Supervisor’s report—September 17, 2014
As Chief Financial officer, my chief responsibility is for the financial well being of our town.
The State Comptroller scolded the Town Board last year in our town audit for lack of vision going forward and the lack of a five-year plan.
Forestport is at a tipping point with revenues appearing to be flat for the next five years. Sales tax revenues were a little less this year than last.
I don’t believe the Town Board has any interest in raising taxes during this five-year period unless it is absolutely necessary.
I don’t foresee other revenue streams appearing in this time frame.
The primary budgetary problems at this time and moving forward are the benefits. Current payroll on the town side is about $308,000 and the benefits are about $260,000. Meaning that benefit costs are 84% of payroll.
About $216,000 is health care benefits and the remainder is retirement.
In comparing 13 towns around us, including Western, Annsville, Ava, Boonville, Camden, Floyd, Lee, Remsen, Steuben, Trenton, and Vienna, Forestport is found to be in a class all its own.
Most of the towns had no health benefits except for the Highway department.
A few had coverage for the Supervisor and Town Clerk with coverage being available at the group rate to others with them paying 100 percent.
Some had Health savings plans with the town paying the first $2,500 and the insured paying the next $2,500 plus deductibles for 100 percent coverage.
None of the Towns had coverage for the Board Members or part-time employees.
Another key problem the board has to address is the $2,000 trigger amount that the town has to offer benefits.
That is how John Isley got health care from the town. Our plan is a Cadillac plan, so if you are paid $2,000, you are eligible for $8,795.52 worth of health care benefits.
Effectively, this turns a $2,000 job into a $10,795.52 cost to the town.
We are working with four different insurance agents at present to shop for the best deal.
We are seeking to provide the best health care coverage possible to our employees, electees and appointees. We are considering a base plan cost contribution by the Town with our people being able to move up or down.
For example, if you are 22 years old and you never go to the doctor, you can move down to a plan with more of a deductible for less cost and the town would pay the difference back to the insured.
Some towns I spoke with paid that difference back at Christmas time.
Or, if you are an old timer like me and you go to the doctor a lot, you could pay the difference to move up to a Cadillac plan.
We won’t know the agents’ bids until mid-October to November 1st, since we have to shop out of the community service pool and those numbers will not be available until then.
Projected cost increases fo this year are running from single digits to 13%.
A 13% increase would amount to an increase to the town of $27,690 this year.
The Board will have the challenge of establishing the maximum amount that the town can pay towards the benefits cost with the insured parties having to absorb more of the cost in the years ahead.
This is the world we live in.
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Our tax collector receives about $4,100 for three months of part time work, but gets full benefits all year. The board can eliminate that elected position by resolution and the Law states that in a second-class town ( like ours) those responsibilities would fall to the Town Clerk.
After compensating the Town Clerk, we would save about an estimated $10,000 per year.
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Another area of concern is the Planning Department. I don’t believe any of the 13 towns pay benefits for the secretary.
The Town of Lee pays their Planning Secretary the most of all of the towns except ours with that amount being $3,500.
We pay our secretary $21,176.02 plus $13,885.80 in health care benefits and $2,000 in Town retirement contribution for a total of $37,061.80 per year.
The Chairperson makes $2,000 and four board members get $1,500 each.
So, compensation costs for the entire five-person Planning Board is $8,000 per year, while its secretary receives $37,061.80.
That puts the annual budget for the Planning department at $45,061.80.
I recommend a gross budget of no more than $25,000. Considering the workload.
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Our Tax Assessor does a great job and I enjoy working with her, but her department budget needs to be cut.
The State Comptroller advised towns to move to shared services to save money.
That is what the Town of Trenton did when they made our assessor theirs also.
They pay $22,000 total with no health care benefits for a town of 2,500 properties.
We pay about $32,000 in salary for a town of 3,500 properties, plus we had $7,000 in the budget this year for an assistant.
Add in the health care cost of $8,795.52 for an annual budget of $53,795.52. Including $6,000 retirement contribution by the town.
I believe that the Assessor gross budget should be $32,000.
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These are very difficult decisions that we the board must make to honor our commitments to our taxpayers.
Considerable time has been spent to insure this information is correct, but this is a draft and it will be updated as more information becomes available.