BY ADAM ATKINSON

North Country This Week

RENSSELAER FALLS -- The Rensselaer Falls village board of trustees has passed the municipality's annual budget for 2020-21.

The board held a public hearing on the fiscal plan on the Zoom cloud conferencing platform on May 4 and passed the budget at the meeting soon after.

Total expenses for the general fund budget are $170,350, with an additional $62,525.06 contingent fund. The largest appropriation listed in the village budget is $50,000 for street maintenance, followed by $25,000 budgeted for parks and recreation.

The village fire department is set to receive $17,500 from the budget and the Rensselaer Falls Rescue squad will get $8,750.

The village's tax rate will remain at 3.86 percent, the same as in the 2019-2020 budget. Village Mayor Michael Hammond said in an email to North Country This Week that this rate compares to the 2018-2019 rate of 3.94 percent.

Total property tax revenues are expected to be $39,000. The village is estimating county sales tax revenues at $38,000, down from last year's $42,000 that the municipality received. Other major revenues include at $74,315 unexpended fund balance, the DASNY grant for the village playground and more than $20,000 coming from state CHIPS money for highway work.

"Rensselaer Falls is a beautiful and affordable place to live and raise a family. Past and current Village Boards have done a great job crafting and implementing reasonable, common sense budgets. These decisions have lead to some significant progress within the village in recent years," Hammond said.

"At this time it is very hard to measure the total financial impact that this state-wide shutdown will have on our local municipal budgets but it is clear that folks are already struggling financially," the mayor said.

"In this year's adopted budget Rensselaer Falls added an Emergency Preparedness line item and increased both the village's Volunteer Fire and Rescue Squad budget line by $5,000 each," said Hammond.

"One would also see that in our 2020-2021 budget the village board planned for a decrease in County Sales Tax revenue. This acknowledgement of a decrease in Sales Tax should be a common sense notion. Reality is Sales Tax is going to be down next year. Contractors have had to stop working on local job sites and lay their labors off. Doctors have not been performing elective surgeries. Restaurants and small mom & pop shops have had to close their doors and lay off part time employees," said the mayor.

The village budget also includes a separate sewer fund which lists total expenses at $65,450, which are covered by sewer fees.

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