says Lansing Town Supervisor Scott Pinney.  "Revenue didn't meet projections, so we had to do a lot of cutting for next year.  But the departments worked very well with us and we got through the process with a good budget."

The part of the Town without the Village went up in total valuation by almost $34 million.  The Village valuation went up a little over $25 million.  The tax rate will be 1.7153 next year, down 4.59% from this year's 1.8345. 

The levy, at $2,214,769 is down by a relatively miniscule amount.  That accounts for just over half of the $4,323,394.80 2010 budget.  The rest will be raised by other revenues and $60,000 of reserve money.  That is the piece of the budget that the whole town pays for.  Village residents pay the same amount, based on a different formula from that that town-only residents use.

Residents in special districts, such as lighting districts, sewer, or water districts pay more.  Eight such districts add an additional $1,085,343.96 to the budget, $2,3,479.96 of which will appear on tax bills for those residents who are in those districts and receive those services.

"The Board committed early on to not increase the tax rate," says Bookkeeper/Personnel Officer Sharon Bowman.  "But also to stabilize the tax levy.  They got beat up a bit last year because of the 15% rise in the levy when the assessed values went up significantly.  They took a hard look at that."

Bowman says they wanted a stable or reduced levy and a stabilized tax rate.  She credits department heads and staff for being willing to modify their budget requests.  She says the Highway Department took the biggest hits.  These will not affect jobs, but will reduce the number of miles of roads that are refinished next year.  Bowman says that will lengthen the planned maintenance schedule, which had provided for every road to be repaved about every ten years.  But she says that town services will not be diminished in the sense that most people won't perceive any difference.

A big part of that hit comes from the Highway DB line.  Town officials anticipate a $200,000 shortfall in sales taxes.  Sales taxes largely fund the Codes Office and the piece of highway funding that is used for road improvements.  Pinney is optimistic about the long term prospects.

"That was certainly our deepest cut," he says.  "One of the things that helped us in 2009 is that the money that we budgeted was for blacktop that cost around $80 per ton, and it turned out it was below $50 per ton.  So we were able to work on more roads than anticipated.  We did have some money left over from 2009 because of that, and that will certainly help.  I think we're on track.  Eventually the economy will come back and the sales tax money will come back."

Conservative budgeting has provided some wiggle room in the past.  In 2009 conservative estimates of rising fuel and blacktop costs restricted the amount of road maintenance Town officials thought they would be able to afford.  But when those costs went down, more road work was done.

The only change in staffing is that the Town will not provide an electrical inspector any more.  Last year fees didn't cover that cost, so the Board decided last month to require homeowners and developers to provide certification from an independent electrical inspector that they hire themselves.  But Bowman says that wasn't so much a budget cut as a decision made because the position wasn't paying for itself.

Health insurance was one of the hottest-button issues this year.  The Town board has changed insurance plans not only for active employees, but also for retirees. 

Town employees will move to the Excellus Healthy Blue plan with an accompanying health savings account.  The Town will pay 100% of the premium and 100% of the deductible in 2010, and then the Town's share will diminish over a period of years.  Last year the Teamsters Union provided a health care plan both for members who work in the Highway Department and other employees of the Town. 

The Town had tentatively agreed to be part of a county-wide health insurance consortium, but pulled out as they analyzed available plans and decided the Excellus plan is best for the Town and its employees.  Lansing Teamsters also voted to be on the Excellus plan.

The budget was unanimously passed on November 4th after a public budget meeting was held.

"We ended up with the best scenario," Bowman says.  "But not without a lot of hard work and fine tuning."

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