In this photo from Fredonia Access Television, trustees are pictured as the mayor joined via video. From left are Heidi Powell, James Lynden, Roger Britz, Scott Johnston and EvaDawn Bashaw.

Monday evening’s special meeting, which was televised only through the Fredonia Public Access Channel, said it all. When it came to the final approval of the 2021-22 village of Fredonia budget, Mayor Douglas Essek was on the outside looking in.

Seated in village hall were the five trustees while Essek joined the meeting by video. Residents, who wanted details, were nearly facing some of the same obstacles.

As of Tuesday morning, there was no agenda published on the village’s website for the previous evening’s meeting and no details regarding the budget.

With limited information being the norm during COVID-19, Village Board members unanimously approved a tax hike in the spending plan, but it’s nothing like the proposed 17% increase first proposed by Essek in late March.

By unanimous vote, trustees passed a plan that increases taxes by 1.4% to $35.69 per thousand dollars of assessed valuation. It is a 50-cent hike per $1,000. Final budget numbers were not disclosed in the meeting or in an email to the OBSERVER on Tuesday.

“I’m real proud of all the trustees in working very hard and very diligently to get the mayor’s 17% tax increase down to a level we felt was more reasonable,” said Trustee Roger Britz, lauding new board members Scott Johnston and Heidi Powell. “We spent a lot of hours working together and I appreciate everyone’s hard work.”

Essek expressed his disappointment with the trustee changes, specifically in regard to pay raises for supervisors. The approved spending plan decreased the salary for the fire chief, which is currently vacant; lowered a possible pay raise for the current Police Chief Philip Maslak while creating a new position of personnel specialist at $52,000 per year.

Essesk noted the plan reduced the fire chief’s salary from $104,121 to $64,855. The police chief line, which was to increase to $101,920 was lowered by the board to $93,838. In the meantime, village employee Michele Kujawa who was promoted to the newly created position, received a significant pay hike.

“You just reduced the fire chief salary by 38%,” Essek protested. “How do you justify a 16% increase (for Kujawa) when, in addition, 62% of most Americans oppose money being moved away from police and fire budgets?”

Trustee EvaDawn Bashaw defended the reductions by noting a clerical error in last year’s budget that added $12,000 to the chief’s salary that should have remained in the department budget line. She also spoke of the pay raise decrease for the police chief, which was 2% higher from last year’s plan.

“We’ve discussed this … and we feel that those were appropriate adjustments to the budget,” Bashaw said.

Essek countered. “I don’t know how you can justify department heads (who are supervising), making less or just a little slightly higher than their subordinates, it just doesn’t make sense,” he said.

More than once, Essek spoke of a gentleman’s agreement between himself, the Village Board and current police chief that would increase the position’s pay to what the mayor had proposed in his first plan. “I don’t remember that conversation,” Britz responded.

Later, in a 4-1 vote, the new position and salary for Kujawa was approved though Johnston also expressed some befuddlement when seeing the benefit terms for the position.

“This is the first time I saw this,” said Johnston who later offered a “yes” vote. Trustee James Lynden voted no based on his lack of knowledge with the salary.

Throughout budget discussions, there was an evident separation — in terms of the meeting’s set up and the tone set by the trustees — in regard to how the board was working with the mayor. Essek, toward the end of the special meeting, tried to set a tone for teamwork.

“This isn’t a me against you guys,” Essek said after all the votes were completed. “This is a group effort. … We’re all in this together. I’m not against you guys and I hope you’re not against me. Thank you for getting the budget done.”

Trustees offered no response.