The budget was the focus of a public hearing during the board’s Nov. 5 meeting and not voted one due to several concerns raised from residents, current and future board members.
‘We’ve had one board member and one soon to be board member that have submitted concerns in writing,” Supervisor Phil Tierney said.
Councilor Ellen Kulik said she sent her concerns via e-mail to the board because she was hoping they might get together to discuss those issues in depth prior to voting Nov. 19.
One of the issues the board tackled prior to voting was the amount of money being spent on the comprehensive plan, a concern raised by Supervisor-elect Terri Roney.
“It’s a review, not a redo,” said Councilor Dave Laxton. “There are a lot of things that haven’t changed [since the last review]. We don’t have to redo the whole thing.”
Laxton suggested reducing the amount of money budgeted for 2010 — $22,000, according to Budget Officer Birdgett Winkelman — to $10 and then putting $1,000 of those funds into the budget and the remaining $9,000 into the contingency budget.
A majority of expenses by the Comprehensive Plan Review Committee has been accrued from consulting with town planner Howard Brodsky.
Another concern was salary increases for elected officials, such as the town board, which Roney asked the board to consider eliminating and giving those funds to the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra.
According to Laxton, the board has frozen its salaries more than once and for the time and work put into being on the board, he believes future boards are deserving of salaries and possible increases.
The board opted to leave the salary increases as is for the 2010 budget.
Kulik’s issues with the budget ranged from funding “special interest groups,” such as non-profits, the Skaneateles Transfer Station Budget as a whole and the recreation department and Skaneateles Community Center budget.
“It’s always such a large budget and overrun at the end of the year,” Kulik said about the transfer station.
She went on to say that Dave Newell, recycling liaison, does not have money left over at the end of the year to put back into the budget. Rather he tends to go over budget due to certain situations such as the cost to take in and have scrap wood removed from the transfer station.
Kulike made a motion to reduce the transfer station budget by $10,000 and amend the budget, reducing the amount of funds available for contractual expenses from $231,000 to $221,000.
As for the community center budget, the board took into consideration that the center is slated to be transferred and transitioned into new ownership by July 1, 2010. However, the budget reflects a 12-month item at approximately $176,000. Tierney proposed reducing funding by 50 percent, or a little more than $88,000, and moving it to the contingency fund for the time being.
According to Tierney, by allotting six months worth of funds, there is more incentive for the transition to take place on schedule. Provided the transfer goes as planned, the board will have the remaining money in the contingency fund to use to offset taxes, Winkelman said.
After all amendments were approved, the board voted to adopt the amended budget for 2010.
“I don’t think we’ve ever passed a budget that I’ve been completely happy with,” Laxton said. “We did the best we could.”
In other news, the board amended the evening’s agenda to tackle Councilor Jim Greenfield’s concerns regarding the Comprehensive Plan Review Committee.
“I’ve done a lot of investigating on this comprehensive plan,” Greenfield said. “This thing is way out of hand.”
According to Greenfield, rather than doing a review and updating the plan where it needs to be updated, the committee is in the process of trying to do a complete rewrite.
“They are going way overboard,” he said. “It’s not being run well. I’d like to just pul the plug.”
Since there have been no actual revisions to the document, Greenfield said suspending anymore work at this time would know cause harm to the project.
According to Tierney, the committee has basically been given a blank check. The amount of money spent on consults with Brodsky has accumulated over the last few months and was in the $20,000 range for August, September and October combined.
While some advice from the planner is needed from time to time, Laxton said he doesn’t have to be at every meeting. The town pays Brodsky for the time spent at each meeting he attends.
The board voted and approved to suspend the Comprehensive Plan Review Committee’s activity until further resolution from the board, which will not take place until the new town board takes office in January.
