MASSENA — What would have been a 23.49 percent tax levy increase for village of Massena residents under Mayor Timmy J. Currier’s proposed 2017-18 budget was whittled down to 2.95 percent — and it could go lower once trustees finish their budget work sessions, which began Thursday.
Mr. Currier said during Tuesday’s budget hearing that, under wish lists submitted by departments, the amount to be raised by taxes would have been $6,870,987. But he cut that by 16.63 percent to $5,728,043, bringing the tax levy increase down to 2.95 percent.
“This is what I proposed,” he said.
Every 1 percent increase generates $55,430. The current tax rate is $16.09 per $1,000 of assessed value.
If trustees want to get the tax levy increase to 0 percent, they would need to cut an additional $163,516 from the $15,848,720 budget.
The largest change was in transportation, where a request for $1,631,870 was cut by 31.62 percent to $1,487,130.
Mr. Currier has proposed using $681,198 in appropriated fund balance.
“That’s a significant increase over the last two budgets that I’ve presented,” he said.
The unassigned fund balance sits at $2,063,588.
“We’ve done a pretty good job getting it up there. Before I took office, it was below a half million,” Mr. Currier said.
He reiterated what he had suggested during last year’s budget presentation — that they needed to focus on community development, economic development and controlling cost, with much of the focus on community development.
“I think we have to transition away from the economic development model to the community development model. We have to do it sooner rather than later. It doesn’t mean we’re going to forget about economic development. We’re still going to be a key player,” he said. “We can do community development very well. We can’t control our economic development. It has to be done regionally. We always have to be a player in that.”
Mr. Currier said there were a number of areas they could focus on for community development, including education, health care, recreation, developing amenities such as waterfront, parks and playgrounds, improving housing, infrastructure, public safety, government services and improvement of the downtown core.
That, he said, could be done through strategic planning, as well as grant writing, competitive funds and local funds. He said that, since taking office in December 2014, they have applied for $3,236,871 in grants and funding and had been awarded $2,402,218. Another $476,948 is pending. That translates to a success rate of about 87 percent.
“That’s pretty good,” Mr. Currier said. “That’s all done through strategic planning.”
He said they sit down with department heads to decide what they’ll apply for, how it will impact the community and what the benefits will be. Then they sit down with the strategic development team and research funding that’s available.
“We try to match those two things up and they’ve done a really good job. That’s how we develop this community,” Mr. Currier said.
What he proposes in his budget is to continue strategic planning and pursuing funding opportunities, and continuing the regional effort for economic development while transitioning away from the current Business Development Corporation for a Greater Massena model.
There will also be a focus on cutting the budget as part of cutting the government.
“We’re going to shrink the size of local government, shrink the size of our budgets. It’s about controlling costs,” Mr. Currier said.
Trustees met in a budget work session with representatives of the Massena Senior Citizens, Greater Massena Chamber of Commerce, Justice Court, Code Enforcement and Fire Department on Thursday. They’re scheduled to meet with the Department of Public Works on Monday, the Police Department and Treasurer on Tuesday and the BDC and Joint Recreation Commission on Wednesday. They could possibly adopt the budget on Wednesday or, if additional time is needed, wait until April 25.