September 26, 2008 Supervisor Mohan turned in a summary of his 2009 tentative budget to Town Board members. Now the Board will work with his budget to add or remove things they either want or don’t want in the budget.
Some of the items Supervisor Mohan has in the budget are: not filling vacant positions, reducing part time and seasonal hires; reducing the number of take home vehicles; not buying any new vehicles or equipment, along with other miscellaneous purchase reductions. This will total about $1 million dollars.
The Supervisor is suggesting reducing Highway personnel by twenty workers and the clerical staff by three. There will be changes to the Supervisor’s proposed budget when Board members add their needs and wants.
In 2007 and 2008 the GOP Majority, who voted for the 2008 budget, allowed the Town to dip into our reserve funds to the tune of ten million dollars. There is no other supply we can pull money from to get the extra funding we need to run our government next year. In 2008 the Town took over six million dollars to help balance the budget from our fund balances.
In 2009 we will need to take another 4.7 million to balance the budget. This 4.7 added to the 6 million taken out in 2008 totals up to $10.7 million which must be replaced in this year’s budget.
The taxes for this year will be double digits unless Mohan lets go 50 workers from the Highway Department, as he first said he was going to.
* This budget mess has nothing to do with what’s happening with America’s economic picture.