(Town of Lebanon, NY – Feb. 9, 2014) Town of Lebanon officials will gather at the monthly meeting of the Lebanon Town Board on Monday, Feb. 10 at the Smith Valley Community Center in Randallsville to consider establishing solar permitting in the township in accordance with a new state initiative, finalize the road use law contract with Delta Engineering that the town has agreed to pursue with the towns of Hamilton and Brookfield, adopt a new health insurance plan for the full time highway employees that will include a 3.27 overall increase in health insurance costs, authorizing the response to the Office of the State Comptroller recommendations with regard to the audit period covering the term of former Town Justice John Bartlett, where town funds are unaccounted for, and discuss finalizing the ambulance contract with the Town of Georgetown which will include a discussion with new Georgetown Supervisor Pete Walrod on the goal of establishing a committee of Lebanon, Georgetown and Nelson representatives to help coordinate ambulance services between the townships.
The Town Board meeting begins at 7:30 pm. The public is invited and the agenda is attached along with resolutions to be considered.
Town officials will also debate whether or not to change the current policy of the town with respect to code enforcement. The current policy is a complaint based system but the town will consider whether or not to have the Code Enforcement Officer designate time each month to travel town roads and cite violations that are visible from the road. Town officials have directed the Code Enforcement Officer to travel the town roads over the last two months and take pictures of the most visible violations for review that may require enforcement action as part of the discussion.
Lebanon officials held their annual organizational meeting on Jan. 13, 2014 and took the following actions:
*Authorized new appointments for town officials which included establishing council Carol King as Deputy Supervisor, council Ron Jones as Highway Chair and Safety Chair, council Patricia Matson as Buildings and Grounds Chair, and Marie Morgan as Personnel Chair.
* Appointed Joanne Collins deputy town clerk and tax collector, and Shawn Payne deputy highway superintendent.
* Reappointed Donald Forth as Code Enforcement Officer, Stephanie Lowe as Dog Control Officer, Elaina Morgan as Bookkeeper, Steven Jones as Attorney for the Town, Keith Mangine as a member of the board of appeals, and appointed former council Lois Hartshorn as Planning Board Chair. Former Chair Gary Will stepped down from the position in December.
* Authorized rental agreements with Lebanon Community Club and Smith Valley Community Center.
* Designated town polling places in Lebanon and Randallsville.
* Authorized new Bond Anticipation Note for the second year of financing for the Town payloader.
* Authorized Town Highway Superintendent Hodge to pursue acquisition of a new Stadium International heavy duty truck on state bid for anticipated delivery in the fall of 2014.
* Approved the Municipal Electric Government Association (MEGA) contract with Integrys for another year that has saved the town money on an annual basis on electricity costs. Madison County joined MEGA last year and reports considerable savings.
* Authorized local fire and ambulance contracts.
* Continued process of filing a Certificate of Need and obtaining a town ambulance operating permit for the portion of the township served by the Georgetown Fire District protection contract to allow the town to sub-contract with the Georgetown ambulance service given the state’s refusal to grandfather the service in due to paperwork error in the early 1970s that neglected to include the ambulance in the service area. The Georgetown ambulance, a volunteer service, serves portions of Lebanon and Nelson and both towns have been required by the state to file separate CONs with the related legal expenses to be able to maintain this service by setting up their own ambulance service by towns and then subcontracting to Georgetown. This step is being taken to ensure the viability of the service and to allow the service to be able to bill Medicare, Medicaid and private insurance within those respective townships. The anticipated cost for the Town of Lebanon in 2014 is expected to be $4,600 for residents of the Georgetown Fire Contract area and was budgeted in the 2014 tax levy.
* Established the list of seasonal use roads and annual weight limits for seasonal use highways.
* Heard a brief state of the Town message from Supervisor Goldstein who reported that the town, despite the continued challenge of unfunded state mandates, has substantial reserves set aside which have aided in road emergencies, equipment purchases in keeping with the equipment replacement schedule, allowed the town to front considerable FEMA flood repair damages without having to borrow as other towns needed to do, and continues to permit the town to use unrestricted fund balance to keep the town tax levy stable with minimal increases.
Goldstein voiced concerns about the new proposals of Gov. Cuomo that would squeeze local governments even more with more tax caps without unfunded mandate relief, and the false assumption that the problem with high property taxes in New York State is too much local government. Goldstein said that the problem was not local government but the significant costs of unfunded state mandates that are an enormous burden on the local property tax. He cited as one example a state retirement payment that was $39,000 for 2014 and was $2,600 when he entered office in 2002, due to the investment practices of several former State Comptrollers and the decision by New York State to invest in the stock market, which local governments are prohibited from doing.
Goldstein also noted that the idea that the Governor has promulgated that merging local governments will save significant dollars has not proven accurate in Madison County, as any merger favors the higher wage entity with higher retirement and insurance costs, and he noted that a study mandated by the state that required Madison County to expend funds from the state to study a merger of assessment units produced a result he could have predicted with no study – that local municipalities in Madison County provide more local access for assessment services, while costing the taxpayers less and that in comparison, the cost of providing such services through the county would limit access particularly in the southern portion of the county and would raise costs by having higher paid county employees with benefit packages providing these services. Goldstein said he wished that when the Governor gave his state of the state speech and he claimed that the reason for property taxes being so high in New York State, that he acknowledged the unfunded state mandates which include state retirement and Medicaid costs, that impact town and county budgets dramatically, and not the number of local governments which taxpayers have the option to consolidate but have chosen so far to oppose or vote down in most cases.
* Discussed formation of the new internal audit committee which will include councilors Carol King and Patricia Matson for 2014.
* Discussed a resolution of the HR Refuse junkyard permit violation that will give Mr. Reichard 45 days to clean up the site, remove the truck and gives him the opportunity to apply for a special use permit through the planning board to request change of the use of that property for storage purposes for the HR Refuse business which might include building an additional structure and storing several roll-off containers there. The planning board would require a site plan and likely hold a public hearing prior to approving the change of use status.
* Increased the pay for town deputies by 50 cents per hour consistent with recent highway employee increases.
* Authorized establishment of new Reciprocal Deposit Accounts for the Town through NBT Bank, NA that allows the town to have FDIC covered investments that receive a higher rate of return than CDs and are more liquid – money can be transferred within 48 hours notice.
* Discussed priorities for the town in 2014 which include resolving FEMA reimbursements, which were delayed by problems with a state disaster representative who has been relieved of his duties, continuing with the road repair and equipment replacement schedules established with the town highway superintendent, resolve the Georgetown ambulance contract situation to ensure that the ambulance service remains vital in the interest of public safety and response time, establish a solar permit structure for the township that would assist in promoting solar energy development among residents, farms and businesses, finalize the Time Warner Cable franchise agreement with service area expansions, investigate solar energy options for the town, implement the recommendations of the Comprehensive Planning Committee, revitalize community programming with respect to the Historical Society and Lebanon Community Club, and promote more local farm to market ag development projects like the Kreimheld Dairy that will produce organic butter at the Rte. 12 B location in the township once development of the facility is complete, and will create up to 8 jobs.