2 weeks Ago
FREDONIA, N.Y. — With a budget deadline approaching village of Fredonia's board of trustees are proposing a 65 percent tax increase.
Trustee Jon Espersen says 70 percent of their budget is contractual, adding the board did not want to cut departments resources. RELATED: Dunkirk approves 84% property tax hike "The mayor's proposed budget was $1.6 million less than what the department heads requested, so there was really from the mayor's budget, to us, very little .
.. there was no wiggle room at all," Espersen said.
Trustee Nicole Siracuse said the Village of Fredonia employs a public works department, a police department, and a full-time firefighting paramedic crew. She believes a tax increase is long overdue. "We had to borrow $900,000 to cover our expenses to get us to the end of the fiscal year, so paying that back by the end of the first month of the new fiscal year is a major component of this tax increase," Siracuse said.
Several Fredonia residents attended the board of trustees meeting Monday. Many of them voiced their concerns over the tax hike. "You're driving me out of my home because I cant afford my taxes.
I can't afford my school taxes. I can't afford to pay my bills anymore, and then you turn around and look at all these raises everybody else has got. "This is unsustainable.
The way the budget looks to me, you're going to be borrowing another several hundred thousand dollars next year. Dealing with these departments, you can certainly cut this down to a very respectable level," Village of Fredonia resident Mark Twitchell said..
