2011 Town Budget

[shortstuff]

shortie,

From the Amherst Bee-

thanks gorja....

[dtwarren]

The WS budget did pass with with a total of $31,012,263.00 to be raised through taxes down from last year's amount to be raised through taxes of $31,316,821 by $304,558.

Our Town Supervisor has been utilizing Giambra-esque budgeting gimmicks the past few years. Last year he included savings from the consolidation of our assessor's office with that of another Town. That did not come to reality and his attempt with another Town did not materialize either. This year he is bonding more for purchases that would have been in the past paid out of the general fund.

These bonding measures were passed after the budget and is subject to a permissive referendum. This is reminiscent of the County's 2005 budget where they passed the budget prior to getting legislative approval for the sales tax increase it depended on. While there is no current movement to put these bonds to a referendum I believe it imprudent to rely on there being no challenges. I think it would have been the better course to adopt the bonding resolution prior to the budget and allowing a sufficient time to see if any challenges were going to be made against them before adopting the budget that relies on them.