By Jake Palmateer
WEST ONEONTA _ The Oneonta Town Board adopted a $2.04 million budget Tuesday night that has a 1 percent increase in the tax rate.
However, actual town taxes may increase further depending on which fire district a property owner resides in.
Councilmen and Supervisor Robert Wood unanimously approved a 2010 budget that has a nearly 12 percent decline in the general fund and a 5.61 percent decline in the highway fund.
But because of an expected drop in state aid, sales-tax and mortgage-tax revenues and a lower amount of fund balance being applied to the budget than this year, taxes will be up slightly.
The combined general and highway funds would mean a $2.10 increase compared to last year's tax bill for a property owner with a home assessed at $70,000, Wood said.
The increase is because of the highway fund. There is no increase in the tax rate for the general fund under the fiscal plans.
But that same homeowner in the Oneonta Fire District would pay about $41 more in 2010 for fire protection than he or she did in 2009. This is a 20.4 percent increase in the fire-protection tax rate. The Oneonta Fire District is everywhere in the town except areas covered by the West Oneonta Fire District.
Wood said the Oneonta Fire District budget is negotiated between the fire-district commissioners and the city of Oneonta, and the formula for that contract has led to the increase. This was because of a large difference between the equalization rates between the town and city of Oneonta and the actual cost of operations of the Oneonta Fire Department, Wood said.
The West Oneonta Fire District, which serves the hamlet of Oneonta, is actually seeing a decline of 3.6 percent in its fire-protection tax rate.
Wood said the town did not budget for any large infrastructure projects in 2010, cutting $30,000 out of its budget for road repairs.
"All of our costs are going up, and our revenues are going down," Wood said.
The town is planning to install sidewalks on county Route 8 in the West End in the spring, he said.
There are no layoffs of town personnel reflected in the fiscal plan.
