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One of the difficulties in understanding exactly where we spend our tax dollars in Piermont is that the accounting system does not present full information by department. For example, just under $900,000 of various employee benefits are treated as separate line items. Clearly, the level of these costs is driven by how many employees the Village has and what they are paid.
In an attempt to resolve this problem, Unify Piermont has developed a functional budget for the Village using salaries, headcount and common sense to allocate various costs to the Village departments. It must be stressed that the following numbers, based on the recently approved budget, are only reasonable approximations.
As examples of some of the assumptions used, both street lighting and third-party costs of the Village Engineer have been included in the DPW. The third-party Auditor expense has been included with the Village Clerk/Treasurer. And most benefits, with the exception of retirement costs, have been allocated based on headcount. The Board of Trustees headcount was excluded; presumably they do not receive any benefits beyond their stipend and social security.
Retirement costs were allocated based on salaries. A number of other assumptions were also made.
This message was prepared by Unify Piermont which is dedicated to returning responsible, representative government to Piermont.
Unify Piermont is a group made up of village residents from all areas of the village, and from all political parties. We need to create a local village government that will address the problems created by the current and previous administrations.
We need your help, your input and your involvement. If you share our concerns about Village taxes, Village debt and the lack of any meaningful communication from our Village Board; than e-mail us at unifypiermont@live.com with your name and address or leave a message at 845-613-7675. We will notify you when a new posting goes up on our website at www.unifypiermont.blogspot.com.
