Madison Finance Board Approves Interim Spending Plan

With no approved town budget in place, the Board of Finance Monday night approved a temporary $4.9 million spending plan for the first quarter of the next fiscal year and set an interim tax rate of

19.3 mills. The new fiscal year begins July 1 and the town needs to generate revenue while

it works to craft a budget voters will accept.

The board also expects to set July 27 as the date for the next referendum. It will be the third referendum on the town's budget for 2010-2011. The Board of Education budget was approved at the previous referendum.

Monday's decision allows Tax Collector Alma Carroll "just enough time," she said, to issue real estate tax bills based on the interim tax rate. The bills generated and mailed to property owners will be six-month bills only, she explained, to be paid in one installment. Customarily real estate tax bills are mailed in July, and are computed as two installments-one payment due July 1 and the second due Jan. 1.

In this case, Carroll said, her office will issue tax bills for real estate only and none will reflect adjustments such as those computed for senior tax relief, state tax relief, firemen's benefits, or others. Once a town budget is approved at referendum and a permanent annual tax rate set, Carroll's office will issue new tax bills in January that will reflect all necessary adjustments, such as tax relief programs. The January bills will also be mailed for motor vehicle taxes, personal property taxes, and business taxes.

The 90-day spending plan was based on the town charter's requirements that any temporary budget not exceed the 2009-2010 budget spending levels and on "a series of assumptions" going forward, Finance Board Chair Helen Burland said.

During the first quarter of the new fiscal year, the finance board agreed, no new monies will be placed in reserve accounts, although existing reserve funds can be spent. All required payments, such as utility bills, will be made. The personnel reductions that were included in the earlier budget recommendations will be assumed. Salary increases for non-union employees will be frozen, as will funds within department budgets for professional development.

The recently approved contract with the town's police officers will be honored, providing them with a 2.25 percent wage increase on July 1. The town's contribution to Scranton Library will be reduced by five percent, approximately $60,000, and the town's contribution to the visiting nurses and the ambulance association will remain flat. In addition, all long term capital maintenance projects scheduled for the first quarter of the new fiscal year are frozen. No funds are allotted to them under this temporary spending plan.