Fire Commmission endorses budget with tax dip
Shelter Island Fire Commissioners adopted a budget for 2017 Monday night that will see a decrease in the tax rate even though spending is slated to increase by about $12,000.
The savings in taxes will come about because the tax base for next year is 8 percent larger than it is for the current year.
The budget for 2017 is $873,579 with $837,026 to be raised from property taxes. To support the current year’s budget, the fire district raised $827,094 in property taxes to support a spending plan of $861,592.
The tax rate in 2016 was 0.264 as compared with the expected rate for 2017 of 0.2475.
What this means to taxpayers is that if they have a home valued at $694,400, considered the median value, they will be paying $171.84 in 2017 or $11.48 less than they paid to support the current year’s spending plan.
For those with homes valued at $1 million, the tax bill will total $247.47 next year, a savings of $16.53 from the assessment for the current year.
Among increases in spending are insurance costs that will rise by $4,375; and wages for the district clerk/treasurer and LOSAP clerk by $996.
But there are also cuts in spending, including a decrease in the cost of gasoline and diesel fuel by $7,700.
Interest income is expected to increase from $800 in the current year to $3,000 next year.
Still pending is an application that will go to the Town Board for a special permit to build a second cellphone tower at the Manhanset Firehouse.
Attorneys for Elite Towers are still working on the paperwork that must be submitted to the Town Board. If the new tower is approved, the district would get an initial payment of $100,000 plus a 50-50 split of profits Elite Towers brings in by selling antenna space on the tower. The fire district would also be able to put an antenna on the tower without charge
That money would help to defray the cost of new radio equipment when the district eventually has to switch from low band to high band service, as required by the Federal Communications Commission.
