Dear Town of Forestport Taxpayers:
It turns out that while Bill Hasenauer and Bill Gardner were fighting the bridges with “VOTE NO FOR THE BRIDGES, VOTE NO FOR HIGHER TAXES,” they were raising your property taxes $1,300,000 from the years 2009 to 2012 while putting the unexpended sales tax revenues into the general fund instead of using those funds to reduce the taxpayers’ load.
The Town Board really needs to buckle down and pass a frugal budget for 2014. The state auditors scolded the town board in the audit for lack of oversight and failing to have a five-year plan.
Bob Seager, you were a senior member of the board every year this state audit covers. Let’s see some in-depth leadership from you in the 2014 budget. I would expect at least 10 percent reduction in the highway budget and a five-percent reduction for the town budget.
The agenda below is a work in progress. Please give me your feedback and concerns. Thank you.
I want a thorough review of planning and codes departments to make the process fair and to assist our towns people through the maze of the DEC, APA, Canal Authority and planning and codes.
People give up on their building plans because of needless referrals to other agencies and a bureaucratic and often adversarial attitude. Contractors don’t get the work and it is a very short building season. A needless delay of 30 days can kill a project.
In my door-to-door campaigning, two-thirds of you had problems with planning and codes. Establish a building permit day on March 1 and advertise it so people will be ready with their permits in the early spring building season.
Trim the fat in the Highway Department. Their budget is about $300,000 more than Boonville and Town of Webb even though those towns have 25 percent more town-owned roads to maintain.
I observed a highway employee leaving his unoccupied truck running for one and a half hours this summer. That is an insult to the environment and the taxpayers.
Reduce the fuel use 25 percent and reduce the needless miles on the town trucks. Reduce the overtime. The Town levied $1,300,000 highway property tax on the taxpayers from 2009 to 2012.
Quote from the State Audit: “The largest variance was for sales tax, which was under-estimated by an average of $225,000 each year. The Supervisor told us that he budgets conservatively for sales tax revenues because he is concerned that these revenues are unpredictable.
However, sales tax budget estimates for 2011 and 2012 were $460,000 each year, even though the Town has received in excess of $600,000 every year since 2008.
While the Town did not levy general fund property taxes from 2009 to 2012, IT DID LEVY HIGHWAY FUND PROPERTY TAXES OF JUST OVER $1.3 MILLION DURING this period.
Because the general fund and highway fund have the same tax base, the Board could have transferred portions of the unexpended surplus funds from the general fund to reduce the property taxes levied in the highway fund.
Alternatively, because sales tax revenues were allocated to both the general fund and the highway fund, the Board could have allocated a greater portion of sales tax revenues to the highway fund to reduce the taxes levied in the highway fund.”
If the bloated highway budget was reduced 10 percent and a portion of the unexpended sales tax revenues were transferred to the highway budget, the $1,300,000 property tax levy would not be needed resulting in a significant property tax reduction for the taxpayers.
Review the cost related to the dump days. This is a very popular program that needs to be continued but we have to establish some guidelines regarding environmentally restricted materials and building materials.
It is budget time and the new budget will be passed in October. We have to look at the employee benefit package. That represents 25 percent of the town’s budget (not including the highway department) at $271,000 and going up 14 percent per year.
We have to treat our employees well but this is unsustainable. All town employees deserve to make a good living and I do not intend to renege on previous agreements.
We have to repair the Horton Bridge.
Bill Corrigan is helping me to establish a Forestport Chamber of Commerce. We bought the web address. We will have our web page linked to the town’s web page. We will have a web designer on contract to help businesses get a website or assist with setting up a business Facebook page.
The cost for a domain name is about $20 and having your website hosted is about $10 per month. We would not be in business without our web site: ForestportBoatCo.com.
Return civility to town government and the town board meetings.
People are afraid to speak at those meetings for fear of being harassed, made to feel stupid or told to sit down and shut up.
We have to tackle the abandoned buildings all over our town and that means White Lake and Otter Lake.
Many of you saw the article in the Sunday, September 29 Utica Observer Dispatch regarding the State audit of Forestport.
There is no reason that we need tax increases. Our town has $300,000,000 in taxable properties and growing. We get a check for almost $200,000 per quarter for sales tax distribution from the state/county.
That is what drove me crazy doing the bridges battle. “Vote No for more Taxes” WE DO NOT NEED HIGHER TAXES. We need to use our funds wisely and we have to maintain our infrastructure. Like the state said in their audit, we need a five year plan.
I still would like to see the summer recreational program based out of the old Woodgate School. It is centrally located in our town for bussing our children and we can do a really nice job outfitting one location.
Also, it is much better and much more fun for the kids to not be confined to a working town hall. I don’t see us selling the old school and it is in reasonably good condition.
I think it is good to have our children together in one location. There are many ways to enhance and grow the summer recreation program.
Parker Snead
Republican Candidate for
Supervisor, Town of Forestport
