To learn more about Town of Manlius budget, visit concernedmanliusresidents.com
Here are my comments on the town’s 2025 budget: (Video posted below, 3 people speak, recommend watching board’s response.)
I do not support the increases in the 2025 town budget. I also did not support and did not vote on the final 2024 budget last year as I did not support the 9% increase in expenses. To have to come before the board this year to express my opposition to an even larger increase after last year’s is exhausting. This year’s preliminary budget looks to increase expenses by an additional 10% and this only includes the 4 funds the town board has complete control over. The total tax levy increases by over 14% when you include special districts.
The increases proposed in the 2025 budget are not one-time expenses, these are annual costs. You are expanding town government at an unsustainable rate. Adding positions that we can not afford. Our neighboring municipalities are not seeing these same increases as the Town of Dewitt, Pompey, Cicero and Clay are only proposing increases of 2% or less. With rising rent, housing prices, potential utility increases as National Grid is asking for one of the largest rate hikes, and with last night’s election results, I would hope you agree we need to protect residents from any unnecessary additional increases in costs wherever we can.
Over 90% of the parcels in the Town of Manlius are residential. When you increase our taxes you are making it more expensive to live here. People need relief, not more taxes.
I have gone through this budget line by line over the last 5 years. I know that there are areas where you can save money. One area is information technology, we spend over a quarter of a million dollars on this line. Earlier this year, the Village of Manlius voted to move to use BOCES (https://www.cnyric.org/) for their services as they stated in their meeting notes: “the fee is substantially lower than Garam Group” and “the Fire Department is currently using BOCES and having no issues.” This is actually one of the recommendations in Onondaga County’s 2017 study on Local Government Modernization which I recommend you all read for additional ways to save taxpayers money while improving services. https://www.cgr.org/consensuscny/
We pay more in town taxes than in county. This doesn’t work and is getting more expensive each year as municipalities continue to compete with each other. Enough. We need solutions, not a more expensive status quo. Past studies have repeatedly shown the more local governments work with the county, the more we could improve efficiency, effectiveness, and responsiveness while saving taxpayers money.
As I know this budget is not final, I ask you to review each line, each department and find a way to keep us under the tax cap as our neighboring municipalities have.
Thank you.