Finances

All towns in New York are presently preparing budgets for 2021. Budgets must be adopted by November 20.

Assemblyman Smullen and NYS Comptroller DiNapoli warned of a massive budget shortfall. This will result in reduced state aid to Caroga. They also warned of reduced sales tax revenue, which is a significant portion of the total revenue of the Town.

Highlights of the Tentative Budget

9% ($3,000) increase for Town Clerk
Celebrations (PLRT) goes up 600% ($12,000) This is for community-wide events such as outhouse races. Mention was made that this may also be for youth programs: if so it is on the wrong line item. Same with publicity.
Golf total personal services line goes up 14% ($14,000)
Golf equipment goes up 33% ($3,350)
Supervisor’s Personal Secretary is $9,000
Code Officer became full-time in fall 2020 ($26,600 increase)
Replace Code Clerk line with Code Enforcement Assistant line ($4,000 increase)
7% ($3,312) increase for Highway Superintendent.
2% increase for
- Court Clerk
- Bookkeeper
- Budget Director
- Sole Assessor
- Registrar of Vital Statistics
- BTI staff
- Deputy Highway Superintendent
Zero increase for
- Town Board members
- Supervisor
- Town Justice
- Dog Control Officer
- Highway Secretary
Bike Trail Staff+Manager decreased $11,700
Youth Services Staff cut from $21,000 to $5,600
Reserved funding was cut $45,000, though this just defers spending

Basics of Municipal Accounting

You can read a short introduction to municipal accounting here.

Comments on the Proposed 2021 Budget

You can read email comments here.

Overview of the Proposed 2021 Budget

A “Tentative Budget” was passed earlier today (October 21, 2020). Details wil be forthcoming shortly. The discussion below needs to be updated and will be shortly.

All dollar figures below are annual amounts. In town budgets, general accounts, highway accounts, and fire accounts are all kept separate. This overview focuses primarily on the general accounts.

Expected Significant Revenues Changes for 2021

Sales Tax revenue is expected to go down 7.7% or $50,000.
Golf Course revenue is expected to go up 15% or $20,000, based on increased revenue for 2020. It is an open question whether this increase will persist or was due to COVID-19 during which many other activities were curtailed.
All other grant and aid monies are expected to go down 88% or $92,400, however, without these grant monies, some of the appropriations would also be reduced.

At minimum, this is a reduction in revenue of $50,000. It would be $70,000 if the expected Golf Course revenue was kept flat on the assumption that the spike in usage was COVID-19 related.

Proposed Appropriation Changes for 2021

Not noted specifically here, but unless otherwise noted, most non-elected position salaries were increased by 2%. Note that this is more than the 1.56% inflation factor published by the NYS Comptroller in July.

It is important to note that other towns are not only freezing their budgets, they are not even offering cost of living adjustments.

Town Clerk salary goes up 20% or $6,969.
Supervisor’s confidential secretary was $0 in the original 2020 budget, but increased to $9,000 in an amended budget for what was claimed to be a short-term hire, but has been extended into 2021, effectively making the position permanent. No Supervisor in recent years has had a confidential secretary.
A new phone system has been budgeted for $7,500.
Code Enforcement position goes to full time, to try to catch up on backlog of inspections and permits. This requires a $26,000 increase.
Code Enforcement Assistant line funds an expanded position, again to try to catch up on a backlog of inspections and permits. This requires a $4,000 increase.
Superintendent of Highways salary goes up 7% or $3,312.
Youth Services Salaries goes down 73% or $15,400, effectively curtailing the summer youth program.
Celebrations goes up 600% or $12,000.

The 2% inflation increase, is above the NYS Comptroller 1.56% tax cap figure. These increases are at the same time that the highlighted general account revenues are expected to fall at least $50,000. Some of these increased appropriations should result in improved government services. For example, the Code Office has been recognized as understaffed for the last few years. Inspections, blight remediation, and code enforcement suffer as a result. The current phone system is old and not officially supported by the vendor, but the Supervisor and Code Office report no problems. Past Supervisors have not required a Confidential Secretary to do their job.

The question is: what will the property owners gain in government service by the proposed salary increases and $12,000 increase for “Celebrations”, leaving aside the other increases? This seems particularly poorly timed, given the reductions in revenue. To balance the budget (i.e., to not draw down any Fund Balance) would require, by the calculations shown in the spreadsheet example on the Budgets test spreadsheet page, a much larger property tax increase. Such an increase would be well above New York State’s Property Tax Cap for the Town of Caroga.

Tentative, Preliminary, and Past Budgets

Here are various versions of the 2021 budget presented as web pages, spreadsheets, or printable PDFs, along with the adopted 2020 budget.

Town Property Tax Cap

Town tax levies are subject to a Property Tax Cap.

Tax Rate for the Current Year

The tax rate for properties in the Town of Caroga may be found here.