In his ongoing effort to reduce a projected multimillion-dollar budget deficit for 2013, Dutchess County Executive MarcMolinaro is capping the amount of sales tax revenue distributed to its municipalities at $25 million. Hudson Valley Bureau Chief Dave Lucas reports
Dutchess county was projected to share $29.5 million this year. But the County Executive intends to drive down the overall cost of government.
That initiative powers Marc Molinaro's 2013 budget proposal, aimed at starting a multi-year transformation of Dutchess County Government.
Molinaro believes his budget proposal will impact local municipalities and encourage them to work together and with the County to find greater efficiencies, consolidate government, enhance service delivery and reduce costs for taxpayers.
Town of Fishkill Supervisor Robert LaColla isn’t thrilled with the reduced sales tax revenue from the county.
LaColla says Towns and cities had agreed on a formula for sharing, and now Molinaro wants to change it. Molinaro says he's simply asking for a short term sacrifice.
Molinaro plans to offset some of the impact through the elimination of the shared election charges and by establishing a $1 million competitive grant program. Besides eliminating municipalities’ shared election charges, Molinaro's plans include forming a sales tax distribution study group to evaluate a schedule for future distribution fairness, and creating a health insurance consortium to consider a countywide program for county/town/city/village public employee health insurance.
