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2008 Budget Adopted with 23.34 Percent County Property Tax Increase
Commissioner of Health and Executive Director of Recycling Positions eliminated
by Margaret Sternberg
The Legislature passed the 2008 Putnam County Budget by one vote on October 9, 2007, narrowly averting what would otherwise have been a 40 percent property tax increase. Legislator Vinny Tamagna, alphabetically the last legislator to vote, cast the decisive sixth vote necessary, criticizing the 23.34 percent property tax increase that was passed, but making it clear that the 40 percent alternative was untenable. Legislators Regina Morini, Sam Oliverio and Mary Ellen Odell voted against the lower increase.
Tamagna noted that he had voted against the county sales tax increase passed earlier this year and that he was against the 23.34 percent increase they were now voting on, but "I have to vote for it so a 40 percent doesn't prevail." He said he was voting for it "under protest." Tamagna again called for an outside audit and "new and innovative ways" to save taxpayers money.
In paring down the original, proposed increase, Legislators eliminated the positions of Commissioner of Health, currently held by Dr. Sherlita Amler, and the position of Director of Recycling, currently held by Gordon Maxwell. The salary of the Director of Recycling is about $67,000. The Legislature has said that recycling will be continued but more emphasis is expected to be placed on recycling centers within the towns.
Deputy County Executive John Tully appeared stunned at the elimination of the Commissioner of Health's position, although the presence of Loretta Molinari, Associate Commissioner of Health and several others from the department, attested to rumors having been making the rounds that the continuation of the position was debatable. Dr. Amler was not at the meeting. The cutting of the Health Commissioner's position will save the County $118,000.
Tully said that he was "not expecting this. There was nothing on any agenda. This was never discussed in a [committee] meeting…Public health is very important to County Executive Bondi as was evidenced by the budget he proposed to the Legislature. The Commissioner of Health is integral in ensuring the public safety and health of our citizens. This is something we're going to take a very close look at, and I think the Legislature can expect to revisit this."
Tully expressed hope that, upon receiving additional materials the Legislature would have a "change of heart" but, pressed as to whether it could be expected that the County Executive would veto the action, Tully said he would expect that to occur. Six of nine legislative votes are needed in order to override the County Executive's veto. The Legislators had voted six to three to eliminate Dr. Amler's position. Chairman Dan Birmingham and Legislators Morini and Oliverio voted against, and Legislators Tamagna, Hay, Intrary, Conklin, O'Dell and McGuigan voted for.
Legislator Tamagna later said that one of the reasons he had voted to eliminate the position was because he had found that it had added extra layers of bureaucracy that had nearly affected several of his constituents in their ability to buy a home as well as bureaucracy having slowed down the pace of the septic repair program.
Legislator Hay, after the budget vote, said that legislators had, "this year, taken some measures within the budget that are going to help us…to reduce it." Hay said he believed the County should institute the use of a contingency budget when faced with
a prospective enormous property tax increase but even then, he said, the 2008 budget would have been about an 18 percent increase. Hay pointed to eight new state-mandated unfunded positions in the Corrections Department that were responsible for 5 percent of the budget increase. Hay closed saying that the Legislature "had a job to do" and that he felt they had done the best job possible.
Several Legislators pointed out that 88 percent of the entire $133 million budget is state-mandated costs. Legislator Sam Oliverio said that out of "11 budgets, this is the worst." Opining that the County was "on the road to perdition," Oliverio decried funds that had been removed from the surplus and contingency fund in order to bring down the increase, as well as funds that had been removed from the Highway Department, but suggested that with the resulting approximately 29 percent increase, "the future could have been a lot more sure. Our future projects are put in jeopardy when we tamper with those surplus and contingency funds." Oliverio blamed himself as contributing by having voted in the past for other budgets that had used the surplus to prevent any budget increases.
Chairman Birmingham called the 2008 budget the first budget "in a long time [that has] a very prudent, low-balled [sales tax] number." Birmingham explained that since sales tax income makes up the greatest source of the county's revenue and had been overestimated in the past, now that, he felt, it was being estimated accurately, that would contribute to better budgets going forward by no longer having deficits at the end of the year.
The Legislature also cut about $400,000 from the Highway Department's budget, added $500,000 from the surplus to the $2 million the County Executive had already used to balance the 2008 budget and removed funds the County Executive had allotted for a new well-water testing program that he had planned to start in 2008.
The County Executive has until October 23 to veto the entire budget or line items, and the Legislature has until October 31 to override any veto. An override requires a six-vote majority of the nine legislators.
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