SARANAC LAKE — Harrietstown Town Council members have proposed a nearly $6.9 million preliminary budget for 2025 and will hold a public hearing on the spending and taxing plan at its board meeting on Thursday.

As it stands, the preliminary budget is well below the state-imposed tax cap, increases funding for several town initiatives and includes proposed raises for the town supervisor and council members.

A public hearing will be held at 5:15 p.m. on Nov. 7 in the downstairs town board room. It will also be streamed on Zoom at tinyurl.com/whuh8bhy by using the meeting ID 869 3597 6286 and the passcode 304349.

The town is proposing a $6,895,744 budget — a $164,630 or 2.45% increase from last year’s $6.7 million budget.

The preliminary budget was approved in a 4-1 vote last week, with Councilman Johnny Williams casting the “no” vote.

On Friday, he said he voted no because he felt it lacked clarity on the supervisor’s salary in the future.

He said he didn’t oppose the pay raise for Town Supervisor Jordanna Mallach, since she’s put in a lot of work for the town. But his concern was about if this position should be permanently paid more, even if future supervisors are not doing the same work.

Williams said he had asked to make this a temporary raise, but that was not done.

He said he would have felt different if this was a merit-based raise for Mallach rather than a position-based raise.

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What’s in the budget?

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Mallach said the amount the town pays the village for fire protection went up “significantly” after the village established a change in the towns’ contribution to the equipment reserve.

The town has put additional money in professional services for the airport as it addresses a PFAS contamination issue.

It also has additional money put into its assessment department as they work to update their tax equalization rate from 73% to 100% through reevaluation of all town properties, and money into the town laws to make the online zoning code available in a searchable format.

Similar to last year, there’s also additional money included for upgrade work on the town hall and the municipal park on John Munn Road.

The budget proposal includes a $2.8 million tax levy to fund town operations in the coming year. This levy is $85,310 higher than last year, an increase of 3.1%.

The state-imposed tax cap, which limits how much the town can increase its draw from taxpayers from year to year, is set at $2,851,531 for Harrietstown this year, or an allowable 3.6% increase. The proposed tax levy is $14,682 under the cap.

Mallach said the board could consider more additions to the budget after the public hearing, which could bring the tax levy closer to the cap.

“Now that the department heads have been through the budget planning process a few times with me and the budget officer, I think we are able to more accurately project expenses,” Mallach wrote in an email. “Additionally, I continue to strive to keep expenditures low and bring in grant money to cover costs of projects and reduce the burden on taxpayers.”

With this preliminary tax levy, the tax rate for someone living in the town — as well as the village of Saranac Lake — would be $2.01 per $1,000 of assessed value, not including taxes for any additional water or sewer districts. This is a 1-cent increase.

With this preliminary tax levy, the tax rate for someone living in the town, outside the village, would be $3.66 per $1,000 of assessed value on a home, not including taxes for any additional water or sewer districts. This is a 10-cent increase.

For a person with a home assessed at $300,000 in the town and in the village, that would be a base tax rate of $603 — $4.38 more than last year.

For a person with a home assessed at $300,000 in the town outside of the village, that would be a base tax rate of $1,098 — $31 more than last year.

The town is projecting $3.44 million in revenue, less than the $3.45 million in expected revenue for the current year.

To supplement the tax levy and other revenues, the town proposes pulling $623,600 from its reserves for 2025. The town pulled $528,600 from its reserves for this year’s budget.

The town has approximately $1.2 million in its general fund balances, with around $745,000 in other reserves for things like water, sewer, highway, fire protection and special grants.

The town-owned airport has almost $1.9 million in its unrestricted fund balance and around $276,000 in its restricted fund balance.

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Raises for elected officials

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The preliminary budget includes a $11,669 raise for the town supervisor and $211 raises for the town council members.

The supervisor’s position is currently $20,831 annually. The proposed salary would be for $32,500, a 56% increase.

The raises for the four councilmembers would take their annual salaries from from $7,022 each to $7,233 each. That comes to a total of $844 more than last year, cumulatively.

For the past two years, Mallach had requested an additional $20,000 in pay, but neither raises were finalized.

Mallach said the supervisor is responsible for the town’s 25 employees, the $6.9 million budget and — unique to Harrietstown — the airport.

“The investment in that position is important to the continued progress of our community,” Mallach wrote in an email. “I believe in representative government and want to ensure going forward beyond me or my time as Supervisor that any candidate wishing to run for the position can afford to do so.”

In past years, Mallach had said she requested the increase because she said she was putting in full-time hours at the town and saving the taxpayers a lot of money. A large enough contingent of taxpayers and council members who felt the supervisor job did not need to be a full-time job, and therefore did not need full-time pay, voiced their opposition.

The debate came down to whether the supervisor position was a full-time job or not. The board was divided at the time, though everyone said Mallach worked hard.

In the first year, some did not want to make the pay a permanent thing.

In the second year, the raise would have been a one-time thing for extra work at the town-owned airport.

After the public hearing and any budget adjustments at the meeting on Thursday, the board could vote on adopting the budget.

If they don’t that night, they’d need to schedule a special meeting for the vote, since the deadline to pass the budget is Nov. 20 and the board’s next regular meeting is Nov. 21.