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Legislature Pares Proposed 40 Percent County Property Tax Increase to 23.43 Percent
by Margaret Sternberg
At the September 24, 2007 meeting of the Budget & Finance Committee, Putnam County Legislators proposed and approved hundreds of individual cuts to budget line - in some cases deducting as little as $50 - that ultimately resulted in the proposed County property tax increase being lowered from 40 to 23.43 percent. Legislator Tony Hay said that would probably not be the final proposed increase, expecting the number to be somewhere between 22 and 25 percent.
Among the cuts was $772,000 in capital projects, which Chairman Dan Birmingham described as infrastructure projects that would be "coming up in the future…but in such a year as this…can be put off for a few years…"
Over $200,000 is being saved through the Sheriff's Department deferring of vehicle purchases that are due.
Without going into specifics, the Legislature intimated that the 5 percent raise that County Executive Robert J. Bondi had planned to give union employees was subject to revision, as was a possible 2.5 percent raise for management and elected officials. When pressed on possible cutbacks by a union employee, Chairman Birmingham said that he was unwilling to discuss the issue publicly because it was a matter of collective bargaining that is done "behind closed doors, and this Legislature, unlike the Administration, will not do bargaining in public."
Deputy County Executive John Tully later responded that the only reason the County had disclosed the number was that it was felt that some explanation was due to the public to account for that large a rise in County property taxes.
One area that appears slated for significant cuts is the County's newly-implemented recycling program. The subject of ongoing criticism by the Legislature centering on its efficacy and value to the county, given the many town-sponsored recycling programs, the Legislature discussed the possibility of reallocating some of the funds from the County's facility to the town facilities, consolidation of County services with the towns and making cutbacks in duplicative services offered by the County.
Legislator Hay also said that he expected the horse boarding operation at Tilly Foster Farm would be closed unless it could "100 percent fund itself, there's absolutely no way anyone could support taxpayers footing the bill for someone to keep their horse there privately."
In addition to cutting expenditures, the Legislature increased some County revenue, appropriating $500,000 from the County's surplus, in addition to the $2 million County Executive Bondi planned to appropriate.
Asked how the Legislature justified this in light of the harsh criticism it leveled at the County Executive for using the surplus last year to lower the tax rate, Legislator Hay responded that the Legislature is using the surplus in addition to making drastic cutbacks in spending this year. Hay said that last year's use of the surplus by the County Executive had not been coupled with spending cutbacks.
Hay also accused the County Executive of waiting for this year to put forward the same proposals and raises that, Hay said, could have been proposed last year, when the County Executive was up for reelection. Hay said, "If he [County Executive Bondi] had proposed this budget last year, he would've been history…but now he wants to do all these things."
Legislators also increased the County Executive's expected 2008 sales tax revenue by $125,000, slightly less than ½ percent of the current 2008 budget. Legislators justified the increase, saying that with the recent ¼ percent increase in the County's sales tax rate, revenue is expected to come in close to what is projected.
The Legislature removed a ¼ percent sales tax increase last year when proposed by the County Executive in September for the 2007 budget, accusing the County Executive of basing his budgeted 2007 sales tax revenue upon "phantom revenues" since the sales tax increase would still have had to be approved on the state level. The Legislature introduced the same increase this year and passed the proposal.
The $133 million County Executive-proposed budget represents an approximately $9.5 million increase over the 2007 County Budget. As of this writing, Legislators have removed about $4 million of those increases.
The Legislature will adopt the 2008 budget October 9 and deliver that budget to County Executive Bondi within three business days. The County Executive has until October 23 to approve or veto all changes. The Legislature then has until October 31 to override any veto by the County Executive and adopt the final 2008 budget. Any legislative override must be approved by at least six of the nine County Legislators otherwise the County Executive's veto stands.
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