The following notes are based on exchanges the full board had with each department head and Comptroller Joan Goldberg as they reviewed Supervisor Peters's Tentative Budget released October 31, 2008. Please see the budget document for specific numbers.

What follows are highlights of the discussions and not necessarily a full review of each department.

Overview

Tax rate: the board lowered the tax rate increase in the supervisor's tentative budget to 2.78% from 4.04% by increasing revenue projections by $100,000 and eliminating $100,000 in expenditures that were in the tentative budget by mistake. Overall, expenditures for the general fund, highway fund and library fund for 2009 are $450,000 lower than 2008.

Taxes for the Yorktown Water District will decrease 24.92%. Expenditures in the water department are down $399,000 from 2008. Revenue projections are $75,000 lower than 2008.

Sewer taxes vary depending on district and range from a decrease 1.13% for Mohegan East Sewer District to an increase of 3.11% for the Yorktown Sewer District (Hallocks Mill).

As general rule, equipment and conferences line items were reduced or eliminated entirely. When submitting their budget requests for 2009, department heads were expected to reduce their budgets; many were able to do so and others had modest increases.

The comptroller estimates that the town will end the year with a surplus of $3.2M, the same as last year. She fears that the surplus might fall below $3M which she said could lower our bond rating, which is currently A1, and this in turn could increase interest costs on an anticipated $10M sewer bond by 40 basis points.

The town has $3.6M in outstanding liens although it can't verify this amount because of difficulties with the computer software in the tax office. The total amount outstanding in liens went from $3M up to $4.2M and then dropped to $3.6M.

Employee positions
The total number of full time positions budgeted for 2009 dropped by four to 246. An MEO position was eliminated in Environmental Conservation; the Town Attorney's office eliminated two deputy town attorney positions to reflect the 2008 decision to use outside counsel; a part time position in the assessor's office was converted to a full time position that will be shared between the assessor's office and the tax office; two part time positions in the engineer's office were eliminated although they will still be employed part time under the “professional services” line item in the department's budget; and a police officer was added to serve as a school resource officer in the Mildred Strang Middle School,

Employee salaries
The contract includes a 3.8% salary increase for the police department for 2009 and a contingency line for possible salary increases for CSEA members whose current contract expires the end of 2008.

The board voted to give elected officials (supervisor, councilman, town clerk, highway superintendent, and judges) a salary increase of 3%. Supervisor Peters said he did not want the increase and would donate his increase.

It is anticipated that department heads will get the same increase the CSEA members get once the new CSEA contract is signed.

At the end of the budget discussions, the board went into closed session for a short time. When it returned and went back into open session it voted unanimously to increase Mr. DiBartolo's salary by $21,250 for a total salary of $150,000. Mr. Campisi and Mr. Martorano explained that they had given their word to Mr. DiBartolo last year that if he was able to save the town money as Director of Labor Operations, that they would give him the balance of the salary increase in 2009 that he had requested in 2007 when the new position was created. Mr. Bianco noted that the $21,250 increase was a stipend that could be taken away.

Special note: Beginning on page 191, the budget includes the salaries for all town employees. Some of the 2009 salaries (which do not reflect any negotiated increases for 2009 as noted above), are lower than they were in 2008 because 2008 was a leap year and some staff was paid for an additional day.

Town Clerk
New machines, not yet purchased by the county, will be in place for the 2009 elections. The county bills Yorktown at less than cost but for Yorktown the cost of elections will double in the future.

Bingo. By law an inspector must be at each game. The inspector gets paid $75 per game.

Open space
Taxes for town owned property in 2008 totaled $133,000 but only $75,000 was budgeted. Expense would have been $98,000 without Shallow Creek which will come off tax rolls in 2009 and will be reflected in 2010 budget. The 2009 budget shows $85,000. The comptroller reported that the town was paying taxes on 195 parcels.

Mr. Martorano said that the vacant parcels should either be converted to parkland (which will take them off the tax roll) or sold and Mr. Bianco said that if parcels were sold they would end up with houses on them which would lead to higher costs for the town and school district. He cited a house that was built on a lot the town sold in Mohegan near Tall Timbers. Mr. Campisi noted that if the parcels were taken of the tax roll, the other taxpayers in Yorktown would have to absorb the costs.

A brief mention was made of the Bernstein property which for the past 6-10 years was scheduled to be sold.

Court
Overtime is up because court is meeting more often and meetings are running longer; used to end at about 9pm. Now ending at 11pm.

Costs have also increased for stenographers and interpreters. Town Attorney John Buckley will look into possibility of using digital recordings in lieu of stenographers.

Revenue from state traffic tickets down because the state has increased its share of the revenue. Yorktown is now getting about 40% of fine where it used to get two thirds. Mr. Buckley said that if traffic court met 8 times a month instead of 4 as is now, while costs would go up, the increased volume would generate more net revenue for the town. He estimated that he could handle 50 tickets per session at $120 per ticket. He will see if judges are available and/or willing to sit more times. There was a backlog of 3,000 unresolved tickets at the beginning of the year. Because one of the judges was out sick for a portion of 2008 and his replacement was not able to handle the same volume of work, the number of unresolved tickets is now 3,700.

The question was asked if the town could/would save money by holding a full day court. The answer was yes – but it was explained that the judges both have full time jobs so this wasn't feasible.

Medical benefits
In general, Ms. Goldberg calculated in a 10% increase, using October costs as the base. Mr. Campisi didn't think costs had gone up that much and said other municipalities were increasing the line by 7% but Councilman Metz said he had seen double digit increases.

Recreation
Overall budget is down 17.30% .
Director of Labor Relations Eric DiBartolo noted that the trailers currently used by the Recreation Department are leaking. In 2008, the town purchased them so it will be up to the town to repair them. He noted that they were not designed for permanent use.

Commenting on the elimination of new equipment, Mr. DiBartolo said that one town employee was highly skilled in rebuilding older equipment and that this was generating a cost savings. He also noted that while diesel oil and black top suppliers were quick to raise costs when prices were rising, they've been slower to lower prices now that oil has decreased in price.

Recreation superintendent Jennifer Fava will be reviewing how she uses temporary help, such as lifeguards, in order to maintain level of services but with less money.

Mr. DiBartolo said that the Recreation Commission wants to put tile on other areas around the Shrub Oak pool.

School use for aquatic program: Because the town does not have access to the pool at the Strang Middle School (the reason was not explained), the town now uses the pool in the Lakeland district and will have to pay $55/hr for custodial help on Saturdays. The town is not charged for use during the week.

For special events using the YCCC, such as the Taconic Opera, the opera company will pay YCCC custodial overtime.

Ms. Fava was concerned about a drop in the transportation line for the summer camp program. These costs have increased as the campers now want to go to the pool 5x a week instead of 3x.

In general, the department's recreation programs are revenue neutral and fees are set to cover anticipated costs. On the revenue side of the budget, the recreation fee line was increased by $50,000, although it was noted that with hard times ahead, the future level of interest in programs could not be determined.

Custodial fees for youth programs: cost was shifted from the custodial line to a direct contribution to the clubs to cover the cost as per earlier board discussions. These are not donations but have been a regular part of the town budget in past years.

Ms. Fava saw a need for about $6,000 for adult programs based on serving more people (more people are signing up for teams.) Some board members expressed concern about non-Yorktowners participating in teams and Ms. Fava said out-of-towners paid more.

Senior programs: Ms. Fava requested about $1,000 additional to cover about 15-20 minutes of additional temp help time for a painting program. The budget pays for 15 senior trips per year; the seniors decide which trips.

Skate board park: Insurance will cost an additional $5,000. Non residents are charged more and a 15% discount will be available if a person purchases a skate board park pass along with a regular recreation program pass for other facilities. Ms. Fava said she would try to set up a summer training program. The park opening and closing are set by daylight savings time.

Ms. Goldberg is trying to split out some parks items from the Recreation budget; it's not always possible

Aged
This budget went up 4.58%, primarily because of the increase in food costs. The program provides over 5,000 meals a month. Mary DeSilva who runs the program said that most seniors pay the suggested $2 fee for the lunch but that the town going to increase the cost of home delivered meals from $2.50 to $3.00. Meals for Somers, which are picked up from Yorktown, are billed at $3.10 (the program earns $80,000 from Somers). Seniors pay $6 for medical transportation; the program makes about 50 trips a month.

Ms. DeSilva said she wanted more hours for a part time workers (an increase from 16 to 20 hours); it was not clear if this was being put into the budget.

Conservation Board
Funds will be shifted from different line items to allow more money for training, especially for some of the newer members.

Open Space
Paul Moskowitz of Open Space Committee asked for $1,000 in additional funds to hire a summer intern to take pictures of town owned land to determine what's on the land. Last year's intern quit after one week and a replacement was not hired. The committee will borrow a digital camera from another department.

Mr. DiBartolo suggested that the committee check with the assessor's office regarding existing maps and fly over photos. When Mr. Moskowitz raised the issue of posting signs on town owned property, Mr. DiBartolo said that in the past, when signs were put up, they were taken down.

Planning
Most of the overtime was for Robyn Steinberg for attending planning board meetings; some of this time is taken as comp time. This could change in future.

Planning Director John Tegeder explained that he and Robyn had to attend certain conferences for professional certification reasons and that not all training programs were free. Supervisor Peters said he wanted to do away with conferences that were social

Mr. Tegeder noted that in addition to maintenance contracts on things like the office copier, he would need $1100 for maintenance contracts on GIS and Autocad system.

Building Department
Revenue is about the same. Councilman Bianco asked about a 5 week wait he had heard was the case for permits or inspections (this was not clear) but Building Inspector Gregory said that everything was okay. He said his staff did not want to work overtime.

Staff is down one as a person quit last month; the position will be filled sometime in February as the department does slow down between now and Feb. This will save 4 months salary for the budgeted person.

Mr. Gregory also said that his staff must attend training programs and that he had heard that the state, which in the past had provided some of the training for free, was cutting back. Therefore, he said, more money might be needed in that line item.

Some of the department's equipment needs, e.g., a scanner, are covered in the Finance Department budget.

Highway
Revenue from compost fees are dropping. If it continues to fall, Mr. DiBartolo will cut back on the program.

Mr. DiBartolo wants the town to try to get Sunday flextime into the new CSEA contract that is negotiated for 2009.

Paving: NYS Chips money. He feel confident that the budgeted amount will come from the state. Mr. DiBartolo cut his budget but comptroller added some back for an overall 5.75% cut.

Snow: Mr. DiBartolo suggested negotiating with the state to take over plowing for state roads, e.g., Rtes 132, 6 and 202. This could be about a $100,000 contract. Right now, town trucks have to go on these roads anyhow to get to town roads. He felt the budget was adequate. If it isn't, comptroller said the general fund makes up the difference. He said he will not use a mix of sand and salt as some other towns do as this leads to sweeping costs in the spring and also requires cleaning drains. In the long run, he says, it costs more. The trucks have computers on board which guides them to proper use of salt/liquid mix.

Sidewalks: The Mark Rd sidewalks will be repaired by Dec 1st. Mr. DiBartolo will try to have trucks with wing plows push snow off the sidewalks.

Central Garage
Mr. DiBartolo will be auctioning off excess equipment now that department functions have been merged; no need for each department to have same type of equipment.

He says mechanic's cost to repair equipment are being billed back to the proper district.

Police
Police department represents 39% of the budget and board members questioned Chief McMahon about a number of areas seeking ways to reduce costs.

Overall, one additional uniform person was added to the salary line for 2009 (a school resource officer).

The chief provided the following 2007 stats:
647 arrests
7500 summons
1253 accident reports
9852 calls for service

Councilman Campsi questioned the arrest statistics noting that the majority of them did not require a detective and that some of them represented arrests for non payment of alarm fees.

Reporting accidents: Mr. Bianco raised the issue of whether police had to report accidents where it was only property damage, e.g., fender bender. By law, this doesn't have to be done. He wanted to know how much money could be saved if police didn't do this and if drivesr came to police station to report the incident. He said other towns were doing it this way. Chief McMahon said that less that 10% of incidents were just property damage and that there's no report if less than $1000 in damage. McMahon said police were needed if it became a traffic issue, there could be exposed wires and that in the long run, the reports saved time, especially if police had to investigate later and had to recreate information, e.g., who, when, where, etc. McMahon said the department did not investigate accidents on private property, e.g., shopping centers. Councilman Martorano felt that it was necessary to send a police car to investigate a fender bender type accident. The bottom line was: what level of service does the public expect or want.

Overtime (estimated to be $360,000 for 2008)
Chief McMahon said that budgeted amount was same since 2005 although salaries had gone up, so actually there was a decrease. McMahon cited the same reasons for needing the overtime as in earlier meetings, e.g., to cover sick, personal time, death in family, military. Referring to the department's “General Order” policy statement that was revised in 2000 and guides the minimum level of staffing, board members wanted to know if sergeants and detectives could fill in for patrol officers if they were available as a way to offset overtime. The chief said that the police officers would fight such a change as a change in a condition of employment which would likely result in an “impact arbitration.” He also felt with safety and service would suffer if the number of officers on patrol (typically four on a daytime shift) were reduced to 3 and people might have to wait 15 minute for a response to their call. Police are usually the first on the scene, he noted, for fire and ambulance calls.

All agreed that the four school resource officers, youth officer, and DARE officer (12% of the force) were important and McMahon did not support the idea that they could be called away from the schools to cover for an officer who was out or to provide back up other than in an emergency. He explained that the contract the town had with the school districts covered the use of the resource officers and that any other use of these officers would need to be renegotiated.

The chief said the only way to reduce overtime was to hire more officers although Councilman Metz said that he had heard that argument in the past but even when additional officers were hired, overtime never went down.

When Councilman Martorano asked the chief for suggestions on how money could be saved, his only answer was to “abide by the contract.” He said the department tried to lump traffic cases together to reduce police overtime when they had to go to court

Police vehicles: the chief and the board each had different counts as to the number of department vehicles and their records differed on the mileage of the cars. The chief said he had a total of 34; Mr. Campisi said the number was more like 54. Mr. Campisi also told the chief that he should have come to the board before he applied for the NYS motorcycle grant as the chief was trying to create something new that the town did not have. Ms. Goldberg estimated that four new cars would cost $120,000. Although Mr. Bianco seemed inclined to put money in the budget for 2 new cars, no decision was made.

Vehicle maintenance, now being done in the central garage will be a charge back to the police department. The Fleet Committee won't dictate specific equipment for the cars.

The Chief wanted more money to replace analog radios with digital ones; he has been doing this gradually over the years but as no new cars have been bought in last two years, some older radios have not yet been replaced.

Feral cats: there's a $5,000 cap on this expense, to be used over the life of the program. $1300 has been spent to date on two areas.

Dues: There was some discussion over the budget paying dues for the chief to belong to an organization from which he gets his liability insurance from (he's not covered by town policy) but other police dues for others are not covered. It was unclear if, at the end of the meeting, after the chief left, these dues were removed from the budget.

Money from seizures. This money can only be used for related functions, e.g., money from seized drugs can't be used to buy a new car.

Refuse
The county is negotiating a new contract – possibly for 2010. This was not clear. Rates are okay for 2009 – but might go up for 2010.

Environmental Conservation Superintendent Patrick Lofaro advised the board that he needed a new garbage truck and the board okayed the purchase this year using money in the fund's surplus.

YCCC
Mr. Lofaro, who is in charge of building maintenance, advised the board that it would be necessary to do some valve reduction work on the heating system so that the heat in the main part of the building could be shut off while heating the theater. He said that the pipes in the building were very old and replacing them would be a major expense that would require shutting down the building. Instead, the pipes are flushed to remove sediment that cause harm to the new boiler.

Asked how much money could be saved if the building was shut on Sunday, Mr. Lofaro said about $21,000 in fuel and overtime for custodians. The building is only used on Sunday by the museum and for two hours by a soccer team. He and Patty Marsh who is in charge of the building will check with the museum if it can change hours from Sunday to Saturday. The operator of the theatre is now covering maintenance costs for that part of the building.

Water department
The water tax for those in the Yorktown Water District will drop 24.92% due to a drop of almost $400,000 in expenditures and an almost $500,000 increase in revenue from metered sales.

Other issues reported by Mr. DiBartolo:
1. the department has an overabundance of meters (about 117 meters), that were purchased in previous years on the assumption that there would be more new construction. In 2008, the department installed only 4 new meters.

2. While he proposed no funds for capital projects ($500,000 had been budgeted for 2008), the board decided to show $250,000 from the fund's surplus as a revenue to offset $250,000 for 2009 capital projects. Planned projects include painting the Quinlan Street tanks and finishing off the French Hill pump station.

3. he recommended against using radio read meters on the grounds that they were not cost effective.

4. He advised the board that Yorktown could save money if billing, currently being done by the Joint Water Works was done by Yorktown as it had been done in the past before the Joint Water Works came into being. He said that we are now paying $180,000 annually to the Joint Water Works for this service but that it would be much cheaper if done in house. In effect, he said, we were subsidizing billing costs for Cortlandt and Montrose. Somers currently does its own billing. Supervisor Peters will have to take this up with the Cortlandt supervisor before any changes can be made.

5. He also questioned why Yorktown was paying 49% of the salary of the head of the Joint Water Works, especially as the person had only visited Yorktown twice since October. Mr. Bianco explained the 49% is Yorktown's share of the cooperative project.

Engineering
The budget's salary line continues to include funds for an assistant engineer even though one has not been hired. If a person is not hired in 2009, the funds will be used to pay for outside professional services. The salary for the part time environmental inspector has been shifted from the “salary” line to “professional services” as the person holding the position is now employed as an independent contractor, not a town employee.

Yorktown sewer district
Four new people will be needed to run the upgraded plant but the DEP will pay that cost for at least the next 10 years. The fund has a $1.2 million surplus.

Capital budget
During 2008, capital projects included the purchase of the trailers for the Recreation Department, the new YCCC boilers and the replacement of the bridge on Old Crompond Road. Although no new projects are planned for 2009 as there is no available surplus, Mr. Bianco suggested that the town should still have a capital plan even if it was only a wish list of projects that didn't include any specific funding.

Revenue estimates
Revenue projections are $75,000 lower than 2008.
Sales tax: The total for 2008 might reach $4.3M ($4.1M is budgeted) although the comptroller felt that receipts from the fourth quarter were likely to drop. The tentative budget has $4M for 2009. Mr. Campisi felt that it could be upped to $4.1M but the other board members preferred to take a more conservative approach and left it at $4.0.

Mortgage tax: The town will receive $663,000 less this year than budgeted.

Interest and penalties: On the suggestion of the comptroller, this line was increased by $50,000. The comptroller noted that while roughly the town's tax collections are at 98%, the same as in past years, because the amount of the taxes is higher, the dollar amount of uncollected taxes is also higher.

There was some discussion about the wisdom of using a portion of the surplus as revenue. The discussion ranged from a zero transfer (Mr. Bianco's position) to $200,000 (Mr. Campisi's position). The board agreed to compromise at a $50,000 transfer

The other line items in the revenue portion of the budget were not reviewed.

Library
The increase in the overtime line for 2009 is due to the Sunday opening and the non availability of part time librarians to work that day. (The part timers are paid less than full timers who put in overtime.) Sunday is a busy day at the library and typically 4 librarians are available. Supervisor Peters asked about the impact of closing on Sunday or possibly one other day during the week as other towns are considering. No changes in hours are planned.

Mr. DiBartolo said that work had to be done on some of the building's heating and air conditioning facilities and that if the work wasn't done, it would damage the new air conditioning units that were installed this summer to replace those damaged by lightening. Head of the library, Pat Barisi , also told the board that portions of the exterior of the building were peeling and need repainting and that if the work wasn't attended to, the situation would only get worse.

In order to be responsive to the town's direction too departments to cut their budgets, $1,400 has been cut from the library's periodicals budget.

Legal services
Town attorney John Buckley reported an unanticipated “triple play” that has caused the town to overspend it's $20,000 2008 budget line for outside legal services. To date, $117,000 has been spent and there are substantial additional bills that will have to be paid by the end of the year. Mr. Campisi noted that if the town wins the winery/old stone church case, it could get some money back. Some of the money spent for tax certiorari cases were for preparing for trials that never opened because the cases were settled.

The town assessor said that his department may need additional funds in 2009 to cover appraisals. He also questioned what the monthly retainer for outside certiorari counsel covered as he felt the monthly bills appeared to be including additional items. Mr. Buckley will look into this.