BERNE — Looking at a tax-rate decrease for the second year in a row — 2014 and 2015 — Supervisor Kevin Crosier says he expects another one for 2016.

The town board will vote on Nov. 12 to adopt the budget for 2015, which totals $2.3 million. It is 0.64 percent higher than the spending plan adopted last year, but its levy, or the total amount of taxes to be raised from property owners, will be 0.67 percent, or $5,351, lower, staying well below the state-set limit in place since 2012. At a public hearing on Nov. 5, no residents attended.

The savings for the tax trimming comes in pieces over the entire budget. Crosier described it as efficiency brought about by layered scrutiny of bills; regularly seeking quotes and better prices; and an accounting software program, Municipal Information Systems (MUNIS), which allows officials to track and analyze spending.

Asked about many decreases on individual lines, Crosier attributed them to historical adjustments as part of the budget process is looking at trends in spending through several years in the past.

“It’s incumbent upon us as elected officials and employees of the town to try to make ourselves as efficient as we can,” said Crosier.

If the budget is adopted, the cost per $1,000 of assessed property value in the town will go from $4.80 to $4.74, a decrease of about 1.1 percent, or about six cents. Varying based on the town’s total assessed value, as well as the levy, the rate was at its highest in 2013, at $4.82 per $1,000.

The assessed value of properties townwide is 0.43 percent higher than last year, at $165.37 million.

The 2015 preliminary budget includes raises between 2 and 4 percent for most town employees, some based on merit, some on workload, or both, Crosier said.

Most general-fund officials and employees got 2-percent raises in their budget lines for income, including those for the highway superintendent, at $52,224, and town attorneys, at $22,848.

“They didn’t get anything last year, remember, so it’s like a 1 percent,” said Crosier.

For the town clerk ($39,915) the two town justices ($19,000), the building inspector ($14,223), and the senior account clerk ($49,212), it’s closer to 4 percent.

The town’s justices are seeing more cases and expecting more jury trials, Crosier said, and the town’s building inspector has a larger workload, increasing enforcement and following up on code violation complaints.

For the town’s library, money spent on staff increased by more than 13 percent.

“We gave them a good raise because they were so far behind,” Crosier said of workers at the library.

The proposed budget includes appropriations for leasing a new copier and for the replacement of the town’s main-frame hardware, which failed this past year and stores digital files for the town’s computers.

An additional $2,500 under the tax collector’s appropriations is for putting tax records online, a new requirement from the state’s Department of Taxation and Finance.

The budget’s savings come in small bites. For the town board, a line used for membership to the Association of Towns, which plans conferences and acts as a resource, was cut to zero.

“We just don’t see spending $1,000,” said Crosier. “We don’t get the benefit.”

On the town’s fiscal challenges, Crosier pointed to insurance. For workers’ compensation insurance, he anticipates large savings, though they haven’t been projected in the 2015 budget, since a new daily time sheet for highway workers will reclassify the employees in categories used by a new insurance carrier to determine billing rates.

Switching from the State Insurance Fund to Public Entity Risk Management Authority, or PERMA, Crosier said, saved roughly $10,000, but the overall cost still increased.

The plan sets the course for spending in the next year, but its adjustments along the way and the actual expenditures are constantly monitored. The MUNIS software was introduced to Berne by the county comptroller’s office, which helped Berne and Rensselaerville with training.

“So, we’ll say truck No. 22,” said Crosier, giving an example of the software’s advantages. “We could actually pull up and we can tell the parts that were put in it, what parts they were, how much they cost — we can track the cost of each individual vehicle. We can track the cost of each individual building.”

“In our old system, in order for me to figure out how much it cost to heat the library, I would have to go into the vouchers, paw through them, look at each delivery ticket, and break it out separately,” he said.

Money for the $981,686 general fund comes mostly from a projected $400,000 sale-tax distribution from the county, $270,436 comes from property taxes, $182,000 from the town’s fund balance, and $65,000 from state aid.

Money for the $1.3 million highway fund comes mostly from $511,308 in property taxes, $410,000 from county sales tax, $183,000 from the state Consolidated Local Street and Highway Improvement Program (CHIPs), and $181,000 from the town’s fund balance.

Revenue for the Berne hamlet sewer budget comes from the user charges for district residents.

“I’m hoping that the purchase of the Game Farm Road property will generate more revenue for the town and therefore we’ll be able to use that revenue to keep reducing taxes,” Crosier said of 358 acres on a high hill near state forestland that the town plans to close on by the end of the year. He has suggested it could be used for recreation, like cross-country skiing and camping, or events, like conferences or weddings.