PORT JERVIS – One council member changed her vote from last week,
when the proposed 2018 budget failed to pass. It was adopted on a 6-3
vote Wednesday night, with no changes to the budget itself from the previous
meeting.
The vote that changed from ‘no’ to a reluctant ‘yes’
this time was Lisa Randazzo, who said it became clear there would be no
compromise that could reduce the tax levy.
Maria Mann wasn’t changing her vote.
“I’m still voting ‘no’ because no changes or compromises
were made,” Mann said.
Kristin Trovei, who voted ‘yes’ was clearly opting for a lesser
of evils.
“An 11 percent contingency would be worse,” Trovei proclaimed.
Mayor Kelly Decker repeated the points he made last week, that there
are two issues, one of them an old habit that has haunted, from time to
time, other municipalities, notably Poughkeepsie which raised taxes over
16 percent in that city’s 2017 budget.
Nothing that drastic for Port Jervis, but the mayor said bad habits can
lead to bad consequences.
“There were eight years there were zero percent or less than zero
percent increases in the city,” Decker said. “That is a compounding
factor that adds on every year that you take away from the fund balance.
It also adds on. So I think that the council did a decent job in what
they had in front of them. Moving forward this year, we do run into the
contracts with our, both of our major unions.”
The final budget increases the tax levy 8.1 percent for 2018.
