By CRAIG FREILICH

POTSDAM – The village Board of Trustees has set April 5 at 6:30 p.m. for the public hearing on its budget for 2018-19, which at the moment stands at $10,550,243, but that could easily go higher.

That preliminary figure in the “first run” is less than one percent higher than last year’s overall budget, but Village Administrator Greg Thompson cautions that there are “expenses not in there yet, things that will be added,” before another attempt at trimming is complete.

He said nonetheless that he is “very proud” of the work that Village Clerk/Treasurer Lori Queor and department heads have put in to present “a very conservative” spending plan.

Preliminary general fund appropriations stand at $6,082,507 compared with $6,004,416 in the current budget, an increase of $78,091 or 1.3 percent. Projected general fund revenues beyond what is expected from property taxes is up $578.

The water fund for the next fiscal year is up a mere 0.02 percent, at $1,630,500 or $350 more than the $1,630,150 in the current budget.

Sewer fund appropriations are down $5,488 from $1,709,375 in the 2017-18 budget to $1,703,887 for the 2018-19 plan, a decrease of 0.32 percent.

Expected hydroelectric fund appropriations are up one-tenth of one percent; recreation appropriations are expected to be down 0.365 percent.

The total tax levy for 2018-19 is provisionally at $7,075,144 which is $77,513 more than the $6,997,631 that was expected at the start of the current fiscal year on June 1, 2017. That’s a difference of a little more than 1 percent.

The board agreed to also set date of April 5 at 6:50 p.m., just after the budget hearing, for a public hearing on revising the tax cap override provision in local law. This hearing is described as an annual pro-forma hearing in case the budget ends up with an increase in the tax levy above the state-imposed limit of two percent, which is not expected to be reached in the final budget. In the preliminary plan, it stands at 1.8 percent.