The Town of Clarkson’s 2015 budget comes in under the state tax cap and includes a slight decrease in the tax rate.
According to the Clarkson 2015 Budget Summary (www.clarksonny.org), the 2015 tax rate is $3.72/$1,000 compared to a rate of $3.73/$1,000 in 2014. Budget appropriations total $2.84 million.
When the Town Board held its public hearing on the 2015 Preliminary Budget last fall, Supervisor Paul Kimball said in his recap that the Preliminary Budget was more than $10,000 below the tax cap, a significant change from the 2015 Tentative Budget, which had been more than $99,000 above the tax cap.
Kimball tells Suburban News/The Herald the town was able to drastically cut expenses, in part, by “changing the way we provide health care to employees. We froze the contribution to health care at 2014 levels. It took a lot of back and forth to get us to stay under the tax cap.”
Kimball explains that eventually the town will provide only single health coverage to employees, “but it will take some time to get there,” he says.
He also notes that the tax rate has remained very stable in the town for decades. “Even without the tax cap, we have never had more than a one or two percent increase in the tax rate,” Supervisor Kimball says.
Staying within the tax cap is important to the town, Kimball says, partly because tax rebates are available to residents only if “the town stays under the tax cap.”
Additionally, the town will have to show one percent in shared savings by June or July of this year, in order for residents to qualify for the next round of rebate checks, Kimball says.
Despite the town’s success at keeping under the tax cap, the budget process continues to be challenging, he notes, because, “the state keeps putting pressure on the towns to stay under the tax cap, but doesn’t change any state mandates that push the increase in budgets.”
The 2015 Clarkson town budget includes a two percent wage increase for employees and members of the town board.
