In Milan, the loss is projected to be $12,314, according to the county.
“That hurts, we’re going to get less money from [the county]… We’re going to meet with Marc Molinaro at our Oct. 15 town board meeting and talk to him about the budget,” said Milan Town Supervisor Bill Gallagher.
As far as the 2013 budget goes, Gallagher thinks the county cuts may make it tougher to stay within the state-mandated 2 percent state tax cap.
“We’ve got over $600,000 in bond payments… [$200,000] for repairs to bridges we completed a couple of years ago,” said Gallagher. “Then we have the two new [snow plow] trucks to the tune of approximately $400,000…. Those payments are going to make it real tough to stay within that 2 percent. Then you have your regular medical increases and retirement increases.”
Molinaro is hoping to offset some of the cuts by taking $1 million of what the county will reap from the cap and creating a competitive grant program to incentivize economic development, shared services, consolidation planning and the elimination of duplicate services.
The county is also looking to implement workers’ compensation and health insurance consortiums to allow municipalities to pool their risk and save money.
“We’re using the budget to drive change, and with that comes a bit of consternation and pushback, certainly, but this is the only opportunity that I certainly think that I will have to effectuate the kind of change that I’d like to see,” Molinaro said.
“A 20 percent reduction in health insurance costs means Red Hook would save $100K over a year,” said Molinaro.
“In August, I laid this out in detail. No one left that room opposed,” Molinaro noted of his overall plan. “They didn’t like it, but nobody left that room opposed.”
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