Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Things also got a little loud between a Village Board member and the Village President.
Village residents will pay $5.73 per $1,000 assessed value for the Village portion of their tax bill. That's an increase of 1 cent over the mil rate from last year. The Village Board voted 6 to 1 to increase the levy to $13.18 million, which is a $92,000 or .69 percent increase. Jerry Griswold voted against several of the budgets, which were segregated by departments. Tom Lebak, the Village Administrator, told the Village Board at their meeting Tuesday night, that the Village has yet to get the assessments from the state. This means a homeowner whose property is valued at $150,000 would pay $859.50 to the Village. If the assessed value is the same from last year to this year, that represents an increase of $1.50 more on a home valued at $…
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Village officials say the request is "fair," but union members say they've already negotiated $1.8 million of their salary and benefits away .
Want to read more about this topic? "Like" this article by clicking the "like" button above this article on Facebook; if we get 10 or more "likes," we'll know to do a follow-up story. Even though the Village budget is finished, the Village Board is asking the fire union to pay 5.9 percent of their pension and increase their share of the insurance premium from 10 to 15 percent. Any savings the Village can achieve would be used to offset the cuts they made, said Ron Coutts, the village president. The fire department union traded contracts Wednesday night at the Personnel Committee. The Village’s contract also included not funding their health reimbursement account, a high deductible insurance plan, a 0 percent increase in pay for 2012 and …
Thursday, October 27, 2011
They'll spend a little more, probably tax less, and borrow almost $1 million. And they haven't even settled with the Police and Fire unions. Confused? Read on...
In a 6 to 1 vote, the Caledonia Village Board passed their budget for 2012, but not without controversy and potential future conflict between the police and fire unions. The $13.2 million budget caps spending at less than one percent, but includes almost $1 million in borrowing for capitol projects and assumes the police and fire unions won’t take a 5.8 percent pay cut to pay their pensions. Jerry Griswold, the only Village Board member who voted against the budget, blasted other Village Board members at a special Village Board meeting Thursday, Oct. 27 saying that they were pandering to union members. “Those people in the unions are certainly no better than the other employees and certainly no better than our management people,” Griswold …
Sunday, October 23, 2011
The cost of health insurance isn't our only problem, it's our poor health that is the problem.
My original headline for this commentary was “Stop Trying to Create Jobs And Focus On Creating Consumers,” but I decided against it. The reason, consumers are integral to the supply and demand paradigm, which is where we have decided to focus our resources. But our focus should be on creating healthier communities. Rising insurance costs are a dominant theme we hear about from federal, state, county and local governmental bodies. But we don’t have an insurance cost problem. We have health problems, getting along with each other problems, and cost shifting problems. And we’re not really talking about those issues, and this is surprising to me since insurance costs, and fire and police services are a substantial part of our tax bill. So we …
Thursday, October 20, 2011
A lot of decisions still need to be made, but the biggest impact on the budget will come down to how the negotiations go with fire and police unions.
Want to read more about this topic? "Like" this article by clicking on the "like" button above this article. If we get ten or more "likes," we'll know to do a follow-up story. UPDATE Oct. 25: The Village Board decided to give the Village's unrepresented employees a different insurance plan than their fire and police department, which are union represented employees. The unrepresented group makes up about 30 percent of the village's 115 employees. The issue was decided at a special Village Board meeting Monday night. Tom Weatherston, a Village Board member, said the Board still has to negotiate with the fire and police unions. "They (the police and fire departments) need to take option 6," Weatherston said. "It’s just a matter of who is …
Monday, October 10, 2011
Police and fire department staffing levels will likely be a major issue during the Village’s budget approval process.
Both the fire and police chiefs have requested additional staff. They are also both facing significant cuts to their budgets, and that’s assuming that both the fire and police unions agree to pay 5.8 percent of their wages into the state pension fund. Caledonia Patch is taking a closer look at the issue. Today we’ll focus on the Police Department. Come back on Tuesday to learn what the Fire Chief has to say. Caledonia Police Chief Toby Schey knows his department is understaffed. He knows it isn’t much different than others around the country. He knows they’ve had to make due for years. And, he knows the draft budget slashes his budget from $3.5 million in 2010 to $3.1 million, a reduction of $400,000 or 11.4 percent. The budget also …
Brian Dey
6:42 am on Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Given the severity of the budget crisis, a penny per thousand increase is more than acceptable. Thanks to the board members for keeping the taxpayer's in mind. more ›