County budget voted down
By Donna Comella  

All but two of the county's 15 town supervisors voted to add dollars to the 2005 budget, and then, it was soundly defeated Monday afternoon.

Only Sodus Supervisor Donna Chittenden and Walworth's Frank Guelli voted against restoring cuts to the Wayne County Cooperative Extension, the Wayne County Soil & Water Conservation District, and Wayne Pre-Trial Services. The two also opposed a move to eliminate $45,000 in revenue that would have come from new Weights & Measures fees.

Those changes, and a $2.2 million shortfall to operate the County Nursing Home, brought the 2005 average property tax rate to about $9.52 per $1000 of assessed value - a hike of 13.87 percent.

Before the final vote on the budget, Chittenden told the board, 'You guys must have wealthy constituents.'

And with that, even some of those who had supported the new changes, downed the budget by a weighted vote of 2541 to 1684. With each supervisor having a vote based on his/her town population, a resolution must pass by a majority vote of 2113.

Voting for the over $134 million spending plan were Arcadia's Joe DeSanto, Dave Spickerman (Butler), Joe Molino (Ontario), Carm Pascarella (Rose), Don Colvin (Savannah), and Jim Hoffman (Williamson).

Voting against the budget were: Leo Jenkins (Galen), Chuck Frederick (Huron), Jim Fabino (Lyons), Bill Hammond (Macedon), Jody Bender (Marion), Dave Lyon (Palmyra), Chittenden, Guelli, and Chairman of the Board Marv Decker (Wolcott).

But the 'nay' votes are really meaningless - supervisors know that by state law, the budget will now automatically take effect as it stands at midnight on December 20.

Lobbying efforts following the defeat failed to get anyone to change their vote so that tax bills could be prepared on time. Real Property Director Bob Diener told the board that he could not guarantee that the bills would all be ready by January 1.

Originally, the Board had faced the prospect of raising the tax rate as much as 18.6 percent. By December 2, they had trimmed the hike to 11.19 %. That all changed Monday, when supervisors added over 20 cents to the average rate.

top of page

Copyright © 2004
Courier-Gazette, 613 S. Main St. Newark, N.Y. 14513 - 315-331-1000
All Rights Reserved