MASSENA -- The Board of Trustees Tuesday night passed a 2019-2020 village budget that will raise the tax levy by 1.77%.

Last year’s raised the levy by 2.24%.

The tax rate per $1,000 of assessed value will go up by 20 cents to $16.41. That means the owner of a $50,000 property will be taxed $820.50. The owner of a $100,000 property will be taxed $1,641.

The total levied by taxes will be $5,861,588, up from $5,759,375 last year.

For the first time since 2015, there will be a slight increase in assessed value in the village. Assessed value for 2019-2020 will be at $357,297,282, up from $355,411,395.

Prior to passing the budget on Tuesday night, the board moved $15,121 from the general fund to help the highway fund to buy a dump truck. Deputy Mayor Matt Lebire supported the move because the Department of Public Works has an aging dump truck fleet and he doesn’t want to get stuck in a year where they all need to be replaced at once.

"I don't want to have a big hit on any of the funds in future years,” Lebire said.

The budget uses $300,000 from the fund balance, about $20,000 less than last year.

The spending plan will leave about $1.3 million in unassigned fund balance, based on projections through the end of May from the mayor’s office.

Most of the costs in the general fund budget, 78%, will be on personnel and employee benefits, according to a slideshow from the mayor’s office.

“Local government provides services, those services are provided by people,” the slideshow says. “People -- staff, make up a significant portion of our general fund budget.”