The 2010 GFD Budget

  Friday, October 9th 2009

I have received some concerns and comments regarding the proposed 2010 budget. As reported in the newsletter, the proposed budget shows a 4% increase in funds.

THIS DOES NOT NECESSARILY MEAN A 4% TAX RAISE HOWEVER

In fact, the tax rate this year based on our calculations will be $0.97 cents per $1,000 and 2009's tax rate was $0.96 - virtually the same.

How can that be? Well it due to a few reasons - there is some high priced properties that have come onto the tax roles - which ultimately increases the assessed valuation of our tax rate, meaning that we have a larger amount of properties (amount) to generate revenue from. Another factor is that the Town of Wilton went to 100% valuation - meaning that the two equalization rates (between Wilton and Greenfield) are now the same.

On top of this, the process that determines how budgets are calculated (per NYS law) is a little "hokey" at times. When I became a Fire Commissioner it was one of those things that made my head spin when learning the process. For example, the idea of "equalization rate" is still crazy to me. "Equalization rates" are used to determine the rate one town should be taxed compared to another town. This is particularly important when a local government spans more than one town - such as the Greenfield Fire District, which spans both the Town of Greenfield and a portion of the Town of Wilton. So it could be the case that one town pays slightly "more" into the overall amount compared to another town simply because of the equalization rate.

Note that this is not the case this year, as both the Town of Greenfield and the Town of Wilton are at 100% eval.

As a side note, sometimes the data coming from the County isn't correct. We've had one case (I believe two years ago) where the assessments and equalization rates given to us from the county were changed after the budget was submitted - and this changed the tax rate (and in this case actually increased it).

I guess the point here is that there is a lot that goes into determining the budget, and I'm very proud to say that on our side of it I can proudly say that the Board of Fire Commissioners does a very sound and responsible effort into its creation.

If you want to hear all about our budget - I strongly encourage you to come to our public budget hearing on Tuesday October 20th at the Greenfield Center firehouse. The meeting starts at 7 pm.

In preparation for the meeting, you can view the proposed budget online at: http://www.greenfieldfd.org/documents/ProposedBudgetfor2010.pdf. (Note that the GFD posted budget information on our website before any neighboring fire district well before it was state law to do so - soemthing that I personally campaigned for)

As always, feel free to email me with any questions.

posted by spackmann in Opinions at 4:21 PM (333 day(s) old)  Permalink