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Wallkill Valley Times, Wednesday, April 13, 2016
Tentative Walden budget
hikes expenses 2.6%
By TED REMSNYDER
Putting together a comprehensive
village budget is a considerable enterprise
with many moving parts, and the process
was on full display in the first public
budget work session the Village of Walden
held on April 6th. The board began the
undertaking Wednesday evening of going
through the budget, prepared by Village
Manager John Revella and Treasurer
Peter Sullivan, line by line with the
Walden department heads.
The proposed tentative budget
includes $7,968,380 in expenses, which
would represent a 2.6% budget increase
over last year’s original budget. The
estimated revenues for 2016-2017, which
are all projections subject to change,
are also $7,968,380, which would mark a
4.3% boost from last year. The treasurer’s
2015-2016 projected final budget numbers
include $7,662,177 in projected revenues
and $7,781, 802 in projected expenses, with
a net $8,426 favorable variance.
The projected revenues for next year
can fluctuate in either direction as time
goes on. “A lot of things are ambiguous,”
Walden Mayor Susan Rumbold said.
“You don’t know those numbers. Sales
tax revenue for instance. You get money
from the county because we get the sales
tax revenue. You don’t have a clue what
that number’s gonna be until it comes in,
because you can’t predict if people are
gonna spend money or not. So there’s a
lot of categories that you really have to
guess. You try to look at the year before,
consider what factors may influence that
number up or down, and you make your
best guesstimate.”
The proposed budget includes a 4.6%
tax levy increase and does not contain
any use of the village’s fund balance. Last
year’s adopted budget included a 2.6%
levy increase, but that figure would have
jumped up to 5.65% if the village hadn’t
used $130,451 from its fund balance. The
board is in a tight spot with the state
mandating a 0.32% tax cap increase
while they also discourage villages from
utilizing available fund balance. “Fund
balance is there for emergencies X,Y and
Z,” Rumbold said. “Sometimes what you’ll
do when you’re doing your budget is
you’ll take a certain percentage of that
fund balance and apply it, which will then
reduce your tax rate. Which is a Catch-22,
because when we report our numbers
to New York State, they don’t like you
to drop below a certain percentage of
fund balance. So they want you to build
your fund balance, pay for infrastructure
issues and not raise taxes. So do you use
the fund balance to reduce the tax rate
and face the wrath of the state? Or do you
try not to use fund balance to make them
happy and keep that at a certain level?”
The current budget accounts for no
use of the village’s fund balance, and the
board hopes to keep it that way. “We’re
trying not to use fund balance,” Rumbold
said. “You’d like to have fund balance.
Let’s say a person budgeted $10,000 for
their expenses for a month. If they came in
at $8,000 then they’d have a $2,000 savings.
Do they stick that $2,000 in the bank for
a rainy day or do they say ‘Oh goodie,
now I can spend $12,000 next month.’ So
you try to build your fund balance for a
rainy day or to po [