Sullivan taxes up 9%

By DAVID HULSE

MONTICELLO, NY — The numbers told the tale Friday as Sullivan County Manager Dan Briggs released a preliminary 2005 budget calling for a nine-percent increase in property taxes.

Briggs explained that each percentage point of increase works out to about $300,000, and totaled, those points equal the amount of revenues that Sullivan County will lose from its newly downsized landfill operation this coming year.

If approved by the county legislature, the county’s appropriations would be $179,943,574, a three-percent spending increase over the current year.

For a property owner paying a combined $4,000 in school, county and town taxes, the increase would amount to an additional $90 in that bill, Briggs said.

Briggs said that the amount of new taxes was mitigated by drawing $11.7 million of past unallocated surplus to reduce the levy to $35,079,595.

Sullivan has repeatedly limited tax increases in recent years by drawing on the surplus fund that has held more than $14 million in past, but with this budget, Briggs said those funds have now been reduced to only $200,000.

In addition to lost landfill revenues, rising Medicaid, health care, insurance and petroleum costs all contributed to the increase.

Briggs said Medicaid costs continue to increase and now amount to 51.3 percent of this year’s tax levy. In total appropriations, Sullivan’s family and mental hygiene services portion of the budget amounts to 36.34 percent, which is more than twice its spending in any other area.

Health insurance costs rose 27.93 percent from the current budget to $14.7 million, while pension contributions still impacted by the state pension fund’s investment losses, rose 92.4 percent to $5.4 million.

Many county programs took reductions in the new budget.

Briggs said there would be “temporary” cuts in long-term infrastructure capital projects combined with employee attrition and the consolidation of the delivery of services wherever possible.

The Division of Public Works road funds for construction, maintenance, engineering and snow removal were cut from $12.1 million to $10.3 million.

Public safety was one of the few areas of expansion. Briggs said the budget would provide for additional road patrol deputies for the Sheriff’s Department and that the Public Safety Division would be reorganized “to emphasize emergency management.”

Briggs’ budget came as state Comptroller Alan G. Hevesi released a report saying that fiscal stress is rising among local governments in New York.

According to the report, local government spending totaled $114 billion in 2002, a 13-percent increase since 1997 over a five-year period after adjusting for inflation. Property taxes, which are the largest source of revenue for local governments, rose statewide about six percent for cities, while counties on average experienced about 11 percent property tax increases in 2003 and 2004.