SYRACUSE - For each of the Syracuse department budgets presented to the town council Tuesday, town manager Brian Redshaw provided his recommended alternative budget.

Only two of the budgets varied from the department heads' recommendations and Redshaw's recommendation - animal controll/code enforcement and the park department budgets.

The town council previously directed Redshaw to provide a balanced budget for 2005, and Redshaw said his recommendations did just that. If the council wants to make any adjustments, Redshaw said, the council will either have to find financial sources from elsewhere or make cuts from someplace.

Town marshal Tom Perzanowski recommended a 2005 budget of $57,368 for animal control, an increase of $1,426 from the 2004 budget. However, Redshaw recommended a budget of $24,973, a cut of 55.36 percent. Redshaw's budget includes reducing the humane/enforcement officer to 20 hours and subtracting all that employee's benefits. To keep the animal control officer, though, the council set the 2005 tentative budget at $54,000.

For 2005, the Syracuse Parks and Recreation Board and Parks Superintendent Michael Hixenbaugh wanted to add two employees. One would be a youth/special events coordinator and the other new full-time position would be a maintenance person for the community center. Both salaries were requested at $20,800. The total parks budget requested with the two new employees would be $313,673, an increase of $67,807 or 27.58 percent.

Redshaw's recommendation did not allow for the two new positions and benefits, but did increase part-time maintenance by approximately $6,000 to $18,000. Redshaw's recommended budget for the park department totaled $259,747.

With the tight budget, the council was against adding a youth/special events coordinator, but saw the need for a full-time maintenance person. The council agreed to increase the park budget for 2005 to an even $275,000 and left Hixenbaugh to figure out his budget again to include the full-time community center maintenance employee.

At their next regular meeting, the town council will vote on adopting the budgets.

All the budgets presented includes a 2 percent or more pay raise for full-time employees. The council, in an effort to keep the budget under the maximum tax levy, reduced all pay increases for 2005 to 1.8 percent.

Besides the cut in pay raises, the street department had two other cuts to its requested 2005 budget of $600,513. Tree maintenance was slashed by $5,000 and the curbs and sidewalks account was cut back to $6,000 from the requested $20,000.

The local roads and streets fund was OK'd at $30,000, and the law enforcement continuing education fund was tentatively approved at $5,000.

Perzanowski's police department budget request for 2005 totaled $776,829, including $30,000 for two new police cars to replace old vehicles. The 2004 budget included $15,000 for car replacement. To keep the animal control officer at full-time, Perzanowski told the council he would reduce the new equipment requested to $15,000 for 2005 and buy only one new car. The council accepted the idea.

Except for the salary increases being reduced, no changes were made to the dispatchers' 2005 requested budget of $228,052.

Also not changed except salary increases was the fire department's 2005 requested budget of $405,961; cumulative fire, $15,000; EMS, $220,029; cumulative park and recreation, $16,000; and cumulative capital development, $42,000. Both the cumulative funds for park and CCD are earmarked for lease payments for the Syracuse Community Center for the next 28 years. The cumulative capital improvement property tax fund is at $6,000 for 2005.

In the clerk's budget, the engineering, legal and architect account was reduced by another $5,000 by the council. Clerk-treasurer Julie Kline had already reduced the account from $20,000 in 2004 to $15,000 for 2005. The extra cut reduces it to $10,000. Before the changes, Kline requested $442,498.

As Redshaw has resigned from his post effective Sept. 1, the town manager's 2005 budget can change depending on who the council replaces him with and how they replace him. For budgeting purposes, however, instead of the town manager being paid 80 percent by the general fund, 10 percent by the wastewater department and 10 percent by the water department, the Syracuse town council agreed to pay the next town manager 60 percent out of the general fund and 20 percent each out of the water and wastewater departments. Kline said changing the payment method will save the general fund approximately $18,000.

With the changes made to the budgets, the total 2005 budget may be approximately more than $10,000 over the maximum levy. However, Kline reminded the council that because the state will make cuts, they wanted to go for the full maximum levy anyhow and she said she thought the budget would be fine.

In one other matter, the council agreed to begin the process to increase the cumulative fire tax rate from $0.0071 to $0.015 and reduce the cumulative storm sewer rate from $0.0277 to a flat $0.02. [[In-content Ad]]