SARANAC LAKE — The village will hold a meeting on Monday to vote on its proposed $6.3 million budget and resume discussions of a pending short-term vacation rental law.

Monday is the state deadline for the the board to pass a budget.

The budget was expected to be voted on at a meeting last Monday, but village resident David Lynch pointed out that 29 pages from the budget were missing from the files uploaded to the village website for the public to view ahead of that meeting.

In the two PDFs it took to upload the whole thing, several pages got lost in the middle. Lynch said the public should have the ability to look at these pages before the budget is passed, and the board agreed.

According to the state Comptroller’s Office, there are no repercussions for the village missing the budget deadline by a few days. The budget can be read in two parts at https://bit.ly/3LcLykY and https://bit.ly/422ViVs.

The meeting on Monday will be held at 5:30 p.m. in the village board room.

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The budget

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The final version of the budget the board will vote on proposes the village spend $6.3 million in the coming year, slightly more than the initial budget and $86,523 more than this past fiscal year. The village plans to levy $4,336,972 in taxes from taxpayers in the coming year to find the spending plan.

Village Treasurer Bachana Tsiklauri said the proposed levy increase is right at the maximum dollar amount the state would allow the village to raise the levy without the village board having to vote to override the tax cap. With the state-imposed tax cap on the village and village assessments rising slightly this year, he said the cap is at 2.99% this year.

The village is also proposing pulling $490,378 from the village’s reserves, around $77,000 more than the initial budget. The village has an unreserved general fund balance of $3.43 million.

created a fire truck and sidewalk reserve funds on Monday

The tentative budget predicts $1.75 million in revenues in the coming year, a bit over $200,000 more than the current year after several changes in the way the village earns interest on money it has in the bank and how it meters the hydroelectric power created at the dam it owns.

The village accepted public comment on the budget from April 13 to 24. No one from the public spoke on the budget at meetings on April 13 and 24 and village Clerk Amanda Hopf said on Wednesday that she had not received any comments by email or letter.

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Tax rate

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Residents who live in the Harrietstown part of Saranac Lake would pay $13.48 per $1,000 of assessed property value under the proposed budget, a $0.34 — or 2.59% — increase per $1,000 from the current fiscal year.

Residents in the North Elba and St. Armand parts of Saranac Lake would pay $11.32 per $1,000 of assessed property value, a $0.50 — or 4.25% — decrease per $1,000.

Someone who owns a $300,000 house in the Harrietstown part of Saranac Lake would pay $4,043.22 in village taxes, $101.97 more than last year.

Someone who owns a $300,000 house in the North Elba or St. Armand part of Saranac Lake would pay $3,396.30 in village taxes, $150.84 less than last year.

The village sits inside three towns. The tax rates in each town are different because each town assesses properties differently. To ensure that each town’s taxpayers pay their fair share in taxes, the state has something called an equalization rate, which equalizes each towns’ assessments to full market value to make up for any differences in how properties are assessed. Harrietstown has an equalization rate of 84% because it is under-assessed, according to the state. North Elba and St. Armand are assessed at 100%.

Tsiklauri said that, overall, village employee wages are up 7 to 8%. The police department’s wages are up 10% because of contractual increases and overtime, he added.

Wages for the mayor and trustees are staying the same — $5,000 for each trustee, a total of $20,000 for the four-member board, and $10,000 for the mayor.

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STR work session

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The board is also restarting its work on draft STR regulations after talks stalling during budget season. The village board is preparing for a potential public hearing on the law in the near future. But first, the five board members need to hammer out the final draft of the law and make changes to answer questions from local boards.

In February, the board voted to submit its draft law for review by other local boards after working on it for many months, which included many hours of conversation in public meetings.

The village Development Board has looked over and marked up the law with its own suggestions and changes. Williams said on Wednesday it has also been sent to the Essex County Planning Board.

The village’s draft STR law would send every STR permit — whether for a new unit or a preexisting one — to the development board, which would issue applicants a special use permit, which would require a public hearing.

The law would cap the number of STRs permitted in the village, place restrictions on who could apply for new permits and set ground rules for running STRs.

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CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article incorrectly omitted a decimal point in the first reference for the size of the village’s proposed budget. The budget proposed is at $6.3 million, not $63 million. The Enterprise regrets the error.