BY ANDY GARDNER

North Country This Week

MASSENA -- Village trustees have adopted a 2020-2021 budget that calls for a 1.69% tax levy increase and increases the tax rate by 20 cents per $1,000 of assessed value. The spending plan also creates a village administrator position and starts the process of dissolving the village court.

The changes mean the owner of a $100,000 property will pay $20 more on their new tax bill.

The administrator and court changes were recommended in a recent local government efficiency study.

The administrator will be the current village clerk, Monique Chatland. They will hire a part-time deputy clerk to take over some of her current duties, Mayor Tim Currier said. His budget slideshow says that will save the village just under $20,000.

Chatland’s new job will be “really charging her with the responsibility of implementing that (local government efficiency) study, seeing what’s left,” the mayor said. “It would benefit all of us.”

Dissolving the village court won’t happen for a couple of years, but Currier anticipates they “could be looking at a $60,000 to $80,000 savings.”

State law won’t allow them to merge the courts, so they have to wait until the end of the current justice’s term, which is in 2022.

“Merging the town and village court really isn’t possible … the likely best path forward would be to dissolve the village court completely and have the two townships (Massena and Louisville) deal with it,” he said. “I think in fairness to everyone involved, I would like to sit the parties down, judges, court employees.”

The budget will reduce the village’s contribution to two non-governmental entities, the Massena Chamber of Commerce and Massena Business Development Corporation.

Currier said he’s reducing their funding because the Town of Massena also funds them.

“As we fund the chamber and the town funds the chamber, in my view, somebody that is a village resident is actually funding the chamber twice,” Currier said. “The cuts that I’ve recommended and now adopted are no relationship with what we have to the things they’re doing … I believe we have to pull back the village and focus on community development and infrastructure.”

He said they are also worrying about what will happen to the local financial picture over the next decade as expenses go up and they run out of areas to cut.

“Our expenses continue to go up. I don’t see anything changing that, expenses going up, revenues not keeping pace. I don’t know what we’re going to do the next five or 10 years,” he said. “All I find myself doing when I present you with a budget is cut equipment that’s needed.”

The $15,913,615 2020-21 spending blueprint represents a 3.7% decrease in spending from last year’s. They will use $250,000 from their fund balance to balance the budget.