George Borrello, county executive, during his 2020 tentative budget presentation during the voting session meeting of the Chautauqua County Legislature in Mayville Wednesday. The tentative budget proposes no increase in the tax rate and a 2.72% tax levy increase. P-J photo by Dennis Phillips

MAYVILLE — County Executive George Borrello’s 2020 tentative county budget might “hold the line” when it comes to the tax rate, but the tax levy is increasing.

On Wednesday, Borrello presented his 2020 tentative county budget to the Chautauqua County Legislature during its monthly voting session meeting in Mayville. During the presentation, Borrello said the tax levy will increase by $1,682,013, or 2.72%. According to the state Department of Taxation and Finances, the tax levy is the amount raised through property taxes.

The tax rate is being proposed to stay the same as the 2019 adopted county budget at $8.37 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.

Borrello said county officials started the budgeting process with a $6.8 million deficit mainly due to new unfunded mandates passed by New York state government, which includes criminal justice reforms. He said that $1 million of the county’s fund balance, or savings account, is being proposed to be used in the tentative budget.

In the proposed 2020 budget, Borrello said there is an increase of 20 new full-time jobs. However, he said only 1.25 of those new jobs will be paid for by the local share and the rest are funded by other sources.

Borrello said in the tentative budget there is funding to add a fourth mobile emergency medical services vehicle, which are also known as “fly-cars. Earlier this month, John Griffith, county emergency services director, told the legislature Public Safety Committee that year-to-date, the fly-car car located in Sheridan has answered 770 calls, the one in Mayville has answered 848 calls and the one in Falconer has responded to 1,489 calls. He said he would like to locate a fourth car in Ashville to help lower the number of calls the Falconer vehicle is responding to so all four locations have a more evenly distributed amount of responses.

Also in the tentative budget, there is $150,000 for Chautauqua Lake Maintenance. Borrello said in 2020 the Chautauqua Lake consensus strategy will continue, as will the memorandum of agreement among lake groups and municipalities.

Borrello said the state criminal justice reforms like cashless bail will put a burden on county government. He said that James Quattrone, county sheriff, said he will need to create a “warrant squad” to bring those charged with crimes to court for trial.

“That will heavily burden law enforcement and the taxpayers,” he said.

The new criminal justice reforms also calls for 100 percent discovery in all cases. Borrello said the District Attorney’s Office currently only does discover for around 20 percent of cases, which takes place over the course of months. Also, the reforms provides for only 15 days for the District Attorney, Patrick Swanson, to provide discovery to the defense.

“This will mean hundreds of hours of additional work that must be completed in a compressed time frame and, you guessed it, without any financial support from the state,” Borrello said.

Borrello said he is proud of the hard work put forth by county officials by challenging the status quo and looking for new opportunities to develop a responsible budget.

“We have good government here in Chautauqua County. We set aside party politics and do what’s in the best interest of the people,” he said. “We are an example of what can be accomplished when we all work together. I am proud to work with each of you and I look forward to an even brighter future in the coming year.”