Taxes to increase in Sweden

Along with the services that residents in the Town of Sweden have come to expect from their municipality come the expenses to keep those services operational. Sweden officials are anticipating an increase in overall spending for 2005 of $128,651.

Taxpayers in the town outside the village will see a proposed tax rate of $4.45 per $1,000 of assessed value while taxpayers within the village will see a tax rate of $2.29. The increase equates to an increase of $11 per year for taxpayers within village limits with a home assessed at $100,000. Taxpayers outside the village will see an increase of $31 annually on a home assessed at $100,000. "We're still at the low end of the spectrum as far as taxes go in Monroe County," Supervisor Nat O. (Buddy) Lester III said.

The tentative budget shows an increase in spending from $4 million in 2004 to $4,168,943. The anticipated tax levy will be $1,805,790. "We've worked real hard on this budget since July," he said. "We've had no new construction to add to our tax base. Many of the surrounding towns have had substantial growth over the past five or six years and that adds to their tax roll."

A large portion of the increase in the town spending was a $76,400 expenditure for the purchase of new highway equipment, Lester said. Added to that is an increase of $10,000 for attorneys' fees for litigation; $46,000 to repair the parking lot at the Senior Center and $20,000 for the installation of a full sized baseball field on Redman Road. "Those are our major ticket items that came in at $152,400 and we had to offset money in other areas to come in at the $128,651 overall increase."

The town has received a $50,000 grant for the completion of the parking lot reconstruction.

Salaries for officials in the town saw increases: supervisor - $21,000 in 2005 compared to $19,416 in 2004; councilmembers - $6,146 in 2005 compared to $6,025 in 2004; highway superintendent will receive a $585 increase in 2005 to $67,000; the town clerk position will decrease 15 percent from $39,635 to $33,500; town justices' salaries will increase to $15,467 from $15,131; the receiver of taxes salary will remain stable at $16,068.

While Lester said the town has received proposals for subdivisions, the anticipated growth doesn't help with the tax rates this year. "Many times you read about sprawl and how people want to maintain Sweden as a rural community, but the trade off is that you don't see any growth in your tax base," he said.

The town is also anticipating the loss of $30,000 in traffic ticket fines. The state had proposed taking the fines away from the towns but the Assembly has passed a resolution to return the money. "We just can't count on getting that revenue back," Lester said. "We can't budget for that without knowing if it will be coming back to us."

Lester said it was a very difficult budget process this year. "It's been difficult calculating the budget with the decreases we have seen in revenues. That hurts because expenditures and expenses still continue to go up," he said.

The town will hold a public hearing on the budget on October 26. Copies of the tentative budget are available at the Town Hall.