Village begins budget discussions


By CORY ALLYN


Staff Reporter

 


MILLERTON — The Village Board held its first budget workshop Monday, March 2, and the process is a little different this year.

Normally, Mayor John Scutieri explained, budget workshops have been held following business meetings in the evening.

"We wouldn’t even get started on the budget until 8 or 9," he said, saying that sometimes workshops lasted until 11 p.m. or even midnight.

Scutieri said that it was important to have "good, fresh thoughts" during a budget workshop, which was getting harder to do with the late-night meetings.

Now the board is meeting during the day to discuss the budget, and the mayor said he was thankful to have a group of trustees able to meet during the day. The workshop on March 2, for example, lasted five hours.

"That’s the equivalent of three nighttime meetings," he said.

The budget process usually takes about two months, according to Scutieri. By April 1 the village needs to submit a tentative budget to the state office, but even after that things can get changed around and fine-tuned.

The various department heads have already submitted their needs for the upcoming budget year. Those numbers will be mulled over by the board and additional meetings with the individual departments will be scheduled, if needed.

"There’s no doubt that this is the toughest budget season I’ve gone through," Scutieri said, who has 10 under his belt already.

One of the biggest problems in balancing the budget is the cutback in sales tax revenue. As the economy affects local businesses, less revenue is received by the village, but as Scutieri was quick to point out, "Central Hudson isn’t charging less for electricity. The only way you can make up that difference is by collecting more in taxes."

The first budget workshop is always the longest, according to Scutieri, as the board will go through the entire budget, line by line. Later meetings deal more with fine-tuning individual lines.

"My goal is to shoot for a 3- to 4-percent increase, tops," he said. "And that’s just keeping up with expenses."

All budget workshops are open to the public. The second meeting was held this past Monday, March 9, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., after press deadline for this week’s paper.

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