Town taxes to double

MILTON, N.Y. » The town share of property taxes will double under the tentative $6.4 million budget Milton officials have prepared for 2018.

Supervisor Dan Lewza said the hike is necessitated by a $411,000 appropriation mistakenly included in the three previous years’ budgets, the result of a clerical error that wasn’t caught by Town Board members including himself, or auditors.

The error left the town without money, that officials believed was there, which must now be raised by increasing taxes to bring certain accounts up to acceptable levels.

“Actually itwas the whole Town Board’s fault because everyone voted on the budget,” Lewza said.

Councilwoman Barbara Kerr said, “It escaped everyone’s notice including our auditors. It was a double entry, a clerical error.”

The town tax rate, under the tentative 2018 budget, is going from 33 cents to 66 cents per

$1,000 of assessed valuation. For a home assessed at $280,000, the town tax bill will increase from $85 to $170 per year.

The increase does not apply to school and county property taxes, only the town, which for some people is about 10 percent of their total property tax bill.

But several residents, at Wednesday’s Town Board meeting, called for budget cuts to eliminate or reduce the need for higher taxes.

“This is going to affect a lot of people on fixed incomes,” Sergia Coffey said.

Town Planning Board member James Staulters said, “I think we should have an austerity budget in our town. It will give everybody a chance to stop and see where we’re going to spend our money.”

However, Lewza said the spending plan is already $600,000 less than this year’s adopted budget. The town would have to cut another $508,000 to avoid raising taxes, and only $5,000 in cuts were proposed during a pair of recent budget workshops, he said.

“I think we were pretty frugal in this budget,” Lewza said.

The board, by a 4-1 vote, approved a property tax cap override, which Lewza said is necessary for Milton to fulfill contracts and provide needed services.

Kerr cast the lone dissenting vote, arguing that more cuts should be made before a public budget hearing scheduled for 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 9 at town hall.

“We had two budget workshops,” Lewza said. “I’m not going to have another one.”

Councilman Scott Ostrander said the override was necessary “to keep the town running.”

“Under the circumstances of our finances, we had no other choice,” he said.

Kerr, a Reform Party candidate, and Ostrander, a Republican also on the Conservative and Independence party lines, are running against each other for supervisor. The winner will replace Lewza, who is not seeking re- election.