BEACON – The proposed 2022 Beacon city general fund budget comes in at slightly more than $1 million over this year’s.
The proposed spending plan, at $23.4 million, would lower the homestead property tax rate while increasing the non-homestead rate.
Because of last year’s financial uncertainty related to the pandemic, Mayor Lee Kyriacou said they budgeted a sizeable amount from the city’s rainy-day fund.
“Last year it was such a difficult year, we didn’t know what revenues were coming or going, so we were willing to take up to $2 million out of the general fund balance to make sure we weren’t hurting our taxpayers or laying off – we didn’t do either,” he said.
In the new budget, the city has set aside about $550,000 in reserves.
General fund spending is up by 4.6 percent because of $200,000 in first-time city funding of round-the-clock ambulance service as a result of volunteer service difficulties and overreliance on surrounding communities, and $323,000 in a one-time increase in retirement contributions in the state pension system for the city’s more than 125 employees.
