×

Changes Made To Proposed County Budget

More changes have been made to the proposed 2020 Chautauqua County budget, but the tax levy and rate will remain the same.

On Thursday, the Chautauqua County Legislature Audit and Control Committee met with Stephen Abdell, county attorney, Kitty Crow, county finance director, and Kathleen Dennison, county budget director, to discuss proposed amendments to the tentative 2020 budget. Because of the new contract agreement with the Chautauqua County Sheriff’s Employees’ Association — if approved by the full legislature next week during its voting session meeting — the tentative 2020 county budget needed to be changed.

The changes included increasing the cost for personnel services for the jail because the new contract agreement with the Chautauqua County Sheriff’s Employees’ Association involves the 128 full- and part-time correction and dispatch employees. However, because the amount of money projected to be collected by the county in sales tax revenues this year is higher than budgeted, the increased cost for coming to terms with the union will not impact the local share in the proposed 2020 budget.

To keep the local share unchanged, the Audit and Control Committee approved the use of $100,000 from the tax stabilization reserve fund in next year’s tentative budget. In order to use the funding, two-thirds of the legislature will have to approve of the proposal.

The legislature is scheduled to vote on the 2020 proposed budget at its voting session Wednesday. Prior to the vote, legislators can still propose changes to the budget.

The proposed tax levy in the tentative budget is $64,228,957, an increase of $2,317,810, or 3.7%. According to the state Department of Taxation and Finances, the tax levy is the amount raised through property taxes.

The proposed tax rate will increase 8 cents, or 1%, to $8.46 per $1,000 assessed property value. According to the state Department of Taxation and Finances, the tax rate is determined by dividing the tax levy by the total taxable assessed value of all property in a jurisdiction.

In other business, the committee discussed the new agreement with the Chautauqua County Sheriff’s Employees’ Association. Jessica Wisniewski, county human resources director, said the union is for corrections officers and dispatchers, full- and part-time. She said 128 employees are in the bargaining group. She added that the last contract with the union expired at the end of 2017.

Wisniewski said the new contract includes a payment for each full-time employee of $900 and $400 for part-time workers for 2018. She said there will be a 2% retroactive pay increase for 2019. For 2020-23, each employee will receive a 3% pay increase each year.

Changes in employee health insurance included adjusting to a high deductible plan that will save the county between $342,000 to $405,000 in the years 2021-23. For the first year of the new contract in 2020, employees will not have to contribute to the health insurance premium. In 2021-23, union members will pay 10% of the health insurance premium.

Wisniewski also said that part-time employees will no longer be part of the health insurance plan. She said in past contracts, part-time employees who worked more than 1,040 hours could be included in the plan.

The committee also approved a resolution to assess a permit fee of $2,407,000 to Cassadaga Windfarm for the use of county roads in the town of Arkwright, Villenova, Charlotte and Cherry Creek for work within the highway right-of-ways and for overweight and over-dimensional hauling. Brad Bentley, county public facilities director, said the fee is to fund the repair of county highways after the wind turbines are constructed.

“We do expect them to beat the roads pretty heavily,” he said.

Bentley also discussed with the committee the need to increase appropriations by $500,000 for additional road salt. He said that the cost of salt is increasing, with $2.3 million appropriated in the proposed 2020 budget. He added that he researched the possibility of also using sand with the salt. However, after discussing the possibility with the county’s town highway superintendents, Bentley felt it would be better to use just salt to maintain the 550 miles of county roads because of the additional cost of grooming highways after using sand.

Newsletter

Today's breaking news and more in your inbox

I'm interested in (please check all that apply)
Are you a paying subscriber to the newspaper? *
   

Starting at $4.62/week.

Subscribe Today