By Jim Goldstein, Lebanon Supervisor
(Town of Lebanon, NY – Oct. 2, 2015) The town of Lebanon tentative budget was submitted to Town Clerk Nicole Viera on Sept. 30.
It will be available for viewing in the Town Clerk’s office.
I am keeping the budget tight and choosing to stretch out the $116,000 we owe on the two new trucks over the next three years – at $45,000 per year in BAN payments, we can reach most of that in two years and have the option to pay off the remaining $36,000 in 2017 or do a smaller BAN for the final year.
I have factored in the insurance plan offered by our carrier and a 3 percent cost of living for full time town highway employees.
The decision on any other salary increase requests is up to the town board and will be discussed at the budget workshops in October. We may also get updated state retirement and sales tax numbers that may also alter the budget as we did last year in November.
The proposed amount of tax to be raised is $362,072, which is down $7,034 from 2015 or 1.9 percent.
The proposed tax rate of $4.677 is up from our prior rate of $4.651 due to the fact that we lost $2 million in assessed valuation due to how the state assesses natural gas production as real property with an estimate rather than actual sales value system.
This means while the tax levy is down, the tax rate is up .005 percent.
The average Lebanon home assessed at $100,000 would pay $467.70 in town taxes compared to $465.10 or about $2.60 more. That equals .0055901 in actual increases or less than a half percent.
Town residents may see higher county and other taxes resulting from lower assessments in some cases. The Town has committed to joining with its partners in its Coordinated Assessment Program (CAP), Georgetown and Eaton, to have a full revaluation of property in 2018. Currently, the state has the town equalization rate at 90 percent so property owners in places like the Hamilton school district have seen a 3.3 percent increase in the tax levy turn into much larger increases for their properties due to the equalization rate.
Town officials discussed reval options with Assessor Brian Fitts at its town board meeting on Sept. 14.
Town board members also met with Sherburne Mayor William Acee to discuss options for having Sherburne contract with the town for ambulance services in a portion of the Earlville fire contract area in the township.
The bigger increases will come in the fire and ambulance contract portion, which will be significant for the Earlville and Hamilton fire contract areas. Georgetown and Eaton have small increases.
The SOMAC budget increase is estimated at 1,000 percent or approximately $42,000, up from the $4,200 payment for ambulance services this year.
As I have stated, this is not the final budget document and the town board will have the opportunity during the budget process to examine and consider adding the Sherburne ambulance contract area proposed to the budget and calculate how that will impact the fire and ambulance contract levy portion of the local tax bill. The town board will also hold a public hearing on the budget and any proposed changes in ambulance coverage.
The Village of Sherburne has proposed covering a territory that includes the Craine Lake area, portions of River Road and small portions of Vosburgh Road and Briggs Road, but will not propose to cover the entire Earlville fire contract area. Areas covered will be the county town line to Vosburgh Road to Smith Road intersection Lebanon Road from town line to Rodman Road, Partridge Road, Jantzen Road, River Road from town line to Briggs Road to the top of the hill, Roadman Road to Lebanon Center Road/Jantzen Road intersections and all of Craine Lake but will not be covering portions of Route 12 B that extend into the Town of Hamilton between Lebanon.
Madison County full anticipates a tax cap override as does our town, not due to our town budget but due to the ambulance contract issues with SOMAC.