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| May 05, 2024 |
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General News: Village Anticipates Cuts in Aid
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| It now costs money to get rid of yard waste. |
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| Recycled paper is no longer in demand. |
November 18, 2008
Village officials are looking for ways to cut costs as they anticipate a reduction in state aid in 2009. At Monday evening’s board of trustees meeting, trustee William Fogarty said that he was concerned about the state’s ability to come through with grants it had promised. “We’re looking for money from Albany and they’re broke,” Fogarty said. “It’s not going to be pretty but we’re going to do it,” referring to belt-tightening
Mayor Joseph Gross reviewed several areas where he believed costs could be trimmed, including in the village’s insurance coverage policy. Trustee Rick Gioia said that he is getting bids from other telephone service carriers to see if those costs could be reduced as well. He said he also is looking at replacing the automatic phone answering system with a person picking up the phone if it proves to be an efficient use of office staff time.
The cost of recycling and garbage pick-ups is an on-going focus of the trustees who have been looking at how other municipalities provide that services. Trustee Barbara Gosda said that about 75% of the village residents she has spoken with would like to have their garbage picked up once a week and their recycling picked up once a week. However, she noted that in New Windsor, garbage is picked up once a week and recycling every two weeks.
Gosda said that for a small community without a lot of funds, Cornwall-on-Hudson’s service is more than that of many others. “A lot of municipalities charge for bulk pick-ups,” she told the board, “and some get yard waste pick-up once a season.” In the village, yard waste is picked up weekly.
Recycled waste is also beginning to cost the village money when it used to create a small savings, according to the Department of Public Works. In the past, a recycling company in Newburgh paid a small amount for recycled paper – now it wants to charge $30 a ton to take it.
Dave Halvorsen, head of the DPW, said that paper recycling is abundant because the demand for it has dropped. He says his department can take the recycling to a transfer station in New Hampton at no charge – but he noted that it could take a half-a-day to make the trip. Halvorsen told the board at the work session last week that he doesn’t believe he has an option since just one week’s worth of paper recycling would have cost $1,000 to drop in Newburgh.
Halvorsen also said that this year his department had to start paying to get rid of yard debris. For twenty years it had been free, he said.
At Monday’s meeting, Mayor Gross mentioned that they have been looking into recycling yard waste and creating soil with it, a form of composting.
Before the focus on cost-cutting ended at Monday’s meeting, trustee Gioia proposed reviving the Village Improvement Society, a non-profit group that could raise funds for park improvements or to provide scholarships to children in the summer playground program.
The first draft of the village budget for 2009-10 is due on January 1, 2009. The current budget runs through March 2009.
Comments:
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Unfortunately, everyone in NY State will be impacted by the declining tax revenues that the State is currently experiencing. We also have to keep in mind that numerous businesses will be filing losses for 2008, meaning that they will not be paying any tax, plus a large group of wealthy New Yorkers will be filing tax returns with huge losses as well. Please follow this link to a recent Wall Street Journal article that clearly lays out the problems we New Yorkers will be facing, it's not pretty. We are going to have to deal with the reality that all forms of Government will need to sharpen their fiscal pencils and reduce spending or "we the people" will have to deal with increases in all of our taxes.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122653542508722577.html
posted by PETER MALONE on 11/18/08 at 4:34 PM
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