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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2021-10-21 Town Board Minutes OCTOBER 21, 2021 4:00 P.M. SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING BUDGET WORKSHOP The Special Meeting of the Town Board of the Town of Cortlandville was held via Zoom video and telephone conference as permitted by the Executive Order of the State of New York, with Supervisor Williams presiding. Members present: Supervisor, Thomas A. Williams Councilman, Jay E. Cobb Councilman, Jeffrey D. Guido Councilman, Theodore V. Testa Councilman, Douglas E. Withey Town Clerk, Kristin E. Rocco-Petrella Others present were: Deputy Town Clerk, Abigail Albro; Town Financial Advisor, Richard Tupper: Supervisor’s Secretary, Patty O’Mara; Assistant to the Supervisor’s Secretary, Amanda Rainbow; Town Bookkeeper, Megan Johnson; Robert Martin. Supervisor Williams called the Special Meeting to order for the purpose of a Budget Workshop to discuss the 2022 Tentative Budget. Supervisor Williams: Alright, it's a couple minutes after 4:00 p.m. We're all here. This is a Budget Workshop that was approved at our last meeting. And, let's start with the Pledge of Allegiance. I do have my flag. All: I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Supervisor Williams: Let's start with a roll-call as we have done at, I think most if not all, of the Zoom meetings. Tom William, Supervisor. Councilman Withey: Doug Withey, here. Councilman Cobb: Jay Cobb, here. Councilman Testa: Ted Testa Councilman Guido: Oh, sorry Ted. Supervisor Williams: You here, Jeff? Councilman Guido: Yeah, I'm here. Supervisor Williams: Okay, we got it. I just wanted that on the... on the record, the audio record, in case there's ever a question as to who was here. We also have Megan Johnson, our finance officer... or finance person... finance office person, whatever her title is. Dick Tupper who is our finance advisor. We've got Amanda Rainbow, Patty O’Mara, on with Abbi Albro. I guess that's it. So, I think where we should start… There has been a request made by the public for an explanation of some of the stuff in the budget... in the Tentative Budget that we have in front of us. I’m going to ask Mr. Tupper to go through that. He's sort of been the person to shepherd those, those details. So Dick, the floor is yours. Town Financial Advisor Richard Tupper: Thanks Tom. I’ve got three different documents all from the same individual. I'll start out with the Gmail. And, this is from Bob Martin. He asked for a breakdown of the awards and the grants for Gutchess Lumber Sports Complex. He wants to know, in the amount of 1.8 million. Actually it's $1,412,959.23, that was the actual number. What will that line be in 2022? We have applied for grants, but we have not received a positive response on anything we've applied for, so there are no grants at this point coming in 2022. The money budgeted for Phase 2 for Gutchess, including the fields, parking lots, and other items the Town is obligated to provide. There is no cost in this budget, for any improvements to Gutchess Lumber Sports Complex. The BAN states it should be converted to a Bond. It's been five years for a BAN, providing on financing on a temporary basis. What Mr. Martin is not aware of is the Federal Government and the State of New York, because of the COVID vaccine, are allowing us to do our BAN for seven years, instead of five. So we have two more years we can use the BAN. The budget shows the BAN at 0.42% interest, that's in 2022. In 2023 it is estimated that the interest… Where's that estimate? In ‘23 it's estimated to be 0.75%. OCTOBER 21, 2021 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING PAGE 2 The Budget Sales Tax Revenue was... where does it show up? The only two places you can put Sales Tax Revenue are in those two accounts that he mentioned, B1120 and DB1120, those are the only two budgets you can get Sales Tax Revenue. Regarding the Sales Tax, I don't see the million dollars from this summer in the budget. Clarify, it appears that $2.335 million is in the ‘22 budget, ‘20 it was $2.3 and ‘21 it was $2 million. The first figure is going to be changed tonight to $2.385 million. And the other two figures are correct. 2021, it was anticipated that COVID was going to wipe out the retail businesses as well as tourism, restaurants. And so, it was anticipated there would be a significant drop in Sales Tax Revenue. And, obviously that drop didn't happen. I think the City lowered its Sales Tax Estimate by close to a million dollars and we lowered ours by $300,000. So… And that was just to protect us against COVID. What's the driver for the increases in the budgets from ‘19 and ‘20? The budgets were not up significantly. One of the budgets I think had a $400,000 building in it, which wasn't built and other items, but…. The budgets weren’t up because of Gutchess Lumber. There was no expenses for Gutchess Lumber Sports Complex in those years, above and beyond what was in the... typically in our Sports and Recreation Budget. He asked for review of Budgets for six or seven years, the budgets are up and down and up and down, and that's just based on what the departmental requests are or if we add any expensive equipment like $200,000 truck, or a $400,000 new building, or one of them had a $500,000 charge in it for a renovation to Town Hall. Those are all BAN efforts and we did not do any of those three items, and so we didn't issue any BANs and that's the reason the budgets jump around. Mostly it's because of a major expense like that. The BAN principal 9730.6. It's in the budget at $200,000. The actual payment is $170,000. And, that's going to be due in January of ‘22. So that's the number that's in the ‘22 Budget. The interest is $11,277 which is 0.42%. On Page 11, he’s asking about revenue. Real Property taxes in this year is $1,531,938. In 2021 it was $1,648,348. That's actually down 7% between ‘21 and ‘22. Parks and Recreation has gone up from $162,000 in ‘21 to $197,000 in ‘22. And that is because we anticipate some extra revenue from PBR. The B1120 in the ‘22 Budget is now $485,000. It was $250,000 in the ‘21 Budget, because in ‘21 we were looking at COVID. We didn't dare keep it at its typical level. The B211 Building Permit fees is decreased from $100,000 this year to $75,000. That's because you put a Solar Moratorium on, and that's where most of that revenue is coming from, Solar Application. Total revenue from other sources is a Sales Tax Revenue. So it's up $100 almost $200,000 from ‘21. Appropriations, transportation for bridges, that's a DA account. The DA account can only be used for the construction of bridges that the Town owns. We have, I think, five bridges total. And, $275,000 would not replace any of them. And so we stopped adding money to that account years ago, because it made no sense, we were never going to get it up to the actual cost of a bridge replacement. And, that money can't be used for anything except for replacing a bridge, so it goes up every year by a couple of dollars for whatever we collect in interest. Personal Service Budget and the Contractual Budgets in DB. That's 5110.1 and 1110.4. Both of those have increased. And, the reason they increased is for simplicity we rounded. We rounded one by $17,000 we rounded the other by $9,000 rather than putting such odd numbers in to make it easier to total the final budget. The Equipment Capital Outlay was increased by $50,000. And that's because the cost estimates Larry got for the truck that he wanted and the pickup trucks that he's looking at are considerably more expensive than they were in 2021, which is pretty evident when you take a look at the market. So, Larry asked us to move that up so we could cover the cost of his truck and the two pickup trucks. Lime Hollow Garage was $400,000. Was in the ‘21 budget. There's no revenue, no expense at all in the ‘22 budget. That building is not in this budget, and it wasn't put up in last Budget. Real Property taxes in ‘22 are going to... for the DB, is going to be $547,729 after we make our modifications tonight. And it was $363,068 last year. Property Taxes get spread between three budgets, and they get spread around and we try to make the Property Taxes fall in a budget, so that we can help the Village of McGraw keep its taxes down as much as possible. So by moving money from DB to B, and… it helps us keep the McGraw tax down because McGraw has its own Village tax. So we're trying to keep the Town tax as low as we can. Consolidated Highway is going up from $193,000 to $275,000. That's the CHIPS money, and the State of New York gives us that number. That's the number the State gave us, it's our CHIPS money for next year. That's why it's in the Budget at that number. And the Sewer Benefit Tax, the Sewer Benefit Tax is going up $2. And that's just because the bonds of the Bond interest or whatever, increased slightly. So, I don't know exactly... I don't think $2 is going to make much difference on property owners. And, he gave me a budget review and asking questions about Gutchess Lumber Phase 2. Mr. DelVecchio’s comments about cost. We have no actual cost estimates for building fields. We’re talking to a lot of different people. The Sports groups are talking to people trying to figu re out. Until we go to bid, we don't have any idea what those costs are going to be. And there's a typo error in this comment, it says development of PBR lease. We do not have a lease with PBR. We OCTOBER 21, 2021 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING PAGE 3 have a management agreement where they will manage our four baseball fields, and that error seems to show up in advertising. We do not have a lease, we have a management agreement. Then he talks about the Bond Anticipation and wants to know why we didn't go to Bond. Obviously, I explained that before, because we can now go for seven years, BAN interest rates tends to be cheaper than Bond interest rates. So, we are going to stay with the BAN for two more years. And, he asked about the BAN tax exemption. The BAN is tax exempt and the cost is $170 for this year, $11,277 in interest. Next year we're anticipating 0.75% interest based on the balance, which would be $2,515,000. But that number goes into the ‘23 budget because the ‘22 BAN gets paid in January. Non Property Tax is shown at $435. When we go through the Regular Budget, you're going to see that we raised up to $485. The DB nonprofit… that sales tax is going to go up to 1.9 from 1.75 million. That's because we anticipate that it's, it's not going to be the same year we had this year. But, we don't expect it to be a bad year. The reason that we don't put 3 million or 3,500,000 or whatever the balance our budget was sales tax is because this Town has always been very conservative in it's estimates. Because of that conservative nature, at the end of the year we've always reached our sales tax number. And, we've exceeded it almost every year. And, when you exceed it, that money just gets rolled over the next year's budget. Basically that's just because we're conservative. The reason the sales tax again in ‘21 was set at $2 million was because we were fearful that COVID was going to wipe out sales tax. We certainly didn't want to be overestimating our sales tax. We didn't have any idea that the Federal Government was going to be putting $3 or $4 trillion in people's pockets. And, apparently they spent it from the looks of our sales tax. It says, I don't see the million dollar boost. That's because we get our sales tax quarterly. In the first three quarters we've collected $2,139,000. We have one more quarter of revenue coming in. And it's antic..., normally the fourth quarter is the highest quarter. And if it comes in at somewhere where we think it's going to come in, we’ll probably hit the $3 million figure. Matt Cooke does a lot of estimates for us and he estimates it’s going to be over 3 million for the Town of Cortlandville. So that's where that million dollars comes from. And, he asked what factors... Gutchess Lumber... People dining out, and notice the dining restaurants are picking up that much. As gas prices rise the amount of sales tax paid at the gas pump goes way up. The Federal COVID aid is one of the reasons that it's going up. Unemployment increased, the federal government put in last year, giving people an extra $600 a week, gave a lot more spendable money and that's one of the reasons that taxes are up. And the other items that he lists are all pretty typical. Obviously the prices of trucks and cars are way up. If you've been into Walmart really… recently you'll find long lines. If you go into Lowes you'll find even longer line. And my nephew sells beer and wine. He's had the most incredible two years of his life in sales. So definitely there's a lot of beer and wine being sold. And, I think that should answer all the questions that he asked. Town Resident Robert Martin: Thank you very much Mr. Tupper. Supervisor Williams: Thank you Dick. It seems and I'm not trying to be pointed here. But, it seems like there's somewhat of an echo. Seems like you've recited these same factors in the past, in the recent past. And, I hope that at this point Mr. Martin is satisfied with your answers. We take comments from the public seriously, we address them, we get back to those people, and I just hope that… and maybe if it's... this is the second time around for some of this stuff. I guess, I hope that it sticks. In any case, the floor now is open to anybody on the Board that wishes to make comment, ask questions, let's proceed. Town Financial Advisor Richard Tupper: That's based on the Bob Martin comments. We have a considerable amount of adjustments to make to the temp... Tentative Budget. You want me to go over those before you start asking for questions? Supervisor Williams: Yep. Town Financial Advisor Richard Tupper: Okay. Now, you're going to find that the Tentative Budget is having 15 or 20 adjustments to it because we collected $375,000 this year in COVID relief, and it was put in the A Federal Revenue Account. And, in 2022 we put the COVID relief... or the… what is it… the AARP money... we put the AARP money in the Budget for 2022. After consulting with our accountant, he tells us that that is not revenue until you spend it. And, it shouldn't show up in your Budgets, as revenue. So that meant we had a $708,000 worth of revenue that, according to our auditor, we had to pull out of this budget... next year's budget. So, we wanted to make sure that we went through, and we corrected next year's budget which has $333,000 in the COVID or the ARPA. This year's had $375,000 in the A fund. We want to make sure that when we close our books out that that $375,000 is still here, at which time, we will move that over to a Deferred Revenue Account until we spend it. And, that's on recommendation of our accounting OCTOBER 21, 2021 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING PAGE 4 people. So you can see we had, in the last week or so, we've been scrambling to find $700,000 worth of changes up and down the Budget. So... And, we think we've succeeded. But as I say, there's going to be a lot of changes and I'll start right out with them. The Assessor’s Budget is on page three. We lowered that by $8,500, because the long term assistant is gone, and the new assistant is making that much less money on an annual basis. So that's the savings that we picked up. Councilman Withey: So, which reference numbers does that go to Dick? Town Financial Advisor Richard Tupper: That's 1355.1. Councilman Withey: Thank you. Town Financial Advisor Richard Tupper: It’s on page three. It's the 0.1 account for Personnel Services. The Town Clerk, A1410.4, that's on page four. We took $35,000 out of that account. Lowered it to $7,500. And that's because there's not going to be a Referendum Special Election. We had a $35,000 savings, so we took it out. A1420.4, Law Contractual, that's also on page four, has got $50,000 in the Tentative Budget. We took 40 of that out, for the Tentative Budget, and we moved that over to Legal Services in the B Budget, the same number except B1422.4. And that was for the Paralegal. So we just moved the Paralegal from one line to the other. I assume it doesn't matter what line he gets paid from. Culture and Recreation, that would be 710… 7110.1. That's a Personnel Account, it's currently $75,000 on page eight. We took $25,000 out of that account, we lowered it to $50,000, which is the same number we had in last year. Councilman Guido: I'm sorry Dick, what was that number again? Town Financial Advisor Richard Tupper: We… the account number is 7110.1, it’s Culture and Recreation Parks Personnel Service. We moved that from $50,000 to $75,000. And since we didn't spend the $50,000 last year, we decided to take $25,000. We increased it back out again. So that's now at the same level it was last year, $50,000. The BAN principal payment is listed in the Budget at $200,000. The actual payment is $170,000, it's due in January. So we took that $30,000 out of the Budget. Parks and Recreation, that's on page 11. The Tentative Budget had $173,330 in that account. That's a revenue account. We increased that by $18,166. And that increase in revenue is estimated to be coming from PBR, that's how much our annual… or, that's how much our monthly rent from PBR is. We're assuming one more month's rent. Councilman Withey: Dick, which line number is that, please? Town Financial Advisor Richard Tupper: That’s A2001, Parks and Recreation Chargers. That's a revenue account. In A4089, Federal Aid on page 12, in the Tentative Budget, we had $333,000. We had to eliminate that completely. But, we've added $175,201 and that's from our ARPA money. So, that reduces that by $157,799. And that ARPA money is going to show up in your Budget as building… operation of the building, which is on the top. You can see it's going to go from… $140 we moved it up to $275,000. And, that should take care of Tom’s estimates for a new entrance to the building, a magnetometer, an X-ray machine, and an extra person. And, that is a valid use of the money, because if the Delta variant gets bad enough that we have to be more careful that means we're going to have to test everybody coming into the building and building security and testing is going to be very important. So, that is a valid reason to spend your ARPA money. On page 13, B1420.4. That's a $5,000 line. We increased it by $50,000. That's now $55,000. And that's the money we moved over for the Paralegal from A to B. Change in revenue, a non property tax B1120. That's our Sales Tax on page 17. We increased that by $50,000 from $435,000 to $485,000. We're fairly certain that we're going to have excess sales tax so we decided to put it in there. Changes in the Unexpected Fund Balance and the GFA. Right now, we have... that's on the summary page. Right now, we have $406,670 we are going to roll over. And we're going to increase that by $43,330 to $450,000. After Megan has done some checking and double checking, it appears that we're going to have some excess funds in there. And, we intend to use it for that so that we can keep the taxes down. Councilman Withey: So Dick that increase goes on which line on the summary? Town Financial Advisor Richard Tupper: That would be A599. That would be the A, Unexpended Fund Balance Line. That's what we roll over with our excess revenue. The money we don't spend in A, we roll it over to next year to keep the taxes down. And, the same thing with the OCTOBER 21, 2021 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING PAGE 5 Sales Taxes, we use that to keep the taxes lower. And, in the DB Budget 599, Unexpended Fund Balance. That's on page one on the summary page. Right now we've got $700,000 that we're rolling over from DB. And, it appears that DB, after calculations, is going to have a significant more than that to roll over. So we increased that by $106,670. So that's now $806,670. And, part of the roll over in A, that's going to have to be done by a Resolution. We have excess revenue in our Retirement Accounts. Because the Stock Market is up so much our State Retirement has been decreased by about $80,000 this year. So you've got a $30,000 Reserve Account in case it goes up unexpectedly. And, since it's going to be off... lowered by $80,000, we thought we could use that $30,000 in revenue. That will require a Resolution to take their stuff out of reserve and move it. And by moving it over, that helps boost up the A, Unfunded Balance. That’s where it will end up. So when you get all done and you take a look at the new page one. On the third column over - Unexpected Fund Balance - you’re going to raise that to $450,000 on A. $806,670 on DB. For a total of $1,531,732. If we’re on A again we're lowering our appropriations to $3,164,959. And we're lowering our estimated revenue by 2… 1.1830 to 1 million. So the final line is the amount to be raised by taxes is $1,531,938. The B budget is going to be $594,300, revenue $594,300, and we're not using any balance... Unfunded Balance from B. So that's a zero tax. Obviously the bridge account, we don't use, so that becomes unfunded, so we just roll that over to the next year. Been doing that for about 20 years. And the Highway outside of the Village, the new number is $3,532,299. The revenue is the same, $2,177,900. We did increase the fund balance to $806,670. And that makes the amount to be raised by taxes, $547,729. And, on the original, the amount to be raised by taxes was $2,093,534. So this is 7/10 of a percent lower than what we started with. And, we also took care of our $708,000 error. Supervisor Williams: First of all, Richard, I think we probably should categorize that as a $700,000 not necessarily an error, but... Town Financial Advisor Richard Tupper: Yes, that was very, very unexpected. Yeah, that original budget we thought was very solid until we heard from Duane that we couldn't count that revenue. Supervisor Williams: So it really wasn't an error. I mean, this is a brand new thing for, I think everybody. Is it not? I mean, not only the State, but every municipality in the Country. From... Town Financial Advisor Richard Tupper: The State of New York... Supervisor Williams: … to New York City. Town Financial Advisor Richard Tupper: The State of New York, and the Federal Government gave us absolutely no guidance what to do with the revenue. So, when you got your $375,000 check, she called Dwayne and Dwayne told her to put it in the Federal Revenue Account. But, he didn't tell us that we couldn't spend it. And then the same thing this year, we didn't know. So, unfortunately, it's not really an error, but it's a correction. Supervisor Williams: Well, let’s not categorize it as an error. I think that’s demeaning to our finance folks. Town Financial Advisor Richard Tupper: Thank you. Megan thanks you. Supervisor Williams: I really do, there has been little or no firm guidance, even now. This was all put in place several months ago. And, even now I don't know what to do, because they don't give us any direction as to what to do. No fault of anybody, I'm just saying that we did what we thought what's best. And, it turns out that it isn't. So that was a need for a rather major adjustment in how we handle things. Which we did. Megan, unmute yourself. I'd like you to weigh in on what Mr. Tupper has said. Are you in agreement or? You got to know... first of all I got to know that they're sitting in the same room, side by side. They each have a computer that we see them with, and there is another computer, Megan's computer, between them with all the real stuff on it, the bookkeeping stuff. The stuff that she understands, probably Dick understands, but I don't think there's anybody else on this... on this Zoom meeting that has any inkling of what all that is, and they're going back and forth you can see him turning and looking at each other, and they're working together. They each have their own face, she has her computer, and they're comparing notes back and forth. So that's what the setup is. Fortunately, we have the technical expertise to put that all together. And, it seems to be working well, so Megan, are you in agreement with what Mr. Tupper has said? OCTOBER 21, 2021 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING PAGE 6 Town Bookkeeper Megan Johnson: Yes, I am. And, I want to... hold on, there's an echo. I just wanted to say that I am very grateful for all Dick’s help. We'd be lost without him. All his financial information, very thankful. And, yes I'm in agreement, and very proud of the work that we've done on this budget. Supervisor Williams: Well we’re proud too. Beyond that, I need to mention that Marcia Hicks, 33 year veteran of the dollar wars at the Town of Cortlandville, sat down with both Dick, Megan, and I and reviewed it we asked her to review it, just for the fresh set of eyes, fresh set of educated eyes, that she brings, and some of what we've done was at her suggestion. And I would say, if you called her up right now and said, do you concur with what's being said, she will agree. That’s.... probably 50 years of experience between Megan and Dick and Marcia, or thereabouts, experience in this process. And I think we've got a good product, and I would suggest that perhaps the next thing that we do is answer any questions... specific questions that any Board member has. Let's do it by page and account number. We'll do questions first, and then I guess if there are any general comments, we will handle them afterwards. So, any Board member have any questions, specific questions, page, account number? Councilman Withey: Tom, I don't have a specific question, other than where we at with a 2% cap? Is this at the same number we had before, or less or? Town Financial Advisor Richard Tupper: Actually, Megan recalculated the 2% cap and we are below the cap and we're actually using less of our rollover reserves. So... We're using almost $18,000 less, we had a $37,000 roll over. And we're only using $20,000 of it. So... we're under the cap by about $20,000. Councilman Withey: I concur with the others. Supervisor Williams: Excuse me. Councilman Withey: Sorry. Supervisor Williams: Excuse me. Just to that point, both to Dick and Megan. The actual final tax information is not provided by us, it's provided by the County, is that not true. They're the ones that crunch all the numbers, and bring us… This is what your rate is going to be. Town Financial Advisor Richard Tupper: When we get finished, you are required to take two copies of the final signed budget to the Real Property Tax Office. Supervisor Williams: Yup. Town Financial Advisor Richard Tupper: And they will calculate the Fire tax and they will calculate the Town tax and the Village of McGraw tax. Supervisor Williams: We provide them with numbers. They do… Town Financial Advisor Richard Tupper: They do the calculations and they run them out to about six digits. I mean you can roughly do it to a couple of digits. You know, David Briggs can do it to a couple of digits, but if you want the accurate number, they're the ones that calculate it. Councilman Withey: That's fine, but you're feeling is we're at the 2% or less. Town Financial Advisor Richard Tupper: Well, we're not going over the cap, it looks… I'm guessing that there's going to be, and I know... we haven't figured out exactly why, but there looks like, from Megan and my calculations, that there's going to be a slight increase, a few pennies. And, once we go Tentative to Preliminary, I can eliminate those pennies with probably $20 or $30,000 in cuts. But, I think the Board, if you want to take a look, and you can find, you can probably lower it back down. It was at $247. So, if it's a matter of pennies, it doesn't take very much to eliminate that. Councilman Withey: Okay. I concur, it looks like you've done a fine job, appreciate that. Town Financial Advisor Richard Tupper: Thank you. Supervisor Williams: Other questions, Board members? Anybody else? OCTOBER 21, 2021 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING PAGE 7 Councilman Guido: Dick, yeah I guess, just real quick, just to clarify. There's a very good reason why I don't teach math, just thought I’d throw that out there. But, so you took that Federal money back out of the budget, but we still have it, correct? But you couldn't count that as part of the revenue? Town Financial Advisor Richard Tupper: Yes. What happens is, in January, Megan will move the $375 into a Deferred Revenue Account. And, as you spend that money, that account will go down. Now we've put $175,000 of that money in this budget because we have an expenditure in next year's budget for the renovation of the Town Hall. Councilman Guido: Okay. Town Financial Advisor Richard Tupper: So we're using $175 with that $375 for that renovation. Councilman Guido: And you can take that $175 out because it's being spent. Town Financial Advisor Richard Tupper: Yes. Councilman Guido: Now it makes sense. Town Financial Advisor Richard Tupper: Not until you spend it. But after you spend it, Megan will take it out of the Reserve and move it back over to the regular books. Councilman Guido: Okay. So, thank you. That clarifies my question. Supervisor Williams: Jay? Ted? Anything you want to add? Councilman Cobb: I'm happy. Again, I commend all three of them, and you, four of you and what you've done for us on the Budget. You’ve done a great job and it's overwhelming to look at it. But yes, you guys know what you're doing. Councilman Guido: I agree. Thank you. Supervisor Williams: Teddy, anything to say? You’re muted Ted. … Town Clerk Rocco-Petrella: Tom, if I could just make a comment, quickly while Ted’s getting unmuted. Dick had mentioned the increase in the Sewer District tax. And, as I mentioned at the Board Meeting last night, I've calculated the Benefit Tax Calculations and the number of units has actually increased, which will actually mean that the tax rate for the Sewer Benefit tax is going to decrease $1.39, for those who pay the tax. So, next year I've calculated that it's, on your tax bill, would be $52.61 cents per unit, which is a decrease of $1.39. And the Water Benefit tax rate will be $18.80 cents per unit which is a decrease of $0.83. So, you will see an actual decrease on the tax bill for those unit charges. Town Financial Advisor Richard Tupper: Thank you. Councilman Withey: Kristin, that's a couple of additional houses on that line now is that what the decrease comes from? Town Clerk Rocco-Petrella: No, what we do is, consumption… Benefit tax is either based on consumption, road frontage, or the number of building units, like you just said. But, some of our larger commercial users like Paul Trinity and Byrne Dairy, their consumption increased, so that actually changes the units. Councilman Withey: Gotcha. Town Clerk Rocco-Petrella: So, homeowners who have water/sewer available to them, they'll see a decrease in their unit charge, and then… Town Financial Advisor Richard Tupper: Plus, you're also paying down your Bond payments every year. So you have less bond payments. Town Clerk Rocco-Petrella: Correct. Councilman Withey: Now, how many years left on that one? OCTOBER 21, 2021 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING PAGE 8 Town Clerk Rocco-Petrella: Well, there are several Bonds that make up all of this, Doug. I’d have to give you a... Councilman Withey: No, that's fine. That's fine. Councilman Testa: … Alright, I’m all set. Supervisor Williams: Well you had something to say about the Budget. Do you still want to repeat it? Councilman Testa: I can't remember what, I wrote it down, but I can't find it here. I've been running around here trying to get myself organized. Other than to say, Dick, you did an excellent job getting us on track. Town Financial Advisor Richard Tupper: Thank you Ted. Supervisor Williams: Well, I don't want to. I don't want to violate any HIPAA information, but as I think everybody knows Ted… Dick has been dealing with a medical issue, he was in surgery yesterday morning and came back, was at the meeting last night, and is here today and I, I truly thank him. I mean, I think we probably have all been... gone under the surgeon's knife at one point or another, or something similar to that, and to come back from that and to do this I think is commendable. And I, I truly do. I commend him for it. I thank him. He is an ally. He is a mentor. He has a wealth of experience. That I have tapped into. And, I just thank him for all that he does and has done for this Town. He truly is a resident of Cortlandville and a proponent for Cortlandville and I thank him. Councilman Testa: Very well said, Tom. Very well said. My personal opinion, Dick’s an A+. Supervisor Williams: That’s very true Ted. We say the same thing about you. Well, certain people. Councilman Testa: I’m no A+, not with Mr. Tupper there. Even though... Supervisor Williams: So, I guess. Questions. Does anybody have a, like a general comment they want to make about the Budget? Councilman Withey: Lot of numbers. Just got to make them work, and they will. Supervisor Williams: So, the next step in this process is to move this Proposed Budget to the 3rd of November. There will be a public… what? Town Clerk Rocco-Petrella: If you... all of the changes that were listed tonight by Dick, if you… if the Board is comfortable with them, you will actually want to adopt a Resolution to Accept the 2022 Tentative Budget with modifications, as the Preliminary Budget, and we’ll list all of those changes, and then that will get moved. Councilman Testa: Good point. Supervisor Williams: Thank you. I was sort of getting there. We have to take all the stuff that we've talked about tonight, put it in written form, then we have to do a Resolution. And, that will allow Megan to crunch all these numbers again and move it forward. There's one other thing that we need to talk about prior to that. And that is, this Budget does not include… It includes pay increases for all the employees, other than elected officials. No. Other than Board Members. And, we need to, I think we need to discuss that. I know in the past there has been some impassio ned pleas that we do not increase the Board Members salaries, because people were out of work, jobs, and the economy is flat and all. Well, we didn't, we left that out of the... this Budget on purpose. So that we could, as a Board, decide what to do with it. As it stands right now, all other employees of the Town will receive a 5% budget increase. Except for the five of us, that's just the way it is. And, I guess I'm looking for comment as to how to do that. Probably we should go into Executive Session, I don't know, I think we handle it out here in the public. And, we've handled not doing an increase for Board Members in public. I think we do that now in public. 5%, I asked Megan to calculate this 5% for the Board Members is less than $5,000... $4,900 and change. In the scope of a multi-million dollar Budget, actually insignificant impact. And, I for one, think it's one, a message sent. I think it's a message sent to prospective people to run for the Board. I know in the past that the previous Board Members have put that in place because they felt that the amount paid OCTOBER 21, 2021 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING PAGE 9 to Board Members should increase at some level so that we don't get to the point where Board Members are working for nothing. I won't say we’re there now. This is one of those, I think, forward looking things. So, I guess I'm looking for comment as to whether or not we should leave the Budget… the Tentative Budget and change it to the Proposed Budget by Resolution. Should we add to this Tentative Budget before we move it to a Proposed Budget with increases in salary for the Board Members? Comment? Councilman Withey: Well, my thought is no increase for the Board Members in this Budget. Supervisor Williams: Others? Councilman Guido: I'm good where we're at right now. Councilman Cobb: I am also saying, Jay. Supervisor Williams: Okay. Councilman Testa: Same, no problem. Supervisor Williams: Alright. Then that's it. Do I have a motion to move this Tentative Budget, with his changes, to a Proposed Budget? Councilman Guido: I’ll make that motion. Councilman Cobb: I’ll second it, Jay. Councilman Testa: I'll second that. Supervisor Williams: I think that was Jay made the motion. Ted second it. Councilman Testa: Yeah. Supervisor Williams: I'm getting a little bit of static here in my thing. Councilman Cobb: Jeff made the motion and I seconded it. Supervisor Williams: Okay. So it’s Jeff, Jay. I guess there's no reason for comment. All those in favor? Tom, aye. Councilman Withey: Doug, aye. Councilman Testa: Ted, aye. Councilman Cobb: Jay, aye. Councilman Guido: Jeff, aye. RESOLUTION #299 ACCEPT 2022 TENTATIVE BUDGET WITH MODIFICATIONS AS THE 2022 PRELIMINARY BUDGET Motion by Councilman Guido Seconded by Councilman Cobb VOTES: AYE – Williams, Cobb, Guido, Testa, Withey NAY – 0 ADOPTED WHEREAS, the 2022 Tentative Budget was presented to the Town Board at the October 5, 2021 Special Town Board Meeting, and WHEREAS, the Town Board conducted two Special Meetings/Workshops for the purpose of discussing the 2022 Tentative Budget and has made the following modifications: OCTOBER 21, 2021 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING PAGE 10 INCREASE/ FUND FUND NAME TENTATIVE DECREASE AMOUNT PRELIMINARY CHANGES IN EXPENDITURES – GFA A1355.1 Assessors - Personnel Services $ 82,500.00 Decrease -$ 8,500.00 $ 74,000.00 A1410.4 Town Clerk – Contractual Services $ 42,500.00 Decrease -$ 35,000.00 $ 7,500.00 A1420.4 Law – Contractual Services $ 50,000.00 Decrease -$ 40,000.00 $ 10,000.00 A1620.4 Operation of Buildings - Contractual $ 140,000.00 Increase $135,000.00 $ 275,000.00 A7110.1 Culture & Recreation Parks - Personnel $ 75,000.00 Decrease -$ 25,000.00 $ 50,000.00 A9730.6 BAN Principal – Principal Payment $ 200,000.00 Decrease -$ 30,000.00 $ 170,000.00 CHANGES IN REVENUE – GFA A2001 Park and Recreational Charges $ 173,330.00 Increase $ 18,166.00 $ 191,496.00 A4089 Federal Aid – Other Federal Aid $ 333,000.00 Decrease -$157,799.00 $ 175,201.00 CHANGES IN EXPENDITURES – GFB B1420.4 Law – Contractual $ 5,000.00 Increase $ 50,000.00 $ 55,000.00 CHANGES IN REVENUE – GFB B1120 Non-Property Tax Distribution $ 435,000.00 Increase $ 50,000.00 $ 485,000.00 CHANGES IN UNEXPENDED FUND BALANCE – GFA A599 Unexpended Fund Balance $ 406,670.00 Increase $ 43,330.00 $ 450,000.00 CHANGES IN UNEXPENDED FUND BALANCE – DB DB599 Unexpended Fund Balance $ 700,000.00 Increase $106,670.00 $ 806,670.00 Supervisor Williams: So, this will be, now, the Proposed Budget, which will come before the Board on the 3rd of November. And at that time, there will be a Public Hearing on this Budget... Proposed Budget, and we will then... that meeting will then be recessed, not adjourned. We will recess the Board meeting on the 3rd to the 4th at 5:00 p.m. So we have time to exam ine and any comments… deal with any comments. And then we will vote on the Final Budget. We’ll move the Proposed Budget to the Final Budget on the 4th. Town Clerk Rocco-Petrella: Tom, if I... I'm sorry to interrupt, but at the meeting last night you adopted a Resolution to adopt the Budget at the November 17 meeting, which is typically done. That's usually our schedule. But, if you want to change that and adopt it the next day, you can do that as well. We'll just have to rescind that Resolution you adopted last night. Supervisor Williams: I thought we did the third and the fourth. I thought you had a deadline. What is your deadline to present the Final? Town Clerk Rocco-Petrella: The 20th is the deadline for the Board to adopt the Preliminary Budget as the Final Adopted Budget. So... Supervisor Williams: Why don’t... Town Clerk Rocco-Petrella: The way we... the way you adopt … Supervisor Williams: Okay, let’s go back to what we did last night, let’s do it the 17th for Public Hearing, correct? Town Clerk Rocco-Petrella: The Public Hearing is on November 3 and then, you will listen to comment. And, if there are any other changes to be made to go... you can deal with that or you can adopt the Preliminary Budget at the November 17 meeting. Supervisor Williams: Public Hearing on November 3. We will then move it to the 17th for final vote. And that is within your timeline of the 20th to present. Town Clerk Rocco-Petrella: Yes. Councilman Testa: Would you please repeat that again. The final vote is what? Supervisor Williams: We will have a Public Hearing on the 3rd on the Budget. Councilman Testa: Okay. Supervisor Williams: Anybody can speak for or against, whatever they want. OCTOBER 21, 2021 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING PAGE 11 Councilman Testa: Alright. Supervisor Williams: We will then reconvene on the 17th, which is our next normal meeting, and vote on it to make it the Permanent, the Final Budget. Councilman Testa: Okay. Supervisor Williams: Which will be before the 20th, which is the deadline for submission. Kristin, are we good? Town Clerk Rocco-Petrella: Yes, you're... that's good, perfect. Supervisor Williams: Alright. So I guess we don't have to take anything other than... we've already set the Public Hearing. We have a meeting on the 17th, which we don't have to set. I guess the only other piece of business, unless there is something else to be brought before this, is to adjourn. Councilman Withey: So moved. Councilman Guido: Second. Supervisor Williams: We have a motion and a second. And we are adjourned. Thank you very much. The meeting was adjourned at 5:01 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Kristin E. Rocco-Petrella, RMC Town Clerk Town of Cortlandville *Note: The draft version of this meeting was submitted to the Town Board for their review on November 8, 2021. The final version of this meeting was approved as written at the Town Board meeting of November 17, 2021.