It is also true that the manner in which Wilmington’s 2025 budget and tax levy were determined was perfectly summarized by a single sentence spoken at a town board meeting.

“I’d like to get this over with,” town Supervisor Favor Smith said at the board’s meeting on Oct. 30.

That attitude resulted in a town budget that increased the tax levy by approximately 3.6%, once again pushing past the “2% tax cap.”

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To stay under the tax cap, the board needed to bridge a gap of less than $22,000 by cutting spending and/or by finding non-tax revenues.

There are places in the town budget where spending could have been cut.

The town is going from two elected judges to one elected judge and a court clerk — yet the budget calls for increased spending on the town’s court. And our parks department is losing an employee — yet the budget calls for increased overall spending on parks department wages.

There are a half-dozen places where spending could be cut without much sacrifice — $2,000 here, $5,000 there. Taken individually, none of those steps would do much to reduce the tax levy. Taken collectively, they would.

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While cutting spending usually requires focus, commitment or discipline, more accurately estimating revenues is easy.

Wilmington received more than $86,000 in sales tax revenue from Essex County last year. That number increased in each of the last three years, and will almost certainly increase again in 2025. Yet Wilmington’s budget only anticipates $70,000 in sales tax revenue. Similarly, it is realistic to expect Wilmington to receive more than $55,000 in short-term vacation rental (STR) fees next year. Yet our budget only plans for $45,000 from this revenue source.

Simply using more realistic revenue projections could have cut another $8,000 from the tax levy.

This is the point when we sometimes hear that it is important to underestimate those revenues in order to generate unspent “fund balance.”

It is true that towns should have money saved for a rainy day. It is also true that the concerns about “fund balance” would have been more effectively expressed while the previous town board was spending more than $100,000 in an unsuccessful attempt to litigate a dispute about a parking lot.

If the concerns about fund balance are genuine, there are additional steps, not mentioned in this article, that the town board can take to cut spending and raise non-tax revenues in the years to come. Those actions will take focus and determination.

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In addition to cutting spending and adopting more realistic revenue projections, Wilmington’s town board should have taken a major stride toward staying under the tax cap by raising the baseline annual permit fee charged to “whole home” STRs. Raising that fee from $300 to $400 would have brought in more than $10,000.

Unfortunately, repeated requests to place increased STR fees on the town board’s agenda were ignored by Smith, and an attempt to raise the topic at the town board’s meeting on Nov. 12 was immediately submerged by interruptions, impatience and confusion.

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An updated “proposed preliminary budget” with significant cuts to water department spending was emailed to the town board a week before the board’s Nov. 12 meeting. Then, at the meeting, Smith called those cuts untenable. With those spending cuts now off the table, Councilman Darin Forbes proposed raising water rates as a backdoor method of increasing non-tax revenues.

“I would like to see this on paper before I vote on it, to be honest with you,” Councilwoman Laura Dreissigacker Hooker stated.

“No,” replied Smith.

Minutes later, the 2025 budget was adopted by a 3-2 vote.

The town supervisor opposed providing his colleagues with the time necessary to:

— Clarify various budget line items;

—“Get into the weeds” about potential spending cuts, or;

— Discuss increasing STR fees.

After the meeting, Dreissigacker Hooker commented, “The fact that the budget was adopted when there were still so many numbers not laid out on paper was very frustrating as a board member. Whether or not the numbers being batted around were factual or hypothetical, it is a board member’s right to advocate for as clear a budget as possible. While asking for time and clarity, the requests were rebuffed and vetoed, 3-2.”

“Budgets are meant to be scrutinized,” she added. “And town board members should be advocating for the townspeople they represent, as well as making sure there is a realistic budget that can sustain the infrastructure and personnel of the town. I am sure the two of us were not the only two befuddled at the time of the vote.”

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A Guest Commentary signed by three members of Wilmington’s town board and titled “The Wilmington budget” was published in the Adirondack Daily Enterprise on January 11.

While claiming to “correct the record,” parts of the article are misleading, parts are inaccurate, and much of it is digressive. Still, the article does not deny that Wilmington’s town board could have kept the tax levy beneath the tax cap if its members were committed to that goal.

We could have kept the town’s tax levy beneath the 2% property tax cap, but it would have taken time, commitment and effort.

By failing to further trim spending; by failing to adopt more realistic revenue projections; by failing to take simple steps to generate additional non-tax revenues; and, most of all, by rushing the budget process in order to avoid uncomfortable or inconvenient discussions, Wilmington’s town board took an apathetic approach to one of its most important obligations.

Tim Follos is a member of Wilmington’s town board.