Clarkson budget below 1990 rates

Clarkson budget below 1990 rates

Town of Clarkson Supervisor Paul Kimball said his philosophy is for the town to pay for major purchases with cash - and that is something it has done since 1990. Because of that and other fiscal measures put in place, taxpayers in the town will see their tax rate per $1,000 of assessed value decreased by 11 cents. The current tax rate is $3.72 per $1,000, the rate for 2008 is proposed at $3.61. "This tax rate will put us below the 1990 spending plan from a dollar for dollar basis," he said. "Taxes have been flat since 2002."

In 1997, the taxes started to go up but at that point the town was only at a 50 percent equalization rate. "Once we did the reval in the town, the taxes went in half - we went from $7.82 per $1,000 tax rate to $3.72. At that time we didn't want taxpayers to think we used the reval as a method of getting additional tax dollars and that year we actually collected $12,000 less in property taxes than the year before."

"In a very general sense, revenues were better than anticipated - that's the reason we were able to lower the tax rate," he said.

Total appropriations for the 2008 spending plan are $2,719,607; revenues are $957,557; the unexpended balance is $704,188. The amount to be raised by taxes is $1,057,842.

Frugal spending and increased revenues allowed town officials to lower the budget by three percent. "Given the economic climate, we felt it was important to the taxpayers to reduce the property taxes," he said. "There are no new large purchases of any kind planned - the budget is basically status quo and employees are receiving a three percent salary increase."

Additional dollars to balance the budget were moved from the unexpended fund balance. Annually, town officials budget $125,000 to buy highway equipment. "Every year we look at that to make sure we can still afford to keep that line item," he said. "The last time we had to finance a purchase was in 1990. Since that time, other than paying the library debt - we have paid cash for all purchases."

This year, one of the big unknowns for municipalities could be the loss of sales tax revenue under the FAIR plan (Fairness, Accountability, Innovation and Results plan proposed by Monroe County Executive Maggie Brooks). "We just don't know where we will be with sales tax at the end of the year or going into next year," Kimball said. "Out of our budget for 2008, we look to receive $160,000 in sales tax revenue - that is a significant portion of the budget. If we lose that revenue, that will be a big hit to our budget."

The budget will be presented at the October 23 board meeting. Kimball said the public hearing on the budget will be at a meeting in November and he anticipates the board will pass it that night.