NEW SCOTLAND — The town now has a $4.7 million budget in place for next year. The town board adopted it unanimously last Wednesday, directly after making some last-minute slashes to office supplies across departments.

With a declining reserve, council members approved a 17-cent tax-rate increase for the general townwide A fund which includes the village of Voorheesville. This means a new tax rate of $1.614 per $1,000 of assessed value, an 11.7-percent tax-rate increase for the fund. This will bring in $91,000 more, Councilman Scott Houghtaling said.

Tax rates for the other funds will stay the same for 2006, which means an overall tax-rate increase of 9.8 percent, Houghtaling said.

Supervisor Ed Clark said that he liked Houghtaling’s recommendation and stated that the increase to the A Fund had to be somewhere between 10 and 20 percent.
Houghtaling said that he was nervous about the revenue line, and Clark agreed saying, "My crystal ball is foggy" in predicting the sales-tax and mortgage-tax revenues.
Houghtaling also suggested raising the tax rate for the DA fund, which is the highway fund town-wide that pays for things like bridge repair. He said that he thinks the town needs to set aside money after the "Miller Road lesson."

In 2004, the Miller Road bridge clasped after a dump truck crossed over it, and the town was looking at the potential repair cost of $250,000.

Three-thousand dollars is budgeted in that fund for 2006. If the town had to buy a new bridge, Clark said, the budget would be in serious trouble.

The bulk of the highway departments appropriations fall under the DB fund, which is a highway fund for the town outside of the village, this fund is budgeted over $1.4 milion.

New Scotland bypassed the huge-ticket item on Miller Road by instead purchasing land, which is an expense under the A Fund, and created an alternate town road, closing off the bridge crossing permanently.

A one-cent increase in the townwide highway fund will bring in $5,000 more which could be the start of money for a bridge, Houghtaling said.
"We just got a lecture at our Clarksville water public hearing," Houghtaling said. Residents do not like paying out large-ticket expenses at one time in an emergency, but would rather be paying a little bit along the way and have a reserve set aside for repairs.

The other board members remained silent at first, and then said that it is something they will need to think about for next year’s budget sessions.

Houghtaling’s 12th year on the board is finishing in December, he is retiring.

Clark joked that Houghtaling will have to remind them all next year to consider the highway fund.
"I’ll just send my two cents in," he said.

Judges at public hearing

At the preliminary budget hearing, a week before the budget was approved, the town’s judges came out to speak. There had been tension between council members and the court department throughout the budget workshops, as there had been last year at budget time.

The board’s view is that the town justices need to stay within their given budget like every other department, while town justices Margaret Adkins and Thomas Dolin argued that there is no way they can predict what kind of caseload they will have each year.

The hot-button issue was employment hours for the two court clerks. Councilwoman Deborah Baron worked as a New Scotland court clerk for 12 years.

For 2005, the town board had cut back the clerk hours to 20 per week based on Baron’s advice. Adkins said that she knew that wasn’t going to be enough.

Supervisor Clark told the Enterprise on Monday that the board did ultimately decide to budget the court clerks for 2006, 22-and-a-half hours per week.

Councilman Houghtaling said at the budget hearing that the court is at least $4,700 over budget this year.

The court revenue is down, and the board has always linked revenue to workload, Baron said.
Adkins took issue with a statement, Baron had made at a previous workshop. "You said," Adkin’s recalled, that the "budget as submitted showed that the justices have a lack of confidence in the court clerks...I want to tell the other board members that statement is really incorrect," Adkins said.
"That was my impression of what you submitted," Baron said, because the workload is 30 percent less but the judges are asking for 25 percent more hours to do it, Baron said.
"You can’t equate justice with revenue, Debbie," Adkins said.
"That’s the only basis that this board has had for 14 years," Baron said. If the judges have a new way to quantify, then they would have to supply the data and explain a new justification, she said.
Councilwoman Andrea Gleason said that she can remember Dolin saying "the money he brought into town was a good argument for his budget."
"The argument has been made in the past," said councilman Richard Reilly, "that, as revenue increased, the argument was made that it was indicative of an increased workload."

Adkins said, she had two jury trials and they take a lot of time.
Baron said if, at the time, Adkins came to the board and asked for an extra 10 clerk hours, she would have voted in favor of it right away. "It’s upsetting to get to this in October and find that you guys [judges] are...over budget," Baron said.

No department can be over budget, Houghtaling said. Modifications need to be made when department heads see an increase in expenses — before it happens, Houghtaling said.

Adkins said that, when the hours where reduced to 20 last year, she and Dolin knew that wasn’t going to be enough.
Gleason said that the board went on Baron’s advice, because she had worked in the office. "It’s the advice we have to go on," Gleason said, adding that Adkins was relatively new in comparison.
"I guess, I don’t want to say it’s insulting but you ignored what we asked for," said Adkins. The board went on the advice of one specific person who previously had actually worked 27-and-half hours weekly as a clerk herself, Adkins said.
"That was a difficult circumstance; I was kind of alone," Baron said. The other clerk was not working that many hours, and, Baron said, that was the year "we made the $93,000."
"If next year, you bring in $93,000, I will make the motion myself to have each clerk work 25 hours a week," Baron said.
"Debbie, you can’t base it on money," Adkins said.
"Then you have a different measure than what I have," Baron said.

While Adkins was the judge who dominated the beginning of the public hearing, Dolin joined the discussion, also agitated.

When talking about gross budgets, the number of clerk hours should be based on the number of cases, he said. If the court reviews a ticket for a headlight, he said, and the defendant has repaired it, then the town does not collect money on that; the same amount of clerical work has to be done on that ticket as for a ticket that carries a $300 fine, Dolin said.
"Taking gross revenue...I’m not saying we shouldn’t look at that...as far as trying to project cost...but to address the number of work hours a clerk needs, money is irrelevant. It is the number of pieces of paper that are handled — the number of cases that are started," Dolin said. "Whether they bring in zero or 100 dollars has nothing to do with it," Dolin said.

Baron asked if the judges have that information.

The number of cases are down by 6 percent Dolin said.
"Frankly," Adkins said, there have been fewer driving-while-intoxicated offenses so the town should be thankful.

Gleason said, now that Adkins has worked in town court for two years, and has the expertise to say she needs her clerk to have 22-and-a-half hours, Gleason said she is now comfortable with that request.

Dolin said he doesn’t remember a time when the courts haven’t been over budget. He said he never knows a year in advance how many cases he is going to have.
"That’s my problem; you’ve always been over budget," Reilly said.

The board has always under estimated, Dolin responded.

Reilly said his concern is that, year after year, the judges don’t fit within their hours. If the board gives them 22.5 hours, will the judges have to come back in a couple months saying they need more, he asked.
"If there are more cases then, yes, I will," Dolin said.

The court needs to get the work done in the time allotted, just like any other department, Reilly said.

Dolin said, based on the current year, he thinks the 22-and-a-half hour per week will be adequate for the clerks.
Houghtaling said that he wants to treat the justice department the same as all the other departments. "You have to make appropriations," Houghtaling said.

The board requested a monthly report from the judges for 2006.