Village officials override property tax cap
GREEN ISLAND, N.Y. >> Residents living in the village won’t have to worry about their property taxes and sewer and water rates increasing this year.
According to Mayor Ellen McNulty-Ryan’s $3,610,233 proposed 2017 budget, the village will not be increasing any rates on property taxes along with no increases to its water and sewer rates. The 2017 proposed budget is an increase of about $300,000 over last year’s spending plan in the village. Last year’s tax rate was $12.0673 per 1000 and in order to have all zero percent increases this year, village officials had to override the statemandated property tax cap for the first time.
“It’s the first time that we’ve ever had to override the property tax cap even though we’re not raising the tax rate,” explained Sean Ward, Executive Assistant to the mayor and the village’s budget officer. “Because we experienced growth mostly from a PILOT agreement on Center Island that’ll go into full effect this year, so because we experienced growth when you plug it into the formula it says you have to lower taxes, so they are really punishing us for growing.”
The village’s tax rate percent- age increase has remained below 4 percent for 13 of the last 14 years and hasn’t exceeded 6 percent during that time. Ward said that the village budgeted $196,000 in surplus compared to the $284,000 in surplus last year.
During an interview Thursday afternoon, Ward said that the village was also able to save a lot of money last year from different shared service agreements with other nearby municipalities.
“We entered into a dispatch agreement with Albany County, which now includes Rensselaer, Saratoga and Schenectady Counties and we’re pretty much all in the same communications center and our mutual-aid also extends out to those areas,” said Ward.
With this dispatch shared services agreement in place the village has saved more than $60,000 for each of the 5 years total and estimates more than $130,000 after that. Ward said that being a part of the Albany Pool Community for sewer and storm water management has estimated to save the village over $500,000.
The village has also saved funds by having shared service agreements for equipment with other cities such as Watervliet and Cohoes.
“On Tuesday our garbage truck broke down and we only have one,” said Ward, “so we called the
city of Watervliet, went over and picked up their truck and finished the work. “We also call Cohoes sometimes to use their street sweeper.”
As part of the proposed budget the village will also hire one part- time employee at $7,000 to its code enforcement department. The 2017 proposed budget also shows a 2 percent increase for all employees, al- though the IAFF union is still in negotiations.
Ward said that the village health insurance is set at an 8 percent increase and that they are also adding a couple comparable health insurance plans, as well.
“The employees can actually save money on their premium reimbursements, if they take it and it would save the village money, as well, so it could be winwin,” said Ward.
The village Board of Trustees will vote on the proposed budget on Monday, April 17, at the Green Island Municipal Center, 19 George Street and if the budget is approved it would go into effect June 1.
Ward said that village officials will keep track of its expenditures daily now and he feels that has helped with the budgets.
“We have a system in place now where we track daily our expenditures and we have a good team even though we are small everyone works together here,” said Ward.