FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE...

Leon R. Koziol
1518 Genesee Street
Utica, New York 13502
www.LeonKoziol.com

TO: All Media and Interested Parties

FROM: Leon R. Koziol

RE: Civil rights claim against Oneida County and Town of New Hartford

October 29, 2010, New Hartford, NY - Oneida County and the Town of New Hartford were named today in a formal claim filed by civil rights advocate Leon R. Koziol. The lawsuit notice states that government agents escorted by armed police converged upon Mr. Koziol’s private residence in a swat-like assault for the purpose of seizing his personal property without any legal authority. The warrant and levy provided him at his New Hartford home limited police and official authority to a Utica location only. In addition, the seizure of vehicles was executed contrary to a court order by agreement between the parents in an ongoing domestic relations case before a state Supreme Court judge in August, 2010. The claim seeks recovery for damages sustained from a joint scheme of processes by government actors designed to harm and discredit Mr. Koziol’s public and professional campaign against discriminatory and abusive practices in domestic relations courts. Mr. Koziol has repeatedly described these practices as a “multi-billion dollar child control industry” corroborated here by the direct involvement of the state tax department.

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Mr. Koziol's Notice of Claim against the County of Oneida and Town of New Hartford.

Warrant issued for 1518 Genesee Street Utica NY...it was NOT issued for Mr. Koziol's private residence!

October 27, 2010 Town Board Meeting...

a long meeting mainly due to 2011 budget discussions.

Any revisions to the 2011 Tentative Budget must be in the Town Clerk's Office by 8 a.m. Friday, October 29, 2010 after which time the 2011 Preliminary Budget will be available to the public.

Here is the videotape of the meeting:

Town Board Meeting...

tonight, Wednesday, October 27, 2010 starting at 7:00 p.m. in Butler Hall. One of the items on the agenda is the 2011 budget.

Agenda is now online!

2011 Budget...

Thursday, October 21, 2010, the town board met with Codes, Parks, Police and Highway Departments to discuss their 2011 budget. Below is the videotape of that workshop:



The town board will further discuss the budget at the Wednesday, October 27, 2010 regular board meeting. We will provide an agenda of that meeting as soon as it is available.

New Hartford Public Library Board of Trustees...

met at noon today. We will be commenting shortly, but for now the video of the meeting is below.

2011 Budget Workshops...

Town Board Members of the Town of New Hartford will be conducting 2011 budget workshops Thursday, October 21, 2010 beginning at 6pm in the basement level meeting room at Butler Hall. The following departments will be addressed:

6:00pm- Police
6:45pm- Codes
7:15pm- Parks
7:45pm- Highway

The sessions are open to the public, however public questions or comments will not be addressed at this time. The public hearing on the budget is scheduled for November 3, 2010.

Please publish.

Thanks.


Christine G. Krupa, Councilwoman
Town of New Hartford

Brown Baggin' It...

The Board of Trustees of the New Hartford Public Library will hold their monthly meeting in Butler Hall tomorrow, Wednesday, October 20, 2010 at noon. According to the discussion at the the last Board of Trustees meeting, this will be a lunch meeting.

Hopefully one of their topics will be 'how to notice a meeting that is open to the public so that people can make plans to attend if they so desire'.

October 13, 2010 town board meeting...

video is now online.

Here is the regular portion of the meeting:




The board then voted to go into Executive Session to discuss "the employment history of a particular person".

After the Executive Session, the board voted to return to regular session...see video below:

Town Board Meeting Tonight...

starting at 7:00 p.m. in Butler Hall.

Agenda now online!

Care to comment Councilwoman Krupa?

Sales tax revenue..."anticipated" revenue that is used to offset expenses when figuring the tax rate.

Overstating revenue can be dangerous as we have seen in the past and as we may very well see again soon, but just as important is how the "anticipated" sales tax revenue is applied to a budget...in this case, it is important to taxpayers in at least one section of the town...those in the Village of New York Mills.

We blogged about it last year and, then Budget Director, Heather Mowat weighed in on the subject:

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2009

Director of Budget stated that the General Fund total tax increase would be 46.1%. She had conversations with the State Comptroller’s Office and the Town Attorney and the former is not ready to opine on the matter of sales tax-the police department issue-and Village of New York Mills property owners. Ms. Mowat’s recommendation is to leave sales tax where it’s been – in whole town general fund. Go with what seems equitable. She recommended getting a lawyer familiar with writing and reading tax law. The law is not specific and therefore the State Comptroller’s Office declines to opine on the matter. She recommended after speaking with the State C, that even though they said sales tax should go to part town first, that to leave it in whole town so one village does not benefit more than the other. While she would rather have a legal opinion, she would rather be fair…..$1.08 per thousand for New York Mills village property owners.

Here is the videotape of Ms. Mowat's discussion at the November 18, 2009 town board meeting:




Tax law is very clear; because villages receive their own share of sales tax revenue, town sales tax revenue must be applied to part town funds first and then to the General Wholetown. See State Comptroller's Opinion 93-27:

Tax Law, §1262(c), as amended by L 1984, ch 850, provides that, if a town and all villages within the town elect to receive their shares of county sales tax in cash, the town shall apply its share to "reduce taxes levied for part-town activities". If any balance remains, the town may apply the remainder for any of the following purposes or any combination thereof: (a) to reduce general town taxes; (b) to reduce county taxes levied in the area of the town outside the villages; or (c) to finance part-town activities. The term "part-town activities" is defined for this purpose to mean, in pertinent part, "(a)ctivities of town government, including highway programs, which are chargeable to the area of the town outside of villages ..." (Tax Law, §1262[f][4]). "General town taxes" is defined as "[t]axes levied for any town purpose, including highways, upon the entire area of a town". Thus, the reduction of townwide taxes within the area of the town outside of villages is not a purpose under section 1262(c) for which the town may use its cash share of county sales tax when all villages within the town have also elected to receive their shares in cash.

Problem is that in New Hartford we have what Ms. Mowat described as an anomaly. We have two villages; one with their own police department and one without their own police department. Question is...can we in all honesty consider the Police Fund a part town fund or not?

According to Ms. Mowat, the State Comptroller did not want to opine on the matter and instead suggested that the town seek legal counsel. Ms. Mowat suggested to err on the side of being fair to all town residents and not use the sales tax to offset police expenditures.

You may ask...It's revenue...what's the difference how you apply it to the town budget?

By applying $689,261 of anticipated sales tax revenue to the New Hartford Part Town Police Fund, the result is four-fold:

1. You hide the fact that the Police expenditures have actually increased by 15% from the previous year because you now have more revenue to offset expenses and therefore you can now show a decrease in the tax rate for part-town police.

2. You make it appear that Police revenue has increased over 300% more than the previous year.

3. Town taxpayers in the Village of NYM will now pay $.86 per thousand of assessed value instead of $.33 per thousand they would pay if the sales tax were applied to the General Whole Town Fund as it always has been.

4. Residents in the Village of New Hartford get the advantage of town sales tax revenue and residents in the Village of New York Mills do not.

Not a big deal if you live in the town proper or in the Village of New Hartford, but we suspect the residents in the Village of New York Mills might not be happy paying $.86 per thousand when they could be paying $.33 per thousand!

Town law is also very clear that if a village has a police department with more than four (4) full-time police officers, village residents cannot be taxed for operation and maintenance of the town police department. See State Comptroller Opinion 2003-6.

So, we ask Councilwoman Krupa...$.86 per thousand v. $.33 per thousand...in effect aren't the town residents in the Village of New York Mills subsidizing the New Hartford Police Department if the anticipated sales tax revenue is applied to the Police Budget?

By the way, Councilman Reynolds also took part in that conversation with the State Comptroller. What are your thoughts Councilman Reynolds?

Next question? How were they able to use $689,261 of "anticipated" sales tax revenue in the 2011 Tentative Budget for the police department while at the same time keeping no tax for the Part-town Highway and also providing a decrease in the General Wholetown tax rate? And what happens if we fall short of the "anticipated" sales tax revenue and the Highway expenses [the fund that sales tax is actually suppose to offset before it is applied to any other fund] go up due to a harsh winter?

To be continued...

The budget process...

2009 budget...



2011 budget...


Okay, we blogged about this in the past, overstating sales tax revenue. Isn't that what got the town in trouble in 2009?

While to some degree anticipated revenue is always a guessing game, given the state of the economy, guesses should probably be more on the conservative side.

According to the 2011 Tentative Budget, $4,999,102 of anticipated 2011 sales tax revenue is being budgeted to offset 2011 expenditures.

So we contacted Oneida County to get updated sales tax figures for 2009 and 2010 through the 2nd quarter of the year. Then, we created a spreadsheet using the information we received (Click here for a pdf version with larger print.):

What are they thinking? Actual sales tax revenue hasn't totalled $5,000,000 since 2006; in 2006 the town received $5,005,741.46 in actual sales tax revenue!

We're not finished with the sales tax saga...stay tuned!

Proposed 20% tax decrease...

That's the message the town supervisor delivered at last night's meeting.



Tomorrow's Observer Dispatch, New Hartford taxes may decrease 20%, tells some of the story...but there is more. We will be taking the budget apart piece by piece and reporting some of the details over the next few days.

For a start...we thought we would provide you with a comparison of proposed salaries for elected town officials...

Click here for a pdf version with larger print.

Here is a copy of the 2011 Tentative Budget. This is only a tentative budget and will probably change as the town board reviews and makes changes to the Supervisor's budget.

For comparison, we are also providing a copy of the proposed 2010 Adopted Budget.

Special Town Board Meeting Tonight...

starting at 6:00 p.m. in Butler Hall.

The purpose of this meeting is for the Town Clerk to present the 2011 Tentative Budget to the Town Board.