Hugh Reynolds: A different track?

The columnist Reynolds.

Town government has several choices on how to deal with this booty. One idea advanced is to give the money back to taxpayers. How quaint! But there’s a problem. The actor, the town’s biggest taxpayer, would benefit more than anybody else. Suggestion: Ask the tough guy if he’d be willing to deal himself out of the rebate. Then duck.

In Onteora, board members are sitting on a $12 million surplus, a whopping 23 percent of the district’s annual budget. The state comptroller recommends between 5 and 10 percent in reserves.

The nest egg was honestly arrived at and has been judiciously spent. Which is to say, the district, like some other governments, did not pad the payroll with jobs left unfilled in order to build up a rainy-day surplus.

Several years ago, the district (and other municipalities) were involved in an assessment battle with its largest taxpayer, New York City. Prudently, the district not only retained a lawyer to guard its interests, but also set up a reserve fund to pay back taxes to the city should it lose its case. To some surprise and great relief, the city’s water agency, the Department of Environmental Protection, settled for a reasonable compromise and waived retroactive tax reimbursements. Since then the district has used the (tax) fund to hold the line on property taxes, maintain services, and make repairs and updates to buildings and infrastructure.

Still, a 23 percent surplus is the kind of nose pimple sure to attract the attention of Albany overseers. On the other hand, every school district would love to have that problem.

Shifting gears

From time to time even our most hallowed institutions need rejiggering. Kingston’s Old Dutch Church’s annual Washington Day Dinner is moving from a program of hosting prominent speakers, at considerable expense, to honoring prominent residents for a free meal. The old format worked pretty well for about 85 of the dinner’s 92-year run, featuring such luminaries as Franklin D. Roosevelt, Norman Vincent Peale and Dean Malissa, one of the great George Washington portrayers of all time. Malissa, in full colonial army regalia and Washington demeanor, wowed audiences at the annual dinner in 2009. The fee, I was told, was in excess of $1,000, though. Cash-strapped dinner planners began thinking of alternatives.

Once the hottest ticket in town, attendance at Washington dinners has plummeted in recent years. Lifting the unofficial ban on women helped offset the steady demise of old gentlemen, as has the infusion of young bloods in the Men’s Club, which sponsors dinners.

This year’s 93rd edition, honoring former Kingston businessman Kevin Quilty, should draw a crowd. Quilty, a son of legendary insurance broker Larry Quilty, has at least 10 siblings and scores of close friends. A lifelong Kiwanian, Quilty will be serenaded at the February 25 event at Bethany Hall by the Kingston Lions Club’s loud and energetic band. Ticket information is available at (845) 338-6759.