Fredonia Village Trustee James Lynden expressed his displeasure with the 17% tax increase proposed by Mayor Doug Essek during Monday's Board of Trustees meeting.
"I find his proposal to be wrong compared to the trustee's budget approved a year ago, which had a healthy fund balance, no tax hike and then the general water and sewage funds at a profit." Lynden stated during his report at the meeting. “The mayor is the budget officer by law. He is responsible for proposing a budget and, although he has no voice on the matter, he is responsible for overseeing the execution of the approved budget in collaboration with the treasurer and department heads. "
Lynden is puzzled as to why Essek never mentioned that the village has been in such constraints until now.
"How come he didn't realize what was going on to warn the board of further overspending when there was still time?" Lynden asked. "We can't go from a tax hike to 17% in a year unless something extraordinary has happened, and please don't even go to the COVID apology unless you have evidence that every village in New State York will suffer the same tax increase. ”
At Monday's meeting, Essek proposed a 17% increase in property tax, which would raise the tax rate to $ 41.29, or $ 6.10 per $ 1,000 of total estimated valuation, to bring additional income of $ 479,909 to the village.
"This year's budget has been challenging due to increased spending, a decrease in revenue, proposed increased spending, and a tax cap of less than 2% that was only $ 56,459.90." Essek had said. "The limited tax cap, as well as other factors and a tax levy that has not increased since 2015, did not leave many options for creating a fiscally balanced budget."
The Mayor's proposed budget for 2021-22 is $ 10,845,632, an increase of $ 454,707 over the previous year's budget of $ 10,390,945 – or an increase of approximately 4.3%.
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