By JIMMY LAWTON

OGDENSBURG – Ogdensburg City Council’s tentative $9,561,656 budget will reduce the tax levy by $159,000 and raise the tax rate by about 1.5 percent.

The proposed general fund budget will increase by 1.5 percent from $12,808,086 to $13,001,827. The tax rate will increase 15 cents from $17.21 per $1,000 of assessed property value to $17.36.

City residents will also see an increase in their water rate from $318 to $334 per year. Those with metered rates will see an increase of 19 cents for a total $4.11 per $1,000 gallons. The sewer rate will not increase.

The largest expenses to the city continue to be emergency services.

Spending on city police accounts for about 28.9 percent of total general fund spending for a total of $3.76 million.

Ogdensburg fire services accounts for 27.16 percent of total general fund spending for a total of $3.53 million.

Public works comes in third with 17.2 percent of the total general fund spending for a total of $2.35 million.

A big problem facing the city is a drop in assessed value.

“We continue to lose taxable assessment value. The assessed valuation for 2015 was $271,736,410 and for 2016 it is $270,632,174. This is a decrease of $1,104,236 in the tax base. This is due to the reduced assessment for the Seaway Shopping Plaza and the Ampersand Hydro-electric facility at the Ogdensburg Oswegatchie dam,” an executive summary from city staff says.

Rising health care costs also continue to burden the city.

“We are fortunate that we have had no catastrophic claims that could be detrimental to a self-insured fund such as ours. The cost of supplying our workforce with health insurance is rising at a rate that currently we cannot sustain,” the summary says.

Ogdensburg city council will continue to look at the budget in coming weeks.