The Village of Suffern budget process careens into the last week of April, trailing more questions than answers. A Special Board meeting is scheduled for Monday, April 27, at 7 p.m. at the Village Hall — according to local law, the budget must be adopted before or on May 1.
February Suffern Village Board meeting where supporters of the village DPW wore yellow shirts. Due to Suffern’s cash on hand issue, the village sought a bridge loan through the end of its fiscal year which helped pay DPW overtime.
The Suffern Board has been contentious and divided down party lines throughout the budget workshops, with Trustees Robert Morris and Ed Markunas acting as Suffern Mayor Trish Abato’s main foils. The duo’s antithapy for the mayor, which often borders on personal animosity, appears to be rooted in the belief that Mayor Abato has somehow excluded board members from the budget process, including possibly hiding material information and/or data, intentionally scheduling workshops during daytime hours or advocating to enforce budget timelines that board members believe should be discussed in more detail.
In speaking with Morris and Markunas, who are not as combative in person as on the dais, it appears that the two also believe that the village is undergoing or has undergone some kind of mismanagement that boarders on malfeasance — on the brighter side, their attitudes may just reflect them being fired up to make changes. A clip of the introductory remarks by Suffern Mayor Trish Abato as she convenes the April 17 special village budget public hearing which ran three hours.
The proposd village budget was presented on March 20, the legal deadline, and included a 22.8% property tax rate increase and an overall 12% water/sewer rate increase. The deadline for a budget adoption is May 1. Those numbers have since been whittled down but the board has not passed any resolutions related to the proposed budget. The Suffern budget process has been one of the most transparent in terms of public meetings and number of board workshops. Additionally, the office of NY State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli has undertaken a review of the proposed budget, at Suffern’s request, and will hand back it’s thoughts and recommendations, perhaps as early as next week.
Suffern tops a recent Comptroller’s list of New York’s most distressed municipalities.
Caught in the crossfire
Mayor Abato has been under constant pressure from the current board, where she is suddenly the sole Democrat out of five board members. Abato has been active and seemingly vested in improving the village since being elected Suffern’s first female mayor almost two years ago. From the get-go her administration has faced the unresolved issues of Mayors of Suffern’s past, including those of Jim Giannettino, who inevitably finds his way to the podium at most meetings to probe and question and propose.
Like a hundred cackling black birds, the mistakes of past village leadership have come home to noisily roost at the Village Hall dais during board meetings. Call the noise the cost of poor municipal planning. Call it the impact of a cratered economy that’s taken years to recover. Call it the cost of having an inadequate village treasurer or proper administrative oversight at key moments. Call it the cost of a water and sewer engineering firm with a vested interest in the status quo. Name the disturbances whatever you will but the end result is that the village finds itself in poor fiscal health.
Trustee and Deputy Mayor Ed Markunas remarks on his time spent pulling together and helping to supervise the proposed 2015/16 village budget.
Mayor Abato has attempted to tackle substantial issues — she worked with Chief Clarke Osborn to re-oganize the Police Department and downsize payroll, appointed new municipal accountant Michael Genito as Village Treasurer, stopped the Orange Avenue project in its tracks in favor of a more deliberative and public process, and has attempted to figure out the root of the village’s fiscal mess.
Granted, Abato was on the board for a number of years before she was voted into the top seat. But the mayor certainly represents a large local constituency.
Suffern appears to be caught in a cost of living conundrum — can the village afford the full services it currently provides residents? Both Trustees Morris and Markunas throughout the budget process have vocally advocated that Suffern is living beyond its means and must shrink something somewhere. The specter of downsizing or even merging village services with the town or county has made intermittent appearances, though for now has been banished from discussion.
Monday’s meeting will tackle two primary issues, the Orange Avenue Project that proposes building some 91 luxury apartments in a specially created Transit Development District (TDD) in the village on a 1.48 acre site where the Lafayette Hotel now stands. The project has a host of development issues that need clarity, from special PILOT agreements with Suffern and the Ramapo Central School District to Brownfield cleanup costs at the site.
Trustees Morris and Markunas appear to want to engage in a substantial conversation on the value of costs of village services and municipal governing practices. With the current budget deadline looming, that conversation might be better for next year’s budget process, starting maybe in May with a plan in hand. The elimination or consolidation of village services may come with a quality of life cost. Residents should be well schooled in their choices before any reductions or rash decisions are made on their behalf.
Village Trustee Ed Markunas makes a recommendation at an April 17 board meeting to form a budget committee that would meet publicly to tackle issues related to budget matters, though the current budget process is too far along to initiate and/or implement recommendations for the 2015/16 budget — the legal deadline for the village to adopt a budget is May 1.
Water and Sewer and Billing in the budget
The board will continue to discuss Suffern water and sewer rates Monday. One bone of contention is to clarify whether the proposed new rates that were scheduled to take effect with the November 1, 2015 billing cycle will be back-billed for the May 1 billing cycle. Treasurer Genito’s preliminary budget was contingent upon those back-billed water revenues. That sudden discovery by trustees at Friday’s budget workshop caused the whole discussion to be tabled until Monday’s special meeting. Suffern bills for water and sewer usage twice a year, in May and November.
According to Mayor Abato, Suffern residents currently pay approximately $3.03 per units, with an estimated 6 month bill anticipated to be $86 — based on the use of 39 water units over that period of time. The proposed budge would increase water to $3.40 per unit, adjusting a 6 month bill based on 39 units to $133.60.
Water and sewer rates are somewhat variable as they are based on use — if use goes down, so does village revenue.
Suffern has sunk millions of dollars into upgrading its water treatment facility — which needs additional investment to ensure that it’s in compliance with the NY Department of Environmental Conservation. Suffern faces the issue of whether its water treatment facility is past its expiration end use date or if yearly mitigation and incremental repairs will keep water flowing in perpetuity. The village budget process continues to reflect that condition with debate on how to lower a proposed 12% water/sewer rate increase. Trustees Morris and Markunas will apparently reveal their plan for a 5% water rate increase that shows exactly what kind of cuts and service impact the rate should have.
The end game for the whole budget process is to present residents with a fair tax and fee structure that gives a return of increased or sustained village quality of life on their investment. The birds of distress and discontent have made it known that something’s got to give in thee goode olde Village of Suffern. The community conversation that gets into those details looks like it’s just beginning.
The Suffern Village Board is scheduled to meet Monday, Apr 27, at 7 p.m. at Village Hall, with an additional Special Board Meeting scheduled for Wednesday, Apr 29, at 7 p.m., at Village Hall.
