Jamestown City Council voting session (October 28, 2024)
Jamestown City Council has approved a local law to override the state’s tax cap as budget presentations continue for the proposed 2025 city budget.
Under a state law passed in 2011, local municipalities may only raise property taxes from the prior year by the lessor of 2% or the rate of inflation.
Council President Tony Dolce said Council would like to bring down the 7.79% tax increase in the proposed $43,315,323 spending plan, but needed to be prepared ahead of the budget vote, “Obviously, we’d like to bring that down as much as possible, but it would be very difficult to bring it down below 2%. So, we have to be prepared. We’ve done this in years past where it’s a procedural move. In order to give us enough time to do that, we had to vote on it tonight. And again, just to reiterate, as I said earlier, this is a procedural move. It doesn’t mean that we have to do it or that we’re locked in now but it protects us in case we do have to do that.”
Council heard presentations before the voting session from the Departments of Public Works, Parks, and Corporation Counsel. Presentations will continue at the work session on November 4 from the Department of Development and the Fenton History Center.
Dolce said the budget is pretty tight, “But, to go through the exercise and look at where the money has been spent, how much is spent in each department, and look at what their needs are even if we can’t include them in this year’s budget on certain things, capital expenditures, things like that. Just to get an idea of where their money is, what it’s being spent on, what are some of their concerns and issues. And then gives the Council a chance to ask questions and possibly look for areas where they could make some cuts.”
Dolce thinks the revenue lines may make a difference in the budget when it comes to items like sales tax revenues and whether the city can get the state grant to help toward the Medicare Advantage Plan program. He added that Council will be looking at the unassigned Fund Balance as well.
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