By Sarah Hall
Editor
Salina Supervisor Mark Nicotra presented his preliminary budget to the Salina Town Board at the Sept. 25 town board meeting.
Under the proposed $13,614,399 budget, residents outside the village will pay an additional $2.85 per $100,000 of assessed value per month in 2017. Residents within the village of Liverpool will pay an additional $0.13 per $100,000 of assessed value per month next year.
“This budget continues to provide our residents services they want, from maintaining their streets, providing parks and recreation activities, fire protection, assisting our seniors, to basic needs such as sewers and drainage, all of which is delivered to our residents at an affordable cost,” Nicotra said.
This year’s budget includes increases for the town’s courts. Union staff will be receiving a negotiated raise, and the judges would like to give non-union staff a raise, as well. In addition, the court needs to increase its overtime budget to make up for the end of a state DWI grant, and judges have asked that three security officers be present at every court session. The town is also entering into a new managed print service contract for the courts.
In addition, the budget includes interfund transfers to complete bathroom renovations and the construction of pavilions at Richfield and Wemesfelder parks. Those projects were largely funded by grants.
Finally, the town’s tax payments will go down by about 50 percent, as it no longer has to pay school taxes on the town hall building.
“Part of the building was made taxable by my predecessor, but it shouldn’t have been,” said Salina Assessor Denise Trudell. “Part of our building is a daycare, but it’s a not-for-profit corporation. We shouldn’t have been paying taxes on that, so I corrected that last year.”
The budget presented Sept. 25 is only the preliminary budget. The town board and department heads will continue to work to cut expenses to further decrease the final costs to taxpayers.
The town board is holding a public hearing to pass a local law at its Oct. 9 meeting that will allow them to exceed the state tax cap if necessary, but Nicotra has said in the past that the town regularly passes such a law as a precautionary measure. The tax cap this year is the same as the rate of inflation, which is 1.84 percent.
A public hearing on the budget will be held at the Oct. 23 board meeting. State law requires that the final budget be passed by Nov. 20.
