PLATTSBURGH — Clinton County legislators heard from only one interested party about their proposed 2024 budget and appear poised to adopt the plan.
“It’s a pretty conservative budget and we are happy with it,” Legislator Robert Timmons (R-Area 7, Peru) who chairs the county’s Finance Committee, said.
At a public hearing on the budget Wednesday night, representatives from the Clinton-Essex-Franklin County Library System appeared to seek a bit more funding for 2024.
Director Steve Kenworthy said the Library System does a lot to help people in the region who cannot travel to libraries, and they deliver materials to other libraries throughout the three-county area.
“And, of course, all this costs money,” Kenworthy said.
The Library System requested a 5 percent increase in its budget allotment in 2024, which would have been $45,887. The county put in $45,013 or a 3 percent increase for a difference of $874.
Kenworthy said that extra $874 would, “buy a lot of gas for our van.”
“We would really appreciate it if it could rise to 5%. That’s, that’s up to you, but we recognize that you have feelings about library services and know of their value,” Kenworthy said.
The Library System is funded in part by the three counties with Clinton County providing the most funding based on population and usage factors.
Essex County provided $28,200 for 2023 and will increase that allotment by 5 percent to $29,610 for 2024.
Franklin County chipped in $16,457 for 2023 and will up that amount 5 percent to $17,280 for 2024.
Timmons said Clinton County will not change it’s allotment of $45,013 for 2024.
“We felt that we’ve been doing our share for the Library System and we are sufficient where we are,” he said.
The county budget presented by County Administrator and Budget Officer Michael Zurlo last week, features a tax levy that is expected to decrease by $48,558 for a total of $29,662,193.
Likewise, the county lowered the tax rate to $4.28 per $1,000 of assessed value. That is $0.62 lower than 2023.
“It’s the lowest it has been in recent history,” Zurlo said.
This can be attributed to property assessments “going way up.”
The $198.5 million spending plan is also under the state mandated tax cap by almost $1 million. This is largely due to increased sales tax projections, Zurlo said.
“We increased sales tax (projections) another 7% in this budget, which yields the county about an additional $3.1 million,” he said.
Timmons said despite the increase in sales tax, overall costs for the county have gone up.
“We’ve been very fortunate with the sales tax,” he said.
The proposed budget also includes a “reasonable” contribution of $542,224 from the unreserved fund balance to offset these higher than initially estimated health insurance and retirement rates.
There are also no major cuts proposed in the budget.
Legislators will now consider adopting the budget at their Dec. 13 meeting.