Village Board Adopts Budget

The Garden City board of trustees Thursday unanimously adopted the 2013-14 village budget, a $54,212,375 spending plan with an additional appropriation of $195,981 to replenish unappropriated surplus.

This calls for a tax rate increase of $44.54 to balance the budget, an increase of 3.97 percent over 2012-13, and a $229.50 tax increase per average assessed single family home in Garden City, according to village handouts.

"The board of trustees has been faced with many difficult choices as to how to best balance the certain expectations of the residents and the difficulties presented to us by this unprecedented economy," Mayor John Watras said. 

The tentative budget filed March 20 reflected a 4 percent across-the-board expense reduction ($2.3 million in operating expenses) to bring it under the state-mandated 2 percent cap. "Unlike the tentative budget ... the revised proposal achieves tax cap compliance through the combination of revenue items [$828,000], reduction in capital spending [$200,000], allocation of expenses to enterprise funds [$96,000] and the reduction in operating expenses [$1,394,000], totaling approximately $2.5 million," Watras said.

As modified, the adopted budget is a -.42 percent decrease over the 2012-13 spending level, though it reflects $500,000 more in departmental spending when excluding capital projects. Among the revenue items is the draw down of the fire apparatus reserve as a non-recurring item which, Watras said, will "create a replication in future years," and a renegotiation of $100,000 in revenue from the sale of a small parcel of land on Franklin Court, another non-recurring item. 

Randy Colahan, speaking as a private citizen "but as someone with years of volunteer experience," including more than 11 years as a library trustee, was visibly frustrated when he addressed the board. He said the budget is not being cut by approximately 2.5 percent but rather the current year's budget contribution by the village to the library is being cut by 2.5 percent.

"The library board is expected to come up with cuts but we're getting far more less from the village," Colahan said. "The library has incurred major cuts over the last several years and the 2012-13 budget is actually 13.5 percent less than the budget for 2009/10. The mandated increases total $111,891 yet we are being given 2.5 percent less than last year to work with. This works out to a 7 percent decrease in the library budget."

He said the village has imposed higher line item fees on the library based on estimates by the village auditor. These higher fees, he said, include a 16.6 percent increase in state retirement ($51,440) and a $40,432 transfer to insurance, an increase of 29.56 percent. "We have no control over this," Colahan said.

At a March budget work session, Colahan, speaking as chair of the library board, said reductions to the 2013-2014 library budget will seriously impact current services, including a possible reduction in hours including but not limited to a Sunday closing, charging for DVDs and a reduction in the library's overall collection of CDs, books, magazines and more.

"I don't want to pay higher taxes either but that's not the point," he told Patch. He said that village trustees being quoted as saying there will be no service cuts is "misleading." "We should not mislead the public," he said. "There are definitely going to be service cuts."

The library board is expected to meet soon to finalize the library budget. Colahan said at this time the board does not know what service cuts will go into effect but that "everything is on the table."