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Depew budget hikes taxes but fund balance is untouched
Depew Mayor Barbara Alberti announced that the 2007-08 budget carrying a 2.64 percent tax hike is still more than two percent lower than the tentative budget proposed by the prior administration- if former mayor Joseph Mcintosh didn't touch the village's fund balance.
Alberti said the board removed the use of $200,000 of fund balance money planned for use by the prior administration and worked hard with department heads to make needed cuts in an effort to balance next year's spending plan.
McIntosh's $11.15 million budget called for a 1.89 percent tax hike. However, if his spending plan took $200,000 from taxpayers instead of from the fund balance, the true tax increase in his budget would have been 4.67 percent, Alberti explained.
Instead, the village board passed Monday an $11.03 million budget which carries a tax rate of $19.25 per $1,000 of assessed value, which is an increase of 50 cents from last year. The move helps restore some of the fund balance, which had been depleted from its $2.5 million high in the 1990s.
Alberti noted that the budget accounts for increased costs of retirements, improvements to village playgrounds, repairs to a gas pump and hikes in health insurance and pension costs.
"This is the first year that we have a truly balanced budget as no fund balance is being used to bring the expenditures in line with the revenues," Alberti read from a prepared statement during the meeting.
"Over the next four years each service and department in the village will be evaluated to bring the service offered in line with the tax dollars utilized to support it," she continued later in the statement. "We are just beginning to chip away at the mountain before us."
After conversations with village representatives through the Intermunicipal Cooperation Committee and Village Mayor's Association, Trustee Joe Keefe believed Depew's budget was more favorable than that of the five other municipalities that met as part of the committee.
He said Depew carried the lowest tax rate increase of the villages of Kenmore, Blasdell, Hamburg, Springville and Williamsville, a few of which seemed to be discussing an increase in the range of five to six percent for next year's tax rate.
Trustee William Dillemuth Jr. was the only board member to reject the spending plan, but when asked after the meeting for his reasoning, he only offered that it was a personal opinion and that he had a problem with a few issues.
Dillemuth later was the lone trustee to vote against the one-year appointment of Cheektowaga's Paul S. Piotrowski to the position of village prosecutor and cast the lone dissenting vote against a resolution to send the recently elected mayor and three trustees, Keefe, Carl Monti and Linda Hammer, along with Teresa Fusani, to the New York Conference of Mayors New Officials Workshop today in Syracuse at a total cost of $425.
Dillemuth, who was elected to office two years ago with Fusani, indicated that he voted against the two moves because he favored one candidate over Piotrowski and believed the trip to the workshop was "unnecessary."
However, when resident Dan Beutler directed a question towards the board as to why Fusani was attending and not Dillemuth, Dillemuth indicated that he was never asked and wasn't included in the planning. "No road trip for me," he said sarcastically.
Alberti said Fusani was never extended the opportunity to attend this type of workshop when she first joined the board, but never made mention of Dillemuth.
Dillemuth acknowledged Piotrowski was one of many wellqualified candidates and wished the new prosecutor well after the meeting. Hammer later noted that there were nine candidates the board reviewed for the job and all did a very fine job.
Meanwhile, Piotrowksi, who was hired part-time at a salary of $160 per session not to exceed $3,500 as stipulated in the budget, spoke briefly during the meeting, saying he was proud and humbled by the appointment.
"There's nothing I take for granted and I am very grateful," Piotrowski said. "I promise the village board and all of you, that I will serve this community in any way I can and to the best of my ability."
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