Broome Reviews Tentative Budget

By Joshua Walther

BROOME - On Wednesday night, the Broome Town Board convened to discuss their tentative budget, as well as a county-level short term rental resolution and a new potential accountant.

After gathering the numbers from each department head over the last couple months, Supervisor Steve Weinhofer and Highway Superintendent Jason Wayman met with their accountant to complete each line and be put forth before the Board.

To begin, Supervisor Weinhofer led members in a review of their health insurance plan, which would normally see a 12% increase from last year.

To combat this, he suggested that the Board lower the insurance from a platinum plan to a gold plan, which would save them about $5,000 on its own, and then increase the reimbursable amount for each of their four eligible employees from $1,000 to $1,500.

“They never use the full amount anyway,” said Supervisor Weinhofer, and explained that it would only come out of the Town’s budget if the employees needed it.

With no one contesting the total savings of $3,000, the Board made a motion to approve the switch to the gold plan, allowing for more funding allocations elsewhere.

Second on their list to review was the budgeted total for the fire department, which a representative had asked last month to come up from around $104,000 to $125,000.

Supervisor Weinhofer noted that the increase would be far outside of the normal range, which he had told the representative before, and explained that the best compromise would rest at $109,000.

With no one from the fire department to approve or contest the total, the Board was happy with the amount, and Supervisor Weinhofer invited them to attend next month’s meeting if there were any concerns.

Finally, Supervisor Weinhofer said that the fund balance was in “good shape” and he wanted to keep a special eye on it, as the funds to pay for their eventual salt shed roof repair will be pulled from there.

The Board found no issues with the tentative budget, and so the numbers will be transferred to a preliminary budget that will have a public hearing at the next month’s meeting, after which it may be approved.

In other news, Supervisor Weinhofer brought a county-level short term rental resolution before the Board to ask for their opinion.

The state is recommending that counties either opt into or out of a registry that will keep track of short term rentals, which made him wary of liability and regulation concerns.

“Some of the laws that the towns are passing are so restrictive, like how many cars can park,” he said. “If something happens, like the county didn’t inspect something on time, it opens us up for liability.”

Other Board members were largely in agreement with Supervisor Weinhofer, citing further concerns such as no available enforcement, and he stated that he will likely vote against the resolution at the County Board of Supervisors.

Finally, Supervisor Weinhofer said that their accountant will be dropping all of their municipality clients at the turn of the new year, and suggested that the Town draft an RFP to find someone new, to which the Board agreed.