JANUARY 2018
TIOGA COUNTY COMMUNITY PRESS
PAGE 10
Town of Owego - Year in Review Continued from page 1
NOW LOCATED AT 6278 Rte. 434, Apalachin
Margaret Karpel – E-mail: mkarpel@stny.rr.com
INDEPENDENT AVON REPRESENATIVE
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The Utilities Department has had a busy year as well keeping up with an aging infrastructure, continual state and federal regulations, and ongoing flood repairs and mitigation. It is hoped that all flood related mitigation will be completed in 2018. The 2011 mitigation includes moving as much of the electrical system as possible to the second floor and moving the utilities office to the new Shared Facilities Building at the Town Hall Campus. The department has outsourced billing to help save on expenses and is constantly reviewing operations and costs to help keep the rates as low as possible. Water and sewer rates were held flat and remain at the same level as 2017. Some debt being paid with accelerated payments will save the town over $800,000. ln 2000, the town was selling about 210,000,000 gallons of water a year. In 2018, budgeted sales total 146,000,000 gallons. That is a 31% decrease in sales, therefore revenue, and at the same time operating and maintenance costs continue to rise. For 2018, the town will be under the tax cap for the second year in a row. If you are a follower of my comments in the media and at town board meetings, you are aware I do NOT budget to get under the tax cap. I budget to have the appropriate budget that meets needs of the operations and is best for the taxpayer. If it falls beneath the tax cap then it does. The tax cap is nothing more than political semantics from a governor that wants as much local government as possible eliminated to mask the state’s high tax and spend policies. It is nothing less than that. Do not be fooled into believing that the state’s problems fall on property taxes when this governor is spending your income tax on his own pet projects rather than the need of all state residents. I do not take lightly the burden of taxes on the homeowner. If you look at your tax bill, you will notice that your town taxes are one of the lowest parts of the bill. I have been working on a project to assess how much of your town taxes are due to unfunded mandates and hope to incorporate it into your town tax bill in 2019. I am sure you will be surprised. The governor will be proposing more “blame game” policies in his State of the State address. Do not fall for them! You should be aware by this time the town is looking in to aggregating its electricity use with a new program called Community Choice Aggregation (CCA). To bring you up to date, the Public Service Commission (PSC) has recently approved the town proposal, forwarded on behalf of the town, by Municipal Electric and Gas Alliance (MEGA). There was a requirement added to include an additional public information session during the “opt out” period of 30 days. As it stands, bid documents are being developed as well as a planning for the final public information session. Once this process is complete, the town will go out to bid to Energy Service Companies (ESCO’s). The town anticipates bids will be back in the first quarter of the 2018. The town, should it move forward, will be ready to accept the appropriate bid in late spring. Please feel free to call my office with any questions. The LED streetlight project is
moving according to plan as well. We expect to receive approval from the PSC in March or April. This will be a win for the residents, the town, and the environment. The projected savings for the individual lighting districts and the townwide charges are approximately $65,000 dollars per year. Thank you to Senator Fred Akshar for helping the town secure funds and make the project very beneficial to the community. In early 2018, the town will solicit bids for the construction of the new Shared Facilities Building located at the Town Hall Campus. The highway garage and offices, the parks garage and offices, and the utilities offices will be co-located at this location. Records storage, a conference/meeting room, and break room will be included. There is a phase two of this project, which includes a fueling station, salt storage and other highway aggregate storage at the site. Completion of this phase will be addressed after hard costs are calculated for the new building. In December, the town went out to bid for six million dollar BAN (Bond Anticipation Note) to meet the requirements of the New York Rising Program. This is to cover the anticipated cost of the new building. Three million dollars will be reimbursed to the town and applied to the note. The town has on hand about one million to offset the cost. The old highway garage will be sold as well as the “pit” on Route 38. Those proceeds will applied to the project as well. As soon as the town has official numbers, I will release them to the public. The total cost of the both phases is anticipated to be around eight million dollars. The NY Rising program plus our other offsets will total about four and half million, leaving an approximate balance to fund of three and half million dollars. In the 2018 budget, we have already budgeted the interest payment on the BAN and still remained under the tax cap. The benefits of this project are many. First and foremost most of the town operations will be out of the flood plain. This will save on our flood insurance costs. It saves taxes across all levels because we will no longer need FEMA or state funding to rebuild these operations or damaged equipment from flooding. Offices will be consolidated on one campus which will provide better taxpayer services. This building replaces a highway garage that is reaching the end of its useful life. There will be 21st Century energy efficient operations saving on energy costs. These are just some of the positive outcomes this project provides. Space does not allow me to continue but 2018 will be a busy time here in the town. Next month I will follow up with any updates on our ongoing projects as well as couple of projects I am working to bring to Hickories Park. I would like to congratulate Cheri Grenier on completing her education classes and being appointed sole assessor for the town. Thank you to the department heads and employees for the hard work and vision that enables the Town of Owego to meet ever-changing needs that are required in today’s environment. Again, I want to thank you for your continued vote of confidence. I wish all of you a Happy, Healthy and Blessed New Year.