The Cazenovia Town Board this week acknowledged receipt of the 2018 tentative town budget from the supervisor and adopted that tentative budget as the preliminary town budget.
The $3.3 million preliminary budget includes $1.5 million to be raised by taxes, a town tax rate of $1.46 per $1,000 of assessed value for town residents who live outside the village, and $1.31 per $1,000 of assessed value townwide. Those tax rates are different from the 2017 final town budget by only a penny in each category — a one cent increase townwide and a one cent decrease for residents outside the village.
“We just tried to keep it flat,” said Supervisor Bill Zupan.
He said the town saw large increases in both health insurance and workers’ compensation rates that would have created “significant increases” in the town tax rate, were it not for the $106,000 the town received from the county as part of the Oneida Indian Nation casino host community money. “I’m using that to take away the shock of all the big increases,” Zupan said.
This budget is preliminary and subject to further possible changes by the town board before a final vote to approve later in the year.
The budget will be available for public viewing at the town office and on the town website at townofcazenovia.org.
There will be a public hearing on the preliminary budget at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 6, at the town office.
Also during its Oct. 2 meeting, the board approved a new local law designating all town-owned parks as tobacco-free spaces. Signs prohibiting tobacco will be erected at Gypsy Bay Park, New Woodstock Heritage Park and the Green located in front of the Cazenovia High School on Emory Avenue.
The new tobacco-free policy prohibits the use of any manufactured product containing tobacco or nicotine, including but not limited to cigarettes, cigars, pipe tobacco, snuff, chewing tobacco, dipping tobacco, bidis, snus, dissolvable tobacco products and electronic cigarettes.
The policy is designed to “protect the health, welfare and safety of park patrons,” according to the law. Zupan said the town board was asked by a New Woodstock resident to make Heritage Park tobacco free, and decided if they were going to prohibit tobacco in one town park, they might as well do it for all town parks.
Enforcement of the new tobacco-free policy is through voluntary compliance.
