Highlights of the tentative budget include the following.
Among major revenue sources for the general fund, the town’s projected share of county mortgage tax and sales tax receipts, at $240,000 and $226,000 respectively, are essentially unchanged from the current year.
Parking fees are expected to remain constant, at about $50,000 annually, while minor increases are anticipated in planning fees (which total approximately $10,000 per year) and building fees (around $50,000 a year).
As a result of a sustained, drastic drop in interest earned on fund balances, annual interest revenue has declined to only $2,200, representing a decrease of approximately $100,000 over the last five years. Revenue from interest and penalties on taxes is projected to remain constant from 2011, at slightly over $50,000.
State aid to towns is expected to decrease in 2012, with Woodstock receiving roughly $25,000, down about $5,000 from the previous year.
The cost of employee health insurance is expected to increase by up to 15 percent, although a decision by the Town Board to choose a plan with a higher deductible could nearly eliminate any increase. The board might also consider tightening the eligibility criteria for health insurance coverage for part-time town officials.
“Pension costs are increased for most funds, due to a reduction in the value of New York State’s investments and the requirement that municipalities make up the shortfall,” reported Moran in his budget message. Mandatory pension contributions for members of the Police and Fire Departments in the tentative budget are increased by 4.4 percent over 2011, while pension costs for highway employees and general fund employees other than police are increased by 2.6 percent.
As a result of the federal Help America Vote Act, town expenditures on elections — an unfunded mandate that the town absorbs in the form of a bill from the county Board of Elections (BOE) — will increase by more than 50 percent, from $35,000 in 2011 to a total of $54,112 in 2012. The expenditure relates to the obligation of towns to bear the cost of the BOE’s operation of the recently introduced optical-scan voting machines.
Personnel changes contributing to the decrease in general fund spending include a reduction, from 65 hours to 55, for justice court clerks; a $63,000 drop in the Building Department budget, mainly as a result of leaving vacant, for the time being, the position of full-time building inspector; a $10,000 decrease in the budget for the youth program, which is operating without a full-time director; and the proposed reallocation of 20 to 26 hours of deputy town clerk time to other departments.
While the tentative budget does not propose staff reductions in the Police or Emergency Dispatch Departments, Moran suggested that the Town Board could consider a recommendation by the First Responder Task Force to eliminate selected low-volume dispatch shifts and use the county’s dispatch service instead for those periods.
The budget proposes that the town continue to contribute $200 annually to each of 11 local cultural organizations, but that it reduce its contribution of $10,000 in each of the last four years to the Woodstock Arts Consortium to $200 in 2012. A donation of $2,500 to Meals on Wheels would be continued next year, but a contribution to Family of Woodstock would be reduced, from $4,000 to $200. “It is hoped that the town can restore this funding in future budget cycles,” said Moran of the decreased award to Family.
The total assessed property tax value of Woodstock in 2011 is $1,273,438,870, according to the supervisor’s budget message. Moran noted in the interview that the town’s assessed value has steadily risen in recent years. In 2007, for example, the figure was $1,234,887,285. Amid an otherwise dismal economic climate, said the supervisor, “the town is getting richer.”++
