Dryden Town Board eyes next year’s budget

While localities across the country struggle with pandemic-induced revenue loss, Dryden Town Supervisor Jason Leifer anticipates minimal damage to Dryden’s finances. Leifer and town officials are gearing up for budget discussions and votes in August.

Lefier attributed Dryden’s comparative economic stability during COVID-19 to the bare-bones nature of the town’s yearly budgets, small number of town staff and limited sources of revenue to begin with. Typical Dryden town budgets contain few extraneous costs.

“For us, ‘unnecessary’ is almost nothing,” Leifer said.

He added that most years, roughly two-thirds of the town budget is tied to the Dryden Highway Department, which operates on additional grant money, as well as funding from Consolidated Local Street and Highway Improvement through the New York State Department of Transportation.

The stability of Dryden’s finances are notable, as state budget officers have indicated to Dryden town officials that state funding to Dryden, under the state program known as Aid and Incentives to Municipalities, will likely be cut by 20% compared to previous years.

In fiscal year 2019, AIM funding to Dryden was $51,599, according to state budget documents. Over the last several years, AIM funding to Dryden, and most other localities in the state, has otherwise remained identical from state budget to state budget.

Leifer said that the town does not use significant AIM funding to begin with and that the primary consequence of this 20% reduction in AIM funding will be small cuts to the highway department.

Dryden Highway Department Superintendent Rick Young could not be reached for comment on the impact of COVID-19 financial woes on highway infrastructure projects.

Some expenditures, such as vehicle upgrades, could be postponed a year with minimal harm to the town’s operation, Leifer said.

Over the next few months, the Town Board plans to assess a variety of “open grants” – grants for which the town has applied but have not yet been approved by New York state or other organizations – in order to determine whether some capital projects can proceed on schedule.

“If you’re relying on state grants, you want to make sure they will reimburse you before you really dive into that project,” Leifer said.

In regard to New York state’s current spending concerns, Lefier added, “If the state has cash flow problems, then the town would have to float the money for a couple years.”

According to Leifer, around a decade ago, the town did exactly that – floated money to ensure the protection of a local farm until a grant was approved. But at that time, the town had a significantly larger balance.

Several current and upcoming projects in Dryden will use grant funding. The town’s municipal broadband installation, which aims to bring town-managed broadband internet to all Dryden residents, will rely heavily on grant money, as will various sewer, water and highway improvement projects.

Leifer said that the broadband internet installation, though leaning on the United States Department of Agriculture’s Reconnect grant for which the town applied, will almost certainly proceed as planned. The town will hear of its approval or rejection of the application to the Reconnect Grant in November 2020.

“That’s really going to be the challenge for the next year, ensuring that we have that because people want these projects done,” Leifer said.

But overall, Leifer was optimistic about the timeline of capital projects, saying that on the whole, any negative impact of COVID-19 to the town’s finances will minimally impact planned infrastructure development.

Construction of the Freese Road bridge is proceeding as planned, and another major infrastructure project, the Rail Trail – a bikeable and walkable commuter trail from Dryden to Ithaca – is still long enough away that it will not likely be affected by any revenue shortage, Leifer said.

Leifer was unsure of the timeline of water and sewer improvement projects in Varna, as those projects are entirely dependent on grants that town officials have yet to submit.

The recreation director seat in Dryden is open, and Leifer said that the board will consider leaving the position vacant. But, otherwise, the budget will not have to account for any out-of-the-ordinary personnel questions as a result of a revenue shortage.

Leifer also cited the town’s sales tax offset as a significant factor in staving off the kind of economic downturn seen in other localities. For many localities, the loss of sales taxes, as a result of drastically reduced commerce during COVID-19, is one of the primary causes of current economic distress.

The sales tax offset means that the county, which collects sales taxes, does not reimburse Dryden that money, as it does with most other localities. Instead, the county keeps the money from Dryden’s sales taxes, and that money goes toward reducing the county taxes of Dryden residents. Because the town does not directly receive revenue from sales taxes, the town’s plans for expenditures are not based on this money.

Aside from sales taxes, Dryden relies less on other sources of revenue, such as parking fees, compared to larger municipalities, which further softens the economic blow from the pandemic. The town will continue to acquire revenue from building fees from developers, Leifer said.

“It’s just going to look like a maintenance budget,” Leifer said. “Our situation is different than many of the other towns and even the county.”