MEDINA – Village officials say they will reach out to other local municipal leaders to make their case the county should share more sales tax with municipalities and the state should also provide more funding for villages.

Trustee Michael Sidari suggested the village look for more revenue-sharing with the county and state to help bring down village taxes. His suggestion on Monday was readily endorsed by the other board members.

“If we don’t ask, we won’t get it,” Sidari said. “We need to try to build support with the towns and other municipalities.”

Orleans Hub has been railing for the past year about the aid disparity, in particular with the state. The state gives far more in “Aid and Incentives to Municipalities” or AIM to cities, even those with fewer residents than many villages.

For example, the Village of Medina has 6,065 people and gets $51,971 in state support or $8.57 a person. The city of Norwich in Chenango County gets $1,089,279 in state dollars for its 7,142 residents or $151.50 per person.

The Village of Albion has 6,056 residents and will receive $45,249 in state aid in 2014-15, or $7.47 per person. The city of Salamanca in Cattaraugus County has 5,815 people and receives $928,131 in Aid to Municipalities funding or $159.61 per person.

With sales tax, the county takes in about $15 million a year and keeps about 92 percent of the total. It shares $1,366,671 with the 10 towns and four villages. The four villages collectively share $400,681 of the $1,366,671. The village share has been dropping because the county ties the allotments to assessed value of the communities. The villages have seen their tax bases erode while they go up in the towns.

Medina Mayor Andrew Meier said the villages should get more in both state aid and sales tax. The villages are population centers, providing many services to residents while working to update aging infrastructure.

The board will send a letter to other villages and towns, trying to build support for having the county modify the sales tax formula. The county hasn’t increased the share to towns and villages since 2001.

“It would be most compelling if we all signed,” Meier said about the letter to other local municipal boards. “The villages in particular get the short end of the stick.”

He acknowledged changing the sales tax formula may just move the same amount of money around. Getting more state aid could hold more promise because it would bring new money into the community.

That’s how David Callard sees it. He is chairman of the Orleans County Legislature.
Sales tax revenue has slowed in recent years. If the villages get more, the county taxpayers would feel the difference, he said.

“Sales tax won’t be the salvation,” he said. “It would be better to fight our battle over state aid.”

Callard said the county would support letters and official resolutions, pressing the state for more aid to the villages. The county also would take that case to Albany, he said. But that push should start with the villages.

“The current state aid to the villages is overtly unfair,” Callard said. “It’s grossly inequitable. We need to fight for more state aid.”

Village will study capacity, pipe route

MEDINA – The village has millions of gallons of excess capacity at its sewer plant, and wants to make that available to businesses at the proposed STAMP site just across the Orleans County border in the Town of Alabama.

But before the village commits to providing sewer, it will study capacity issues for the sewer plant, types of discharges from companies that could set up at the 1,250-acre STAMP, flows for different times of the year and possible routes for sewer line to the site in Alabama.

The village has engaged Larsen Engineers for a study. Terms for scope of work and costs haven’t been approved.

‘This has enormous potential as a funding source for the village,” Mayor Andrew Meier said during Monday’s Village Board meeting.

He sees businesses at STAMP, and supply companies that could set up in Medina and Shelby as future customers for the village sewer services. They could help drive down sewer rates for village residents, or perhaps provide other revenue to relieve the strain on village taxpayers.

Medina and Route 63 corridor are ideally situated for STAMP-related businesses. Besides a close proximity to high-tech companies at STAMP – Science and Technology Advanced Manufacturing Park – the Route 63 area is within a 30-mile radius for low-cost hydropower from the Niagara Power Project.

“There are enormous synergies,” Meier said. “It could be an enormous boost for the community.”

The engineering study may look at increasing capacity so the Medina area can accommodate as much of the potential economic boom as possible.

Meier would like to see sewer lines run down Route 63, but he is open to other routes if the swamp proves too difficult or costly of an obstacle for the infrastructure.

The Genesee County Economic Development Center has been working for about a decade to develop STAMP, a 1,250-acre site that will accommodate nanotechnology companies including semiconductor 450mm chip fab, flat panel display, solar manufacturing, and advanced manufacturing.

Gov. Cuomo and the State legislature approved $33 million in the current state budget for infrastructure to make the site more attractive to developers.

The site, in full build-out, is expected to employ 10,000 people with many making $100,000 or more. Another 50,000 jobs will be created in the region to support the companies at STAMP, Steve Hyde, GCEDC chief executive officer, told county officials in April.

Hyde said he expects at least 800 to 1,000 people to work at STAMP from Orleans County, and perhaps 4,000 to 5,000 more through construction and supply-chain jobs.

Long-term staffing for department remains unresolved

MEDINA – The Medina Fire Department leaders have been asking the Village Board for a staffing increase the past two years, saying the call volume exceeds the manpower.

The board relented tonight, agreeing to add a temporary full-time firefighter for six months. That will give the Village Board more time to assess how to best fill the fire department’s staffing needs, whether with part-time paramedics or EMTs, temporary full-time employees or permanent full-time firefighters.

Mayor Andrew Meier wanted the village to try hiring two part-time medics, saying they would be less costly than a full-time firefighter, even one who is temporary. The temporary firefighter will receive healthcare and retirement benefits, which wouldn’t be offered to part-time staff.

Fire Chief Todd Zinkievich said he doubted the union would support working with part-time paramedics or EMTs, who wouldn’t be trained to handle fire calls as well. Jonathan Higgins, a captain with the Medina FD, said he was certain the union would reject part-time staff. The union represents 13 full-time firefighters. The group needs to vote on the temporary position before it is filled.

Medina FD already has a temporary firefighter but that person is due to leave soon for a military commitment, Zinkievich said.

The department has been struggling with the demands of a rising call volume with its staff of 13. Higgins and Mike Maak, another captain with the MFD, believe the department has justified the need for more staff and created revenue to pay for the added manpower.

The temporary firefighter should cost about $31,000 over six months, according to village officials. The position was supported by trustees Mark Kruzynski, Marguerite Sherman and Mike Sidari. Meier and Trustee Mark Irwin opposed it, wanting to give two part-timers a try.

“You get double the manpower for the same cost,” Meier said.

But Zinkievich said the village would be hard-pressed to find part-time paramedics or EMTs for the $12 an hour suggested by Meier. Part-time staff will have their first allegiance to their full-time job, Zinkievich said.

“My concern is part-time won’t work,” Zinkievich said. “I can look you in the eye and tell you that.”

The Medina Fire Department’s career staff is cross-trained for fire and ambulance calls. Higgins said there would likely be divisions in the department towards staff that only responded to ambulance calls.

Meier said the department should be able to handle any animosities. He expected the firefighters would welcome added staff, even part-timers, if they helped with the workload.

Kruzynski made the motion to hire the temporary full-time firefighter to give the department some needed manpower while giving the Village Board more time to sort out a longer-term solution.

“I’m feeling the necessity of this,” he said.

Meier worries that projections for more revenue may miss target, resulting in a tax increase for villagers, who he said are already overtaxed.

The ambulance generated $1,016,000 in revenues during the 2013-14 fiscal year that ended May 31. That was up from the $900,000 that budgeted, but down from the $1,064,000 that was expected in April when the fiscal year had about two months remaining.

Maak said he has been frustrated by the board’s indecisiveness about the issue. Many of the firefighters are getting burned out from too much overtime and too little time off, Maak said.

“We’ve been getting our tail ends handed to us,” he said.

Meanwhile, the call volume increases. The calls are up by 177 from the same point as a year ago, and up by 270 from the same point two years ago, Zinkievich said.

“These guys are working so hard,” he said. “I can’t work them any harder.”

Meier agreed more staff was needed, but the question remains how to fill the need.

“It’s not whether or not you need help, it’s what help can we afford,” he said.

MEDINA – A report from the State Comptroller’s Office faults the Medina Central School District for not properly creating some reserve funds and for missing its budget by $15 million over five years.

The district overtaxed residents to help create the excess funds, according to the Comptroller’s report. Most of the $15 million in surpluses was funneled to reserve funds.

The district has 10 reserve funds, and some of the funds were created without voter approvals and carry balances far greater than the demand for those funds, according to the report. (Click here to see the document.)

The district pushed to build bigger reserves to help shield local taxpayers from cuts in state aid, Superintendent Jeff Evoy wrote in an August 12 letter to Jeffrey Mazula, chief examiner of Local Government and School Accountability.

The district has closed a school (Towne Primary School), reduced teachers and staff, and is working with neighboring Lyndonville on shared programs, Evoy wrote in his letter.

That has helped reduce the district’s operating costs and helped the district build its reserves. In 2006-07, Medina carried less than a 4 percent fund balance with no reserves, Evoy said.

“Since then, the District has improved reserves while addressing issues of declining enrollment and corresponding decreases in State Aid,” he wrote in his letter to the Comptroller’s Office. “The District now finds itself in a better fiscal position than it did a half a decade ago.”

He noted Medina did not raise taxes for four straight years, cut them by 1 percent in 2013-14 and just approved a 2 percent cut for 2014-15.

The Real Property Tax Law limits unexpended surplus funds to no more than 4 percent of the ensuing fiscal year’s budget, or approximately $1.4 million for Medina, which has a $33.8 million annual budget, according to the Comptroller’s report.

The district exceeded that level and directed surplus funds to reserves, boosting the funds from a balance of $1.2 million five years ago to $12.5 million. Comptroller’s officials said the district built the reserves with tax levies that were higher than necessary.

The Comptroller’s report says Medina should develop more realistic revenue and expenditure estimates for the annual budget and should closely monitor activity so it mirrors the budget.

Other recommendations include:

1. Review the Local Government Management Guide on reserve funds

2. Establish a reserve fund policy

3. Ensure that the repair reserve is reasonably funded, obtain voter approval to validate the moneys in the reserve and consult with legal counsel if needed

4. Establish the liability reserve for permissible purposes and reduce the reserve balance to a more reasonable level

5. Reduce the unemployment reserve and the retirement contribution reserve balances to more reasonable levels that reflect more realistic future expenditure needs

6. Use money in the debt reserve to pay related debt

7. Evaluate potential tax claims to determine the appropriate amounts that will be needed in the tax certiorari reserve to settle potential tax claims and return other moneys to unexpended surplus funds in the general fund

Evoy told Mazula from the Comptroller’s office that Medina would review the recommendations. Evoy also said the district was “prudent” to build up its reserves, and used $750,000 in one reserve to pay down debt.

The district will consult with its auditors and attorney to ensure the proper creation, funding and usage of reserves, Evoy said.

“As is the case in so many other school districts, Medina has struggled in the last six years trying to meet the fiscal challenges it has confronted,” Evoy wrote in response to the report. “These challenges have been addressed in positive ways which has enabled us to plan effectively for the future. Your audit report offers additional guidance and recommendations which will further assist our efforts.”

Provided photos

The Medina Class of 1964 gathered on Saturday at the White Birch Golf Course in Lyndonville. The class had a big turnout for the milestone anniversary.

Frank Sargent, a member of Class of 1964, addresses his classmates. Sargent is active in organizing the reunions.