By Jason Klaiber
Staff Writer
At its Oct. 9 meeting, the Manlius Town Board voted to adopt both its preliminary budget and a local law overriding New York State’s 2% property tax cap for the 2020 budget year.
According to Town Councilor Nicholas Marzola, going over the tax cap without a local law to override it would eventually result in “restrictive” penalties for the town that would cause a service detriment.
“Historically we’ve done the override specifically not to put the town in a situation where perchance we could be over the tax cap, although that’s not the goal,” Marzola said.
The town board opened up a public hearing on the tax cap override, during which two local residents spoke.
Marzola then led a slideshow presentation summing up information about the preparation of the town’s annual budget.
On Sept. 25, Town Supervisor Ed Theobald presented the tentative budget to the rest of the town board.
This tentative budget served as a compilation of each town department’s individual budgets which noted contractual or personnel barriers, all without adjustment by the town board.
The town board then reviewed the tentative budget and provided comments on it to be assessed by the town’s finance committee comprised of Theobald, Marzola and councilor John Loeffler.
The board then put together the preliminary budget.
In his presentation, Marzola addressed the Office of the New York State Comptroller’s Fiscal Stress Management System, which contains a financial indicator evaluating budgetary solvency for the state’s taxing authorities and an environmental factor evaluating outside influencers like household income, age dispersion and capital base.
The system determines the “stress” level, or the need for concern, for the state’s municipalities on a scale from 0% stress to the “significant stress” marked by a 65% score.
From 2012 through 2017, the town maintained a 0% financial rating before it jumped to 3.3% in 2018 due to a billing-related issue.
Marzola said the town’s environmental scores have been “extremely low,” gravitating around 10% the past several years.
“The prime reason for that is we have an outstanding school district,” Marzola said. “There’s a pretty good income stream for the family households within this community. We’ve got phenomenal police and fire departments.”
The presentation went over the town’s different fund categories as well.
The General “A” fund includes police, recreation and the town court, while the General “B” fund pertains to planning and development, the Highway “DA” fund concerns snow removal and the Highway “DB” fund applies to road repairs.
The preliminary budget conclusions suggest that the full town’s tax rate would increase by four cents. Marzola said the town’s goal will be to stay below the tax cap while maintaining the most stable tax rate possible.
The town adopted the preliminary budget, which will be reviewed at the town’s public hearing in the court room at 301 Brooklea Drive in Fayetteville at 6:40 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 23.
The 2020 preliminary budget can be viewed online at townofmanlius.org under “Public Notices.”
Meeting Notes
Just prior to the Oct. 9 meeting, representatives from National Grid presented the town board with an incentive check in the amount of $23,230, representing the cost savings for converting street lights around the town to LED fixtures.
“The savings to the town residents is so important, especially during budget time,” Theobald said. “This is just one more step of efficiency and sustainability for our energy savings.”
