By CRAIG FREILICH POTSDAM -- The Potsdam Town Council has approved a $3.7 million spending plan for 2016 that will see an increase in the levy of 5.12 percent, in order to raise the $1.6 million …
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By CRAIG FREILICH
POTSDAM -- The Potsdam Town Council has approved a $3.7 million spending plan for 2016 that will see an increase in the levy of 5.12 percent, in order to raise the $1.6 million called for in the plan.
In a special meeting Wednesday night, councilors voted unanimously to adopt the budget and set the tax rate for everyone in the township, except for those in special streetlight, water and sewer districts, at $3.298 per thousand dollars of assessed property value including fire district taxes, up 39¢ per thousand. That translates to an increase of $19.50 for property assessed at $50,000 and $39 for a $100,000 house.
People in the Hewittville Light District will see an increase of half a cent to $0.762 per thousand for the service; the Sissonville Light District bills will go up two-tenths of a cent to $0.585 per thousand; Unionville’s sewer district bill goes up 19¢ to $6.78 and the water district bill goes up 23¢ to $4.10 per thousand.
Supervisor Marie Regan said personnel accounted for most of the increase in general fund requirements:
• the town has negotiated a 50¢-an-hour increase for its office workers
• when Potsdam’s village court is merged with the town’s next month, a part-time clerk will be made full time at $40,000 per year, and a deputy clerk will be getting $37,676.57 a year.
• and the town is hiring a bailiff to keep order during the higher number of trials the court will house.
There will also be added expenses for the doubling of the number of court sessions, from two a month to four to handle the extra load inherited from the village court. They will require extra heat and light in the court building at 35 Market St., the former Town Hall and before that, a bank.
Another consideration in the increase in the levy is the lower than projected amount of shared sales tax revenue last year and a drop again this year, Regan said.
“This was one of the most difficult budgets I’ve seen,” Regan said, because there remain “so many unknowns,” such as the sales tax share and greater court expenses they are as yet unfamiliar with.
“We tried to be cautious” in the calculations, she said.