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Sloan tax rate to decrease slightly
Sloan residents will have slightly lower taxes to pay for the 2007-08 fiscal year, as village officials approved a budget that contains a larger fund balance, one of several topics discussed at Wednesday's budget hearing.
Sloan's total budget is $1,683,362, which contains a hike of 6.48 percent in expenditures. The tax rate was approved at $16.49 per $1,000 of assessed valuation of village properties, a decrease of about four cents from the 2006-07 rate.
Overall, the amount to be raised by taxes is $1,073,041.
The village budgeted $22,500 to be paid to Modern Corporation of Lewiston, which handles garbage collection and disposal in Sloan. The Niagara County sanitation company in February billed Sloan $90,000 in undercharges that accumulated from 2003 through 2006. Although village officials are still having discussions with Modern officials, Mayor Leonard Szymanski anticipates to pay the $22,500 over four years to the waste company.
The village also budgeted $110,000 in its 2007-08 fund balance, an amount which Trustee Anthony Sisti disputed but the village's clerk-treasurer (Debbie Smith) and accountant (Dick Gryksa) explained the need for.
Sisti claimed that the tax rate should have been lowered more rather than stock the fund balance.
"If we have more money, let's knock the tax rate down. People have endured about a 35 percent raise in taxes a couple years ago," Sisti said of the previous large hike in taxes due to alleged misappropriations of the former Sloan administration. "Let's give them a break. This village couldn't exist without the people."
Sisti added that the village tax rate should have been about $15.83 per $1,000, stating, "I can go out and buy a new (Sloan) fire truck and still not raise taxes."
However, Smith and Gryksa said the fund balance must be stocked accordingly, but not too high, to properly manage village finances. Gryksa stated that the village received a one-time emergency grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency after the freak snowstorm in October, an amount the village needs to put into its budget for future unanticipated events.
"You need to have a surplus of money available in case of a major issue that could arise," said Gryksa.
Smith said the previous administration appropriated as much as $250,000 in a year in its fund balance, depleting the village of its savings and leaving a debt of $142,000 to the current administration, which took over two years ago. Gryksa said the debt figure was established following an investigation by an independent internal auditor in the village.
Additionaal details of the Sloan budget will be made available in the May 3 print edition of the Times.
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