Ramapo Board Approves 2012 Budget

November 20, 2012 Last week, the Ramapo Town Board approved the 2012 budget for the Town. We received a copy of the full document at the end of the week, and have begun the process of analyzing the various sections of the plan. At the same time, the highly critical final audit of the Town is due back from the comptroller, probably shortly after Thanksgiving.
 

A couple of numbers jump out from the first page of the summary of the budget. For the total appropriations, the town has upped the total number of the budget for 2012 by an additional $5,867,916. That's about a 7.5% increase that will have to be covered by a 2% increase in taxes. That doesn't seem to work out. Where is the money going to come from?

You might remember the State Comptroller chastising the town for unrealistic projections about expected revenues. They wrote in their report: "The Town has experienced revenue shortfalls during the last three fiscal years." They included this table to make their point:

The Comptroller wrote: "We reviewed the 76 budgeted revenue lines in the general fund and found that 34 appeared unreasonable based upon historical trend data. For example, the Town budgeted for $510,000 in tennis revenues although it had only received actual revenue of $18,000 in 2010."

We have sent copies of the 2012 budget to others to review and will, within the next few days, send out a general appeal to our listserv readership to ask as many of those with expertise in finances and municipal law to contribute to a thorough evaluation.

READ THE 2012 BUDGET SUMMARY HERE.

READ THE 2012 RAMAPO TOWN BUDGET:
PAGES 1-71 HERE AND PAGES 72-139 HERE.

THESE DOCUMENTS ARE PDFS AND CAN BE DOWNLOADED AS READ-ONLY COPIES.