Franklin County legislators unanimously adopted a $105 million budget for 2020 on Nov. 21, which was brought under the tax cap through the allocation of more than $1 million from the county’s healthy fund balance, consolidating funding to support several new state mandates and cutting two deputy positions from the sheriff’s department.

The $105,130,783 budget increases the tax levy 1.76%, $485 under this year’s tax cap, according to Franklin County Treasurer Frances Perry. Legislators said several unfunded state mandates issued this year make bringing the budget under the tax cap more difficult.

“It was originally at the tax cap,” county Manager Donna Kissane said.

To bring it under, the group working on the budget took $1.25 million from the county fund balance, a reserve set aside for situations like this. At the end of 2018, the county fund balance was $7,043,363, leaving $5,793,363 after this budget’s reduction. The county’s fund balance has been built up since 2015 when it was $1.8 million.

Kissane also said she is telling county departments to not “stock up” with non-essential purchases this year.

“A few weeks ago I put a memo out for no unnecessary purchases, because I don’t want to just deplete budgets just to spend them,” Kissane said.

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Down two deputies

Kissane said two deputy positions were eliminated from the sheriff’s department. Tupper Lake Mayor Paul Maroun said the decision over which positions were cut is based on seniority and the deputies who had been hired the shortest amount of time were eliminated.

Tax rate equalization table

The average tax rate per $1,000 of a property’s assessed value is $4.99 countywide.

Each town’s rate is determined by an equalization table. This table shows Tupper Lake contributing 12.25% of the tax levy at a tax rate per $1,000 of a property’s assessed value of $4.64, down from $4.86 in 2019. Harrietstown contributes the most, 22.51%, at a tax rate per $1,000 of a property’s assessed value of $4.64, down from $4.89 in 2019.

Most of these tax rates are within the $4 to $5 range, with one outlier being the town of Constable, with a tax rate of $41. That is because while most towns are assessed at 100% value, or close, Constable is assessed at 11.35% value. This means that a revaluation of the town has not been conducted in a while and a $100,000 home is actually being assessed at $10,000, so the table corrects this. Nine of the county’s 19 towns are assessed at full value.