I've sent my comments on the 2015 Tentative Budget to the Supervisor and Councilperson with a copy to Comptroller Phillips and Town Clerk Kennedy.
Following is the text of that letter.
Pete Stenson
* * * * * * *
I respectfully offer the following questions/comments concerning
the 2015 Preliminary Budget. I also wish
to incorporate by reference herein my previous correspondence concerning the
2015 Tentative Budget.
I consider the failure to fund 1990.4
– Contingency (Contingency) in the amount of $110,000 not prudent. Nor is the use of Other - Reserves/Debt
Reduction 962 - Provision for Other Uses (Reserves) to fund the Contingency
account. The purpose of a Contingency
account is to accommodate unforeseen events and needs. The Reserves account was created to pay down
the inter-fund borrowing. .
I quote from the NYS Office of the State Comptroller’s
Citizens’ Guide to Local Budgets:
Deficits, Surpluses, and Fund Balances
Budgets are meant to balance revenues and expenditures,
so that the local government is able to provide needed services with the
resources available. However, the reality is that budgets will rarely
work out precisely as planned, leading to operating deficits (when expenditures
exceed revenues) or operating surpluses (when revenues exceed expenditures.) As
long as these deficits or surpluses are minor or intermittent, they do not
constitute a material problem for a local government and should not be cause
for concern. It is when there is a persistent pattern of larger surpluses or
deficits that there should be concern about the budgeting practices of the
government.
Comptroller Phillips mentioned at the 10/23/14 Special Town Board Meeting that the WWTP payments would be $60,000 in 2015, $180,000 in 2016 and $600,000 in 2017. The 2015 Preliminary Budget estimates combined Sewer revenues of $2,513,895. The WWTP payments represent nearly 24 percent of this amount, absent refinancing of existing Sewer debt. Is it prudent to wait until the payments actually hit the expense side of the budget?
