Editorial: Let the town budgeting process begin

Even though the Town Board last week talked about voting to allow the state’s 2-percent tax cap to be pierced — just as a precaution — Supervisor Jim Dougherty on Friday submitted a tentative budget proposal to the town clerk that would barely change total spending for 2013. Up about half a percent to $10,438,504 from $10,382,663 budgeted this year, it would not pierce that cap.

With all the cost increases the town faces, including pension liabilities, higher police salaries and health care costs, it’s not immediately clear how the numbers really will come together. A careful analysis over the coming weeks may yield some answers and perhaps some “dramatic” adjustments, Mr. Dougherty has commented.

Unlike many town supervisors on the East End, Mr. Dougherty does not submit a budget message with his proposal in which he defends and justifies his budget decision-making. He has often referred to the process as a collegial effort among all Town Board members that takes time to finalize. He acknowledges there are gaps and unknowns in his proposal that will be estimated by the whole board more precisely as a final budget takes shape over many hours of meetings with department heads during the next several weeks.

That approach, as peculiar as it may seem to anyone who has observed the budgeting process in other nearby towns, has seemed to work very well during Mr. Dougherty’s nearly five years in office. Spending increases have been low from year to year, far lower than they used to be before the 2008-2009 recession, when the surging real estate market boosted the value of the town’s taxable properties every year and higher budgets could be drafted with little impact on the tax rate.

Maybe the political process, in which elected officials fiercely take positions, defend them and vie for points with the electorate, doesn’t always work so well. It sure hasn’t worked on the national level lately. Unlike supervisors in other towns, Mr. Dougherty takes no umbrage when board members impose new numbers on a carefully wrought budget proposal and maybe his more collegial process works quite well in the end.

In larger jurisdictions, where there are complex political alliances, political considerations often lead legislatures to spend while executives cut. That division doesn’t exist here. Everyone is working toward the same end, it appears: doing what needs to be done without piling up bills with which to slam taxpayers.

According to the state timetable, the board has to present a preliminary budget proposal to the public by Thursday, November 8, after reviewing the supervisor’s plan and making any necessary changes. Then it must adopt a final budget by November 20.

If they pulled it off during an election year in 2011, they’ll do it in 2012, a year that everyone’s delighted is be free of campaign madness, at least locally.