County budget passes; rates stable
By Donna Comella  

Last night's public hearing was over in about 20 seconds, when no one spoke for or against the 2001 County budget.

The $92.5 million budget will cause little change to tax rates. For instance in the Town of Arcadia, the county rate for those who live outside the village is now at $7.96 per $1000. Next year, it will be $7.94.

The towns of Lyons and Rose will see the biggest changes in their county rates. Rose residents will see a hike from $7.10 to $7.63.

In Lyons, residents who live outside the village will see rates go from $8.25 down to $7.54. Inside the village of Lyons, county rates will decrease from $8.67 to $7.95. (Click here to see tax rates for each town/village.)

Following the 'silent' public hearing, the Board of Supervisors allocated sales tax revenues to the county's 15 towns and their respective villages. The Town of Arcadia and the Village of Newark will receive $51,986 and $81,357, respectively. Finance Chair Don Colvin (Savannah) told supervisors that if they had listened to him and ceased the practice of sharing sales tax revenues with school districts, there'd be more for each municipality.

But what bothered Ontario Supervisor Roy Herrmann wasn't sharing with schools, it was the fact that the allocations were based on 1990 Census figures. Herrmann asked if the numbers would be adjusted when the federal government releases solid figures for Census 2000. Colvin assured him there would be no changes until 2002. Herrmann voted 'no' in a long roll.

And although there was no discussion or public input on the budget as a whole, when it came time to adopt it, Butler Supervisor Dave Spickerman stood. Without speaking in opposition to the budget, he did note that it had more than doubled since he began his political career in 1988. Lyons Supervisor Jim Fabino chimed in, 'And I predict that next year, it'll be $100 million. We gotta slow down here somewhere.'

But there was going to be no debate; and sensing that, Colvin, who has held his seat since 1958, smiled and said, 'When I came here, it was 3 million.'

Over the laughter, you could just barely hear someone respond, 'Yeah, Don, but you were born here.'

The vote was a unanimous approval. Supervisors William Eddy (Macedon) and Frank Guelli (Walworth) were absent.

Click here to see the budget summary.

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