CHATHAM: 2010 BUDGET PREPARATION BEGINS NOW
Mike McCagg
ccSCOOP News
The Town of Chatham will begin work on its 2010 budget next month
Supervisor Jesse DeGroodt said on Friday, less than twenty-four hours after the Town Board adopted the 2009 budget and the 29 percent tax rate increase
it carried.
The Board's approval Thursday of the $3.17 million 2009 budget
followed months of work to whittle away at a budget that at one point involved a 70 percent tax rate increase. As adopted, the budget increases
town spending by 15.9 percent and raises the tax levy by 24 percent, up
to $1,624,752. The driving force behind the budget increase is a
dramatic increase in the cost of maintaining the town's roads—mainly
in the form of diesel fuel and petroleum-based products.
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"We didn't just come up with these numbers and decide that we were
going to fly high. This [budget] came about after we already cut
services. Now the conversation must focus on how much deeper do we want
to go?" the supervisor said.
"We had to pass it and now we have. Now it's time to begin looking at
what can be done for next year."
DeGroodt said he has "a few" ideas, but declined to be specific
until he meets with the Town Board to discuss them in depth. He plans to
bring those ideas forward to the Town Board in the coming weeks.
DeGroodt also said the Town Board's Highway Committee will be hard at
work over the coming months determining what level of service town
residents expect, what the town can afford, and if there are cost-saving
measures that can be implemented to reduce the cost of maintaining the
roads.
With 97 miles of road to maintain—57 miles of which are unpaved—the
town has the second largest amount of roads to maintain in its
classification in the entire state, and, according to DeGroodt, finding ways to reduce costs
within that budget could yield a significant savings to the town.
TOWN OF CHATHAM BUDGET IN A WRAP
- 2009 budget: $3.17 million
- Tentative tax levy: $1,624,752—up 24 percent
- Town tax rates outside the village: $2.81 per $1,000—an increase of 29 percent
- Town tax rates within the village: $1.65 per $1,000--an increase of 14.5 percent
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