2014 Oct 12 – I know there hasn’t been many postings in the last week and it is because working on a $4.5 million dollar budget truly takes up time, especially when it is imperative that the tax payers have full explanation of where there tax dollars go. Although the preliminary budget for 2015 is still being worked on, rest assured I am making every effort to get the best city we can have, for the best price. Unfortunately the city grew awkward over the last 107 years. For example, the tax base on $1,000 of assessed property in the city, for residential homes, is $23.29. Compare that to 1952 when it was $24.66 or in 1957 when it was $25.78 or at its highest in 1959 when it was $26.74. Yes that is right, they paid more taxes back then. It was the mid 1970’s when they came out with a crazy formula to save money and our rate dropped to $7.95. Grant money was huge, yup Urban Renewal, but then the taxes slowly started to bounce back during the late 70’s and 1980’s. It was in 1989 that another creative idea to help the tax payers was to come out and it was called Homestead tax. Our homeowner’s rate dropped from $22.46 in 1989 to $9.48 in 1990. Good paying grants were also abundant during the 1990’s but the Homestead tax was a killer and has been a killing to our city businesses ever since. Honestly, it is going to be a very difficult task to correct that but eventually it needs to be done. Anyway from 1990 to 2014 there were 8 years of 0% or less than 1% tax increases in our city budget. Fiscal responsibility coupled with growth, infrastructure repair, and an expectation of services offered when living in a small city is paramount. Today small grants are good. However, when you land a big grant it is VERY difficult to get it going (Promenade 12 years and Tri-State Corridor/Neversink Bridge project 15 years as examples) because of red tape. The governor of the State of New York pronounced a great expectation of a 2% tax cap. The state has done that by NOT cutting back but by raising all fees in the large population pool they have to create revenue. In addition, the several new casinos that are going to pop up throughout New York State in the next few years will add tax revenue to the state in which it gets 90% of the taxes generated (The county the casino is in get 5% and the municipality that the casino is in gets 5%). Along with no real cutbacks the state is forcing school districts and municipalities to remain within the 2% tax cap formula (which for Port Jervis is lower than 2%). The state is also mandating the surrounding municipalities and school districts to create shared services. To make sure this happens the state has offered individual tax incentive checks to residents in a municipality that adheres to this cap and creates a certain percentage of shared services. I have every intention to do just that and we are working with the Town of Deerpark and the school district to identify those duplicated services. Unfortunately our reserve funds are depleted, we are under state mandates for repairs, 75% of our operating budget goes to salary and benefits and we have already been advised of major increases in our healthcare coverage and salt used for the winter for 2015. The sewer fee that I will recommend to the council will give us some breathing room, but it is not a fix. This city needs a strategy and excuses can’t be accepted. There will be cuts in this budget in both operations and personnel but it must be careful cuts as to not affect services that we need. Attached you will find a comparison that I put together between the City of Port Jervis and other municipalities and how they work around the budgetary percent increases. They all have water and sewer fees for the services that we use that need to be maintained, repaired, or replaced. Some even charge for garbage pickup. These are services that we enjoy that have been buried in our operating budget. Some may say that our water bill is good enough. Just add on or turn on the meters. First our water account can only be used for water repair, replacement, conditioning, and personnel. It cannot be used for anything else. The general account can borrow against the water account but must replace the funds. To charge by the meters, a very few might save money but for the majority there might be heart raising concerns. We would have to have a minimal anyway and still make up the money we need to raise. Stability is what we need to address in this issue a fixed bill on a fixed budget, which most Port Jervians are on, is necessary. I searched for an infrastructure fee but the state does not recognize that type of fee however it gives latitude for a sewer use fee to provide other types of repairs and replacements such as sidewalks, streets, and development this is why I believe it is necessary to head in this direction. I welcome any suggestions that offer resolve in this matter.
Posted on: Sun, 12 Oct 2014 23:48:00 +0000