February Storm / Budget

Thank you - Regarding the February storm, I do want to say thank you to our Highway crews and Police Department; those who worked day and night, as well as Central Hudson which brought in contractors to bring electricity back to thousands of customers who were left in the dark.  I also wish to thank all of our First Responders.  These people are dedicated volunteers who worked tirelessly, day and night, to clear roads and driveways removing trees and wires so as to allow response to any number of situations.  I can’t say enough how much we appreciate their hard work.  It is people such as this that make our Town special.  I truly believe that our volunteers could put some paid services to shame.  My impression of our First Responders is: volunteers, yes; professionals, always: they do a fantastic job.  Thank you.       

Budget – speaking of budgets, we are having a trend analysis of Town finances done again, as we had in 2006.  When we have the results we will present them at a special meeting.  Our bond rating was just increased to Aa2 (not really of our doing – Moody’s is changing the way that ALL municipalities are rated; so, if you see towns talking about rating increases, it may simply be due to the way Moody’s rates towns).  Still, we do have the highest rating of towns in Dutchess County.  Due to the economy, the last two years we have kept town taxes flat or slightly lower to help everyone get through this recession.  This year will be difficult to do so again because, just as with any household, our costs (over which we have no control; such as insurance, medical benefits and, unlike households, those darn unfunded mandates!) are going up.  We are always looking at ways to provide services at a better cost – our computerized salt spreaders saved us around $150,000 in salt last year (minus $140,000 for the equipment and installation leaving a net of 10k this year), so next year we hope to see an increase in savings.  We are also making changes internally to save money; but, let’s talk for a minute about unfunded mandates.  Things the State used to do are being passed down to the Town without any regard to cost.  Granted, many of these mandates have good intentions (hmmm…what was that saying about best intentions?), payroll certification so the Town can keep track of subcontractors and vendors paying the proper wages to their people (something I thought the Dept. of Labor did), stormwater management regulation (something I thought the DEC did), and now issuing dog licenses (which the State used to do).  Someone said that New York State could be out of business any day due to the budget mess; I only wish it could have happened a few years ago before they gave us all of this extra work. 

Anyway, we are in good shape.  Mortgage taxes are coming in a bit higher than projected and sales taxes are on track.  Unfortunately, it appears that the County is going to charge us for the cost of elections – boy, some days you just can’t get ahead.