As I said months ago, Amherst will be facing at least a tax rate of 9%. The Supervisor’s budget is out and the Department heads and Town Board members are going through it line by line.
Our Board member will add or remove items with they feel are dangling on the edge. A report from our Town Comptroller, Darlene Carroll, said the Supervisor wanted to drop the property tax by 2.2 percent from $10.46 to $10.24 per thousand of assessed value. The assessed value comes from the 2008 assessment where the houses were assessed at 92%.instead of 100%.
Our Comptroller said the revenue from sales and mortgage taxes have been over projected by more than $500,000 dollars. Since the national economy is in serious trouble we may have to bond millions of dollars to balance our budget.
Council member Mark Manna is trying to restore $153,000 in Personnel costs to the budget and adjust Social Security contributions because of an error in the proposed budget. The figures on highway employee salaries do not reflect contracted raises.
There are only two ways to balance the Supervisor’s budget with the additions needed to run the Town. One is to cut services; the other is to lay off more employees.
It’s going to be a bumpy ride.
Retail analysts and executives say they have not seen such a rapid slowdown in consumer spending since the nation’s last deep recession, in the early 1980’s. Retailers across the board reported double-digit losses.