Preliminary Richmondville Budget Has 198 Tax Increase

RICHMONDVILLE — Some careful adjusting and moving around of some line items has resulted in a preliminary 2025 Town of Richmondville budget with a property tax increase of 1.98 percent, just below the 2 percent cap.

The town board will vote on adopting the budget during a Nov. 7 public hearing starting at 6 p.m. at the town municipal building, just off Podpadic Road.

Town Supervisor Jeffrey Haslun and council members Todd Sperbeck, Eric Haslun, George Horning and Harry Rode ironed out the tentative budget for next year during a work session meeting on Oct. 17. It featured, at times, some rather edgy back and forth between board members and long-time town clerk/tax collector Maggie Smith on her request for a salary increase upping her yearly pay to $50,000, almost $3,000 more than board members had originally put in the 2025 tentative budget.

In the end, the board whittled away at some other line items and gave Smith what she requested. She had pleaded her case before that, saying several times during the meeting that she was underpaid and underappreciated relative to what she does for the town.

"I'm low paid compared to a lot of other clerks," Smith said earlier in the Oct. 17 meeting. "I do a lot of things that aren't really part of my job. I go above and beyond and it does not show up equitably. There comes a time I can only take so much underappreciation."

Jeffrey Haslun and other board members assured Smith they do appreciate her work and that any reluctance to grant her salary request was only because of trying to meet a lot of budget needs amid constantly rising costs in just about every area.

"I thank you every time I ask you to do something," Haslun told Smith. Rode said it was worth taking away from some other areas to pay Smith what she felt she deserved. Those comments from Rode came despite that fact that he is a member of the Richmondville Volunteer Emergency Squad and Smith's request was part of the reason the town could not increase its contribution to the squad from the current $11,500 to the requested $20,000 for 2025.

Squad President Steven Swenson made that request via letter to the town and admitted during the Oct. 17 meeting the request came rather late. He added he understood if the request could not be granted for next year but asked the board to seriously consider upping the town's contribution in future years.

During the meeting, Swenson said it's become increasingly difficult to operate the all-volunteer squad in today's climate of increasing costs and decreasing volunteerism. The amount of training required for volunteer Emergency Medical Technicians makes it even harder to find people willing to do the job, Jeffrey Haslun added.

"We might have to hire a (paid) EMT, at least for during daytime hours," Swenson said during the Oct. 17 meeting.

During the meeting, the board unanimously voted to eliminate a provision in next year's contract with the squad that had made two barrel drives a year mandatory. Barrel drives are when squad members collect money in barrels or buckets from motorists stopped at intersections.

Swenson said the drives are good money raisers and that the squad fully intended to continue doing them. However, the fact they were being made mandatory as part of the contract was affecting squad morale, he added.

In brief remarks made after leaving the meeting, Swenson emphasized the town board has always been very supportive of the squad.

Smith expressed her gratitude to the board after her salary increase request had been granted.

"Thank you so much, I sure do appreciate it," she said.

"This was a tough budget, and they are only going to get tougher," Jeffrey Haslun concluded at the end of the meeting.