About this column:
A series of articles taking you inside the 2011 budget development process.Cash-strapped and casting about for new ways to find some, Bedford is contemplating adjustments in the fees it charges for a wide range of municipal services. Virtually every town function—from building permits and subdivision site plans to parking stickers and police alarms—is on the table, with an eye to increasing the fee or imposing one for the first time. The search is part of a broad effort to offset a dramatic drop in revenue and the inevitable impact that falloff has on the property tax levy. In the simple math of the budget process, revenue is the "other" source of cash used to pay …
Bedford's property tax rate would rise 4.4 percent under a tentative 2011 budget filed today with Town Clerk Lisbeth Fumagalli. While the $24.9 million budget calls for spending less than the town did this year, it increases the tax rate from $28.85 for each $1,000 of assessed value to $29.91/$1,000. The increase in the property tax levy was ascribed to sharp falloffs in other revenue sources, especially the mortgage transfer tax, which has been decimated by the upheaval in the nation's housing market. Under state law, Westchester towns were required to file "tentative" budgets—essentially …
It's a situation familiar to many American families: everything costs more while the money coming in, for any number of reasons, just isn't what it used to be. Bedford's official family confronted that unhappy calculus this week, gathering around a town hall table to identify every dime and dollar they could reasonably pare from their spending or coax into a revenue stream. The 14 officials—Supervisor Lee V.A. Roberts, the four councilmen and nine department heads—worked deep into the evening examining a series of separate belt-tightening scenarios. Comptroller Ed Ritter had asked each …
