Walter Plans to Hold Spending Increases to 1.7 Percent

With a Sept. 30 deadline approaching for submitting his proposed budget for 2012, Supervisor Sean Walter said at Thursday's Town Board work session that he has instructed all department heads to submit spending plans for next year that are no more than two percent higher than their current year’s budgets allow.

Walter added that budgets for the street lighting district and the scavenger waste district would be held to a zero percent increase. He said this means the total spending by the town under his budget would increase by no more than 1.7 percent.

However, Walter stressed that a 1.7 percent spending increase would not necessarily translate into a similar rise in property taxes. That rate, he said, will depend on the specific tax equalization formula that the state mandates each year for individual municipalities. The state has not given the town their specific formula yet.

He also hinted that the use of town reserves could result in no tax increase at all or even lower property taxes than in 2011.

For example, during a discussion with highway superintendent George “Gio” Woodson at the work session, Walter told Woodson he would give him approval to use $500,000 of his allocated reserves for road repairs, a move that would have no effect on taxes.

In line with the tax-cap law passed in Albany earlier this year, Walter said that increases in a town’s total tax levy must be held to the lower of two percent or the current rate of inflation.

Since the state has already announced an inflation rate of 2.3 percent, any increase in the town’s total tax levy must be held to two percent or lower.

To exceed the new law’s limit, he explained, would require a public hearing, something Walter said he has no intention of holding.