WESTERLO — After dousing the fantasies of any resident who hoped that Westerlo would be able to make a seamless recovery from the coronavirus pandemic by estimating the loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales-tax revenue, Supervisor William Bichteman continued to provide the town with information that he hopes will guide Westerlo across choppy economic waters. 

At its May 28 special meeting, Bichteman provided updated estimates of sales-tax loss, which he said came from county publications and conversations he’s had with county officials, and broke down the impact various personnel changes would have on the town’s budget. 

He estimated that, in 2020, Westerlo will suffer a total sales-tax reduction between $291,000 and $301,000, which is a bit less than the nearly $400,000 he estimated at the town board’s May 21 regular meeting, when he first broached the topic. 

That number, he told the board, is highly fluid but it’s a “pretty sound number to at least move forward [with].” 

Originally, the town was expecting more than $1.2 million in sales-tax revenue, which would have made up 40 percent of its $3.1 million budget. Of the eight towns and villages covered by The Enterprise, sales tax comprised $35.6-percent of each budget, on average.

In the May 21 meeting, Westerlo residents and board members seemed to take the message stoically, but some were critical of the notion of cutting workers when the town’s foresight is as hazy as it is, and especially of cutting workers from the highway department, who some residents suggested were the most critical of all the town’s employees. 

On May 28, Bichteman illustrated the amount of money the town could save by making various personnel-related changes. 

“It’s important to know that the town is self-insured for unemployment insurance,” Bichteman told the board. “Whatever the state pays employees when they’re laid off, we have to reimburse to the state.” 

So, if the town reduces the hours of one worker from 40-a-week to 30-a-week for four months, the town would save $2,753 over that period of time. If that worker were furloughed, which means that the worker does not get paid for labor but retains their benefits, the town would save $10,512. If that worker were laid off, the town would save $18,318. 

The greatest amount of money, as far as Bichteman projected, would be saved by laying off four employees for six months. After reimbursing the state nearly $55,000 in unemployment, the town would save $101,280. If those four employees were furloughed for the same amount of time, the town would save $54,444. With a 10-hour reduction in hours, the savings would be $16,518. 

“The significance of this,” Bichteman said, “is that all the intermediate cuts don’t get close to the $290,000 [we need to save]. It would be ideal if that was the case … but mathematically, it does not work, so it becomes less of an option.” 

“I’m definitely in agreement that something has to be done,” Councilman Matthew Kryzak said later in the meeting, but he wants to see “how the third month of the second [financial] quarter pans out with the reopening of the economy.”

At the May 21 meeting, Kryzak, who has worked as a business manager for his family’s construction company, said that he “never made a good decision off of speculative data. So it’s hard for me to make a drastic choice just on speculative data.” 

“I am not for laying anybody off,” Councilwoman Amie Burnside told the board on May 28. She added that, after hearing figures associated with reducing hours, which she said initially thought would be the ideal situation, she’ll have to think more about her stance, but that she’s “definitely not prepared to make any decisions on that right now.”

The May 28 special meeting was scheduled so the board could continue its discussion and potentially vote on personnel changes. However, no motion was made, and the board agreed that it would be best to continue holding special meetings once a week so that the situation can be assessed continually while giving the board the option to respond to changes quickly. 

Another special video-conference meeting is scheduled for Thursday, June 4.

Library employees

Bichteman has already furloughed three part-time library employees between the two May meetings, which the other board members criticized. 

Burnside told Bichteman she had been under the impression that no changes would be made regarding personnel before the board discussed the matter. Bichteman indicated that it was senseless to pay library workers while the library is physically closed. Their positions will not be opened up to other candidates when the library reopens, he said. 

The library has three part-time employees in addition to its director, Debbie Scott. 

Scott told The Enterprise in an email this week that, although the employees are furloughed, they will be paid for work they do from home, which includes keeping up to date with rapidly evolving government regulations, adapting the library programming to digital media, and community outreach.

“While they may not equate to desk hours when the library was open,” Scott wrote, “there is still a lot of behind-the-scenes work going on.” 

Scott indicated to The Enterprise that paid employees will be crucial to the library’s operation once it reopens, with volunteers a useful supplement. 

“The library staff has regular training from the Upper Hudson Library System  that keeps them up to date on our system-wide circulation procedures, training for grants that the library receives, and they attend advisory committees for youth and adult  services,” Scott said.

“Volunteers would not have had access to the many hours of training that the paid staff have had,” she continued. “Especially now, with all of the extra training and procedures that will need to take place, it isn’t practical to bring on volunteers. In the future I would look forward to having volunteers. Other libraries have a volunteer group called the Friends of the Library and that could be a great addition to our library.” 

On May 28, Bichteman told the board that he didn’t know exactly how much the town was saving from the library furloughs but that it was “not much.” Those savings were not included in his breakdown of potential savings through personnel changes.

Bichteman told The Enterprise last week that cutting library employees entirely could save the town $10,000.

Councilman Joseph Boone requested at the meeting that Bichteman be more swift in telling the board about changes to personnel that are made without board discussion. 

“I think, as a courtesy, we should be notified if there’s any further changes to the staffing,” Boone said. 

“That’s not a problem,” Bichteman said after first defending the decision as a “no-brainer.” 

“And if I’ve offended somebody, I apologize,” Bichteman added. 

Other business

In other business, the town board:

— Voted to appoint Guy Weidman and Barbara Russell to the comprehensive plan committee, 4-1, to cover two vacancies. Burnside voted “nay.” Burnside said after the vote that Dianne Sefcik was an original candidate who “never came up” when seeking new appointments. Bichteman said that Sefcik did not want to be considered if her husband, John Sefcik, was accepted to the committee, which he was. ​