(Photo via Cortland County).
Community members and municipal officials made the case for an increase in funding for the Cortland County Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD) in the 2023 County budget at the spending plan’s public hearing on Monday.
The proposed $152 million budget, unveiled at the beginning of the month, includes a .708 percent tax rate increase, which on average is 11 cents higher than last year’s per $1,000 of assessed value. The budget also levies $38.5 million in property taxes, an increase of about 2 percent from last year, and stays within the state’s mandated tax cap. Despite the slight tax rate increases, spending projected in last year’s budget is roughly $631,000 more than the proposed 2023 budget.
At Monday’s public hearing, Town of Virgil highway superintendent Britt Morse submitted a written comment detailing how SWCD has helped the town with stream management.
“I’d like to say SWCD has helped us tremendously,” Morse’s comment read. “We could not function without their help.”
Farmers also noted SWCD has helped agriculture across the county.
“We have worked to plant trees along our creek and waterways to stop erosion and provide homes for wildlife,” said Clover Knoll Farm owner Christine Keller, adding SWCD has helped her farm maintain a clean creek. “We are just asking for funding for SWCD for their budget next year.”
Mike McMahon of E-Z Acres in Homer said SWCD is the county’s “frontline defense against climate change.”
“I can show you climate change is real and it impacts everybody,” he said. “Gone are the days that the general two inches of rain would feed crops and replenish our aquifers. We now see three, four, or five-inch deluges that can be catastrophic. It’s not just agriculture that needs this SWCD funding, it’s municipalities as well.”
A new addition to this year’s budget is the newly approved Little York Lake special taxing district, which was approved by voters in the district earlier this year. The district would tax 127 parcels in the towns of Homer and Preble at a rate of 94 cents per $1,000 in assessed value or about $140.45 per parcel on average. The projected $18,975 in funds would pay for preservation projects at Little York Lake. Members of the the Little York Lake Preservation Society (LYLPS) sent a written comment to the county in support of the taxing district.
“While residents outside of the district may have an opinion on how we tax ourselves, we hope legislators will focus on comments from the district members,” the comment read. “Little York Lake Preservation Society began preservation efforts in 2014 after the aggressive infestation of variable milfoil.”
The LYLPS’s conservation efforts evolved throughout the years, culminating in a lake management and treatment plan that ramped up in 2019. The LYLPS has also formed a committee of 10 percent of the property owners around the lake and eventually gathered the required signatures to form the special taxing district.
At a prior special Legislature meeting in early October, Legislature Chair Kevin Fitch, R-LD8, said he was “still curious about where the tax rate (for the taxing district) came from.”
Fitch added he thinks the ballot resolution was “convoluted” and that it was “not put out there properly.”
Presumably, in response to the chair’s comments, the LYLPS letter from Monday’s meeting detailed the forms of communication the organization has had with residents.
“We have communicated regularly with the entire community,” they said, noting the messaging for the special taxing district has taken place in the last year at meetings, through social media, letters, handouts, and the organization’s website.
A budget must be approved by Dec. 20 and the legislature is set to vote on the proposed budget in November.
