JAMESTOWN – Property owners in the city of Jamestown will see their property tax payment go up by 1.9 percent for 2014. That after the Jamestown City Council Monday night approved next year’s $33.5 million spending plan by a vote of 8 to 0, with councilman Steve Szwejbka absent.
The budget approved by the council will increase taxes by 41 cents per thousand assessed value. That’s 14 cents lower than what had initially been proposed in the spending plan submitted by Jamestown Mayor Sam Teresi. Under the final plan approved by the council, a home valued at $75,000 in the city will see its property tax go up $31.25 over the current year. The tax levy will be $14.7 million next year, which is an increase of $295,000.
Jamestown city councilman and finance committee chairman Tony Dolce said the council was able to make some minor adjustments to the budget over the past few weeks to bring spending down by $100,000, but there really wasn’t a lot to work with.
“We certainly would have liked to have gone further, but the reality is that we’re facing increasing costs, retirement and insurance and so forth,” Dolce said. “We’re already at minimum staffing in most of our departments and so we’ve really over the past several years got to the point where we are at bare bones. It’s getting more and more difficult each year.”
Following the vote, Mayor Teresi stated that he was fine with the few changes the city council made to try and bring down the tax increase. He agreed that after several years of belt-tightening just about every option available has been exhausted….
“There were literally so few moves left in this and the adjustments that were made [by the council] were reasonable and defendable,” Teresi said. “The year will determine whether or not we can hit those numbers but I think these were reasonable moves that the finance committee and the whole city council made to this budget. We’ll work together through the coming year to make things work.”
Among the items that the city council left in the final version of the spending plan was a BPU dividend payment of $475,000 – that despite the fact the BPU has yet to give approval to share that money with the city. However Mayor Teresi – who is also serves as the BPU president – says he’s confident that despite some opposition, the city will get the dividends it is requesting…
“I think that the amount, which is roughly 10 percent of the projected profit for 2013, is a very small amount and a reasonable amount. I think for the sole stockholder/owner of those municipal utilities to take an 8, 9 or 10 percent dividend once in a blue moon is reasonable thing to do.”
The BPU will consider the dividend sharing issue during its next board meeting a week from today.
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