Warwick Town Board adopts $21.4 million budget for 2020

The Town of Warwick adopted a $21,473,095 budget for 2020 last week, a budget that is $1.7 million more than the current year’s spending.

Using $990,000 in fund balances and reserves, plus taking into account projected additional revenues, the town board managed to keep this budget under the state tax cap, which was $597,670. The overall increase from last year’s budget is $412,000.

The additional revenues are expected to come from a projected increase in the amount of sales tax and mortgage tax received by the town, according to town Supervisor Michael Sweeton. In addition, the town’s agreement with the school district is also up slightly.

What it will cost taxpayers

Homeowners within the three villages – Florida, Greenwood Lake and Warwick – will see a slight decrease in their town taxes. The owner of the average home in the villages will pay about $4 less in 2020.

Residents of the town outside of the villages will see an increase. The owner of the average home in the town outside of the villages will pay approximately $30 more in 2020.

The town uses a home with a value of $333,000 as its average. The assessment is at 15 percent of that so the average house has an assessed value of $50,000. Homeowners in the town outside of the villages will pay $22.67 per $1,000 of their assessed value.

Homeowners in the three villages will pay $7.06 per $1,000 of assessed value. The average house in the three villages will pay approximately $353 in town taxes. The average home in the town will pay $1,133.50.

Residents will also pay the Purchase of Development Rights (PDR) bond at a cost of $1.46 per $1,000 of assessed value. For the average house, that is $73.

Increases this year

The largest increases came from the police department and the highway department, according to Sweeton. Because of unfunded state criminal justice reforms, the police budget increase is $621,000.

The town is adding one full time police officer, a new live scan replacement system and tasers for all officers.

“The governor said the state would not be funding any of these reforms,” Sweeton said at the public hearing for the budget. That was a big part of the increase, he said, along with mandated health and retirement increases.

The highway budget increased $340,000 due to mostly contractual obligations for retiring employees, road repairs and equipment.

The police budget is 42 percent of the overall town budget; the highway budget totals 24 percent. They are the two biggest parts of the town’s budget.

Sweeton said that when the budget process began, department heads presented their budgets to the town board. From those initial meetings, the board reduced the requested budgets by close to $1 million.

“We aimed from the beginning to be under the New York State tax cap,” said Sweeton. “We didn’t get under it last year but this year we were determined to do it and I’m happy to announce we are under it this year.”

Special districts’ budget also adopted

The town also adopted its budget for special districts within the town, including water, sewer, lighting, ambulance and fire districts.

The total for the special districts is $7,367,854. Only residents who live in a special district pay the taxes for that district.

The budget is available to view on the town’s website, www.townofwarwick.org.