Town Board Workshop

About a minute, 1 minute to go. It's 659 for

Hello. Yep. Um,

yeah. Is that what you're wait for?

Things say 659 here. Okay,

we'll try to be prompt. Paul, are you ready?

I'm ready.

You're ready?

I was always ready.

Where's Jennifer?

Jennifer is under the weather.

She just text me a few minutes ago and said

not going to handle gone.

Based on the way she

Oh, there he is.

Okay.

He was there. Now he's there.

Got

Oh, no. The pillar's not an excuse for me. I can see him now. Does that mean we're not going to vote on the budget?

Sure, we are.

Okay.

Well, I could have sworn in the past you wanted to have everybody here to do that.

I that Let's see what happens.

Okay. Well, it is 7 o'clock and I want to welcome everybody to the uh October 16th, 2025 Webster Town Board Workshop. Uh tonight we only have one agenda item, but it's a pretty big one. Uh Paul Adams, our the town finance director, is going to do a presentation uh on the proposed 2026 town budget. Um and then at our 7:30 town board meeting tonight, uh we have a public hearing uh on that budget and potentially tonight a uh town board vote on approving the final 2026 budget. So um budget night. So with that being said, Paul, I'm going to hand the baton to you.

Thank you, Tom. Uh we're going to start by taking a look at a high level comparison of 2026 to 2025. Uh there are three main components. The operating funds which are made up of the highway and the uh the general fund. Uh there's the sewer fund which is a pretty large deal. So that one is called out. And there's also special districts and other funds which is made up of about eight other special districts and other funds such as the library and debt service. So gross expenditures are up year to year about 5.5 million. Uh they came in at just over 53 million. So it's actually an 11.6% increase. But uh likewise gross revenues at about 47 million are up about 3.5 million. Uh the difference we made up with appropriated fund balance. We appropriated an additional 2 million in 2026 to balance out the budget. And to look at the expense uh uh summary, uh the three largest items uh which make up the largest sum are the employee compensation, the employee benefits, and the retiree

employee benefits. Um in total, it's up about $2 million or about 8% year-toear. Uh the other major categories, uh capital, contractual, and debt service are also up substantially. Um and then we also have interfund transfers of about 4.9 million. Uh that those are just monies that are being transferred from one fund to another. So it just kind of grosses up the expense and the revenues. When you get into the expense details, um as I mentioned, employee compensation is up. It's up about 678,000, which is about 4%. Um it includes the union driven contractual increases and uh two new positions. Uh the employee benefits are also up substantially uh due to health insurance costs and we noticed an increase in the retirement contributions. Uh both the base salaries and the contribution rates uh have been up substantially over the past couple of years. Then on the retirement side, the retirees health insurance uh spiked substantially at the beginning of 2025.

So year to year, that was not baked into the 25 budget. So we're showing a pretty big increase year-toear in that category. Uh the contractual purchases, uh actually I skipped capital. The capital purchases include about 1.2 2 million of new highway equipment and about 660,000 of sewer collection system upgrades. Uh on the contractual purchases include about 560,000 for insurance, 416,000 for wastewater treatment chemicals. We've seen those uh the cost of those chemicals spike rather substantially over the past couple years as well. uh 3 360 360,000 for sludge hauling, 450,000 for chips, road materials. Uh that's the consolidated highway improvement program. Uh we actually get reimbured for those funds and there's about a million dollars for gas and electric utility costs which is um which is up about 12%. And some of that's driven by that wastewater treatment plant since we're going to be handling uh quite a bit more flow in 2026. Uh that drives the

electricity costs up and the gas costs. Debt service is also increased. Uh we we have some major capital projects going on. Uh we borrowed in August for the Sandbar Park, the wastewater treatment plant phase two project and the highway building. So debt service is actually up about 26% or about 1.5 million yeartoyear. Uh next slide is capital projects and debt. Basically it shows a comparison. Uh just to note these figures I've used are as of August 31st. Um at the end of August uh the town did borrow a ban and a serial bond. Uh and the proceeds are going to be used uh throughout the ensuing 12 months. So for the various capital projects, the town has authorized 132 million via bond resolutions. Um but we'll never actually borrow this amount because we've received grant proceeds which net the total amount down and uh some of the expenditures on the projects are actually coming in better than expected. So the gross amount borrowed to date

uh is about 102 million but the projected or the project life to date net cost at the end of August was about 74 million. So it's actually only running at about 56% of the amount that we're authorized to borrow. Uh on the revenue side, the property taxes and sewer charges are up about 645,000, which is up about 2.9%. Uh the next five categories are kind of the big five. um Monro County sales tax, sewer charges and entrance fees, recreation programs and fitness memberships, mortgage tax, and New York State Monro County highway contracts. Uh those amounts total just under 15 million. Uh so as you can see, the town does receive quite a bit of additional revenue outside of the property tax. So o overall revenue is up about 3.5 million. Uh just getting into the details. Uh as I said right about a 2.9% increase for

property tax and sewer charges. U it is under the New York state tax cap. Uh Monro County sales tax I budgeted that flat yeartoyear at 6.7 million. Um, this year I'm allocating 2.5 million to the general fund, 800,000 to the general parttown fund, and 3.4 million to the highway part fund. Um, I'm able to allocate to the highway or to the general townwide fund because we've actually reduced the tax liability to zero in the part town funds. At some point that will have to flip back, but um we're in a good position to do it currently. Uh the sewer charges and entrance fees are up also substantially at 5.3 million. It's actually an increase of about 55%. And that's mainly due to the expectation of Coca-Cola fair coming online in January of 2026. Uh we're also expecting increased revenue of about 1.3 million from high strength organic waste uh which is also driven some of that is also driven by fair life

and other customers which we're expecting to uh have in place once the sewer plan is complete. uh sewer debt reimbursement. There's 825,000 uh which is coming in from Fair Life. Uh we have a deal with them where they reimburse us 96% of the debt service that we incurred in regard to the conveyance pipe project. We've already they already made the first payment in July of 25 and the second payment would be due in July of 26. And that's a nine-year uh Siri bond issue. Uh building permit and engineering fees, we're actually expecting those to drop year to year by about 410,000 uh back in 2023. Fair Life paid us about 1.5 million uh which was recognized as revenue uh between 23 and 25 gradually as their project progressed. So there's no revenues that will be recognized in 26 in regard to the fair life project on the building and engineering for use side of things. And then recreation

programs uh have continued to grow. Uh Chris Bo has done a nice job growing those programs. So with the growth there's additional revenues. And on the sewer department side, basically the sewer department is in business. Um, as I said, they're going to be taking on customers to take in high strength organic waste, which which increases revenue. Uh, the flow from Fair Life increases revenue substantially as they have to pay us one .edu EU charge for every 60,000 gallons that flows to our plant. Um so these three categories including the debt reimbursement are actually up about $2 million year to year. So even though the debt service cost has increased as you can see from 24 to 25 and increased about $2.5 million our business revenue you know has actually increased almost $5 million. There's actually a $2.5 million delta uh over the past three years and uh we actually think the

revenue u estimates for 2026 are on the conservative side. So it should be good going forward. Uh on the appropriated fund balance side, the town does have a fund balance policy um where we try to keep the fund balance the unreserved fund balance within 50 to 50% of actual expenditures uh for the four operating funds. So we've actually got uh uh two funds that are actually over the limit. uh the general parttown fund and the highway part town fund are well over the limit. So we've actually put together a multi-year plan uh to get those within the range and that that entitles us or allows us to use a considerable amount of fund balance to not only balance the budget but to get things back in line. So for the year, we're actually appropriating just over $6 million in total. The property tax rates are coming in at $5.52. That's both for a house located outside the village and a house within the

village. So it's the same rate. So year to year, the tax rate is up about 13 cents or about 2.4%. Um but in the past five years uh we're only up about 4.2%. So things things are going pretty well. On the sewer rate side we're at 25843. Last year we were at 25273. So we have a slight increase. Um now there was a shift between on and m and capital charge and that's because on the on and m side as I said we're in business now there's a lot more business revenue being recognized on on the on and m side. So it's actually driving down the O andM rate and the capital charge rate is going up because there's associated debt service with the capital project which has helped us create the revenue. So it's a win-win. Uh historically uh the sewer system infrastructure needs have been underfunded. Uh in the 20-year period between 1998 and 2018 the rate stayed within like 162 to $168.

Now we're at 258. That's allowing us to put away some funds for the future. We're actually uh contributing $400,000 this year to the sewer capital reserve. In 2025, we did 540,000. So it'll help us uh curtail some of the cost down the road long as we can continue to fund that capital reserve. So since 23, the rate is up about $26 or about 11.4%. So it's not too bad for a three-year look at it. So the average tax bill in Webster, uh, it's based on an assessed value of $178,000. As you may or may not know, we have a very low equalization rate. Our equalization rate is currently 048. So that means that house would have a market value of about 370,000. Um if it was connected to the sewer system, which most houses are the total bill for 26 to be $1,240 and 25 it was $1,212. So it's about a 20 almost $29 increase

year-toear. It's about 2.4% increase. So overall, we're, as I mentioned, we're under the tax cap. Uh, the last time the town broke the tax cap, we've only broken it once, was in 2016. So, it's now been 10 years since the cap's been broken. So, so that's pretty much the summary. If you have any questions or comments at this point, feel free. John,

no.

Jenny,

thank you. Paul,

Patty,

I I have no questions, but Paul, I want to thank you for your for your financial wizardry and putting all this together. you did a great job on it making it um understandable for everyone including the audience and whoever might be listening to this. I did make a note somewhere but I really think you covered it and talked about the increase in costs of the sewer department um between um utility costs and chemical costs going up but clearly you showed that that is offset by revenue. Yeah, obviously when you're when you treat additional flow, fair life may send as much as 2 million gallons a day. Uh, which is like a I think we were doing on the average about 3 million. Isn't that correct, Rick? So, we're going to go from 3 million to 5 million.

That's a lot of flow. So, that takes more chemicals,

um, more utilities.

Yes.

And everything else,

right? and and everything that's been done down there with the new project also and you did mention offers the opportunity for additional revenue beyond fair life.

Yeah. Yeah. It's going to drive a lot of additional revenue.

Thank you.

Yeah. Since uh Fair Life is not yet operating, we built in revenue estimates in 26, but we were conservative with them because Right.

we haven't seen the proof yet.

Right. Right. Yeah, there was also some baked into the uh 25 budget, but um it was a very low amount. So, it's a good thing we were conservative because they we thought at this point they'd be live, but they're not quite there yet. They've sent some flow, but mainly on a test basis,

right? But just the fact that some flow is being sent, uh it certainly looks like they're going to meet that January deadline.

Yeah. This is awesome. We are ahead of schedule. Um, and like I said at the beginning, this is budget night. It's kind of a trifecta. We have the presentation along with any Q&A and discussion of the board members. And during a town board workshop, for people that are new to this process, um, there isn't really a forum for the public to take the podium during the town board workshop. Now, I said it's a trifecta tonight. When we hit 7:30 and we start the regular town board meeting, uh we will have the public hearing on the proposed 2026 budget and then anybody who's in the audience who would like to take the podium uh they can take the podium to dis to discuss the budget uh at that time. Um, and then the third thing tonight would be that the town board uh may vote on adopting the 2026 budget. I will say this for anybody who is new to this, the budget process starts in May. Uh, it it is it it is a six-month

process. Um it is one that um I guess the best way to explain it um well let me first say that I saw some people trying to take notes from the screen on the 13 pages that Paul just presented. This is is it yet Bridget up uploaded to the town board website? Um I'm sorry the town website and social media platforms for anybody to to pull down. Um, so we don't have handouts for people on this, but I thought it important to hand out the one pager that I gave out to people that are here and I will also hand this out uh at 7:30 for any new people that show up uh for the the public hearing. This one pager um is something that back on July 31st and August 7th at the two town board budget workshops that are part of this six-month process. In those two workshops, the town department heads take that podium and present their proposed budget. And I handed this out to the attendees at that time because I wanted them to have just a one-page laymanter term explanation really of what I consider the key factors in a

budget. Now, as you might have just noticed, and I Paul Adams is the best finance director in Monroe County, 19 towns. Hands down, he is the best. Now, the best is a subjective term.

Let me tell you why I can make that an objective term. because I am part of the Monroe County Supervisors Association and they have started to have their finance directors reach out to him to get his opinion on how to handle certain things. That to me is tangible proof that the other town finance directors recognize him as a subject matter expert. Now, with that being said, I was a CPA at one time. He is a CPA. Correct.

I am. We can talk the same language, but for non-accountants, what Paul just went over on 13 pages might have been a little uh, you know, it's a lot. Okay, there was a lot that was just presented and I appreciate that and that's why I thought important to hand out this one pager really has some like I said just here's that shows the different factors on the last seven years you heard Paul say and I will not make this meeting go beyond 7:25 we will be done at 7:25 so we can start the meeting uh the regular board meeting at 7:30. If you get the Webster Herald, one of the items on the page that I handed out was the total tax bill, including sewer edu. I wanted to give people that seven years across the bottom line. So much talk and rhetoric about town taxes, taxes, this and that. At the end of the day, the average house in Webster in 2020 had $1,14 as their town tax bill. In this proposed budget, we're at 1241. That's up $127 over seven years.

And we've done that in a manner that when you look at the the bottom, the last line of this page right here, the fund balance, the savings account of the town has gone from 16 million8 at the end of 2020 to over $33 million. This is what I call a good problem, but it's a problem because the more we have that in the savings account, that means we are overt taxing our our real estate uh holders. That's just a fact. So, we never had a fund balance policy. You it was left to the town board every year to go, what should we do? That's a bad policy because you could have five town board members that are attorneys. Nothing personal. You could have five town board members that are accountants. You could have five town board members that are uh you know, house husbands, house wives. The the the difference in the skill level of the town board members with no guide rails of millions of dollars, not a good policy. That gentleman over there went down to the Association of Towns meeting in 2021. Came back, worked with the state controllers's office in best practices, built a fund balance policy for the town

of Webster that he described earlier. You got to keep these funds between 15% and 50%. You don't want to deplete them because it would be very easy for certain election years and stuff, hey, let's not raise the taxes. Let's just dump all the money out of the savings account and gladhand our residents. Great. Until all of a sudden we need that money. On the same token, if we keep building it up, it means that we're taxing this money and not spending it and it's building the savings account. So, you can't have that. The reality is we're a very conservative town on budgeting. We were long before I was the supervisor here. We conservatively budget and then at the end of the year that we budgeted for it, we end up doing more revenues than we budgeted and we have less expenses than we budgeted. Translation, we keep growing our savings account. Even though we are trying everything in our power under our own fund balance policy to get rid of that savings account, which every dollar of that savings account, appropriated fund balance that we put into the budget is one less dollar that we tax the citizens. And even as we continue to do that, we seem to not be able to get rid of this fund balance. This is a good problem, but it's a

problem. And I feel very, very good about the fact that since I'm going to be out of here in two and a half months, and in about five months, the next supervisor in town board is going to have to start the 2027 budget process, they are going to be left with a lot of money in the coffers. So we should be able to as years co go on continue to keep a very stable tax rate if we follow our fund balance policy and if we continue the practice that was started long before I was supervisor to be very conservative in budgeting. So, with that said, I think it's right around 27:25. That concludes the workshop portion of tonight's meeting, and we will shut down the cameras, and we will be back in five minutes to start the regular town board meeting. Thank you everybody.