By David Tyler
As expected, the town of Manlius will exceed the state property tax cap in its 2021 budget.
On Wednesday, Nov. 18, the town finalized the $16 million budget, falling about $106,000 short of ducking under the tax cap.
In the last couple of weeks leading up to budget adoption the town’s finance committee made several changes to the 2021 budget in an attempt to get under the cap, but uncertainty regarding state aid, decreases in non-tax revenue sources, and ever-increasing health insurance costs ultimately made that impossible without significant cuts to services, said Councilor Sara Bollinger.
Town property taxes on a $200,000 home outside one of the three villages in the town will be approximately $954, up about $8 from 2020. Taxes on a home of the same value inside the villages will be $728, up about $7 from 2020.
“The finance committee struggled to look for places to cut,” Bollinger said. “We could not reduce that $106 (thousand) without impacting on real-life town services.”
Supervisor Ed Theobald said when they first began working on the preliminary budget, there was a gap of more than $365,000 to get below the tax cap.
“We cut that down tremendously through some of those items we were able to control,” Theobald said.
Town employees will receive a 2.5 percent salary increase. For most of the employees, that increase was previously negotiated as part of their contracts.
The preliminary budget had a 2 percent increase for elected officials, which was eliminated in the final budget.
“At this time, just with the budget constraints and with the pandemic, we thought it best to forgo that for 2021,” said Councilor Katelyn Kriesel.
“Last year we had the lowest tax rate in 12 years,” said Councilor Karen Green. “Circumstances have changed.”
The vote on the 2021 budget was unanimous.
