Staffing and Benefits Talks May Hold Up Patterson’s Budget Passage
During the public hearing on the Town of Patterson’s 2013 preliminary budget held on Wednesday, Oct. 10 Supervisor Mike Griffin admitted that certain variables may keep the town board from finalizing a budget until November.
The town board is scheduled to vote on the budget’s passage on Oct. 24, but a look at benefits for the part-time elected officials, as well as staffing in the highway department, may force the board to hold off adopting a final budget until after the November general elections. The next scheduled meeting after Oct. 24 is Nov. 14.
“We actually have until Nov. 20 to finalize the budget,” Griffin said during the hearing.
The town is considering whether to stop offering health benefits for members of the town board and its town justices; both of which are considered part-time positions.
Currently town board members and town justices are eligible for health insurance that the town contributes toward or an ‘in lieu of’ payment if he or she decides not to participate in the town’s insurance plan.
The board is still discussing whether to eliminate the health insurance benefit outright for all part-time elected officials in 2013. Consensus has determined that insurance will no longer be offered for town board members as of 2014. No agreement has been made for the town justices.
The health insurance for the town board in 2013 was a variable that Griffin said could take the budget process beyond the previously scheduled adoption date.
Additionally, the ongoing CSEA contract negotiations for the highway and sanitation department workers needed to be worked out prior to the adoption of the 2013 budget.
In Griffin’s proposed budget, one highway department position is eliminated. A study is in the works to determine if workers in the sanitation department might be able to help fill the void of that potentially vacated position. The sanitation department, according to Griffin, is in the midst of implementing a log keeping system that the highway department already has in place that would better establish how workers are being used.
“We asked [the sanitation department] to fill it out for the next 30 days,” Griffin said.
The preliminary $6,641,789 town-wide budget for 2013 has an estimated one percent tax levy increase over the 2012 budget. With savings found through the assessor’s office the town included cost of living increases to its full-time, general fund employees and a dollar-an-hour raise for four part-time employees who work at the Patterson Recreation center.
Adam has worked in the local news industry for the past two decades in Westchester County and the broader Hudson Valley. Read more from Adam’s author bio here.
