Jamestown Mayor Sam Teresi presents the Fiscal Year 2014 Executive Budget to City Council members and the local media on Tuesday, Oct. 8 2013. (Photo by Matt Hanley/wwwJamestownNY.net)
JAMESTOWN – Mayor Sam Teresi is proposing just over a 2.5 percent tax increase for property owners in his 2014 city budget.
On Tuesday afternoon, Teresi released his $33.6 million spending plan, which is $375,000 more than the current year’s budget. The largest increase in spending is due to contractually obligated raises in employee salaries, which will see a total increase of nearly $440,000.
The budget calls for a 2.68 percent increase in the tax levy of $386,920 – which is $63,500 BELOW the state mandated tax cap. That translates to a tax rate increase of 2.54 percent, or 55 cents higher than the current year’s tax rate of $21.63 per thousand assessed value.
In order for there to be no property tax increase, the city council will have to offset the budget by $361,584. That can be achieved by either cutting spending or finding additional revenue.
Jamestown City Council President Greg Rabb, who was in attendance during the presentation, said the council will do what it can to bring the property tax rate down. “I think the goal of council is actually to see if we can bring it down to zero, I think that may be impossible, but I think we go at the budget with the understanding that we do everything we can to accomplish that, so we might be able to chip away at some of it.”
The council has until December 1 to finalize the budget. It will begin reviewing the budget and making changes during its next work session on Oct. 21.
- READ MAYOR TERESI’S 2014 BUDGET PRESENTATION
WRFA will air the mayor’s budget presentation Thursday night at 6 p.m. during Community Matters.
Copies of complete line-by-line budget proposal are also available at city hall or the James Prendergast Library.
Leave a Reply