pPOTSDAM – The Potsdam Village Board will make an application to the Financial Restructuring Board for Local Governments for recommendations on solving the village’s ongoing fiscal struggles. /ppVillage Administrator Everett E. Basford said the review is available at no cost to the village, if the application is successful. /ppTo be eligible a municipality must have an average full property tax rate greater than the average full value property tax rate of 75 percent of all other municipalities in New York. According to documents on the Financial Restructuring Board’s web site a municipality must have an average full property tax rate of 7.055 or greater to be eligible. Potsdam’s rate is 15.273. /ppThe average full value property tax rate measures how high property taxes are in a given municipality relative to the municipality’s taxable property value. This is an indicator of the property tax burden facing a municipality’s taxpayers – the higher the rate, the higher the burden./ppThe village became aware of the restructuring board when Mr. Basford and village Trustees Stephen Warr and Eleanor Hopke were meeting with representatives of the New York Department of State. /pp“People from the comptroller’s office and the department of state and a couple of other offices actually come to the village and they do a financial audit, they do a management audit and they look at the issues you have and they make a recommendations based on what they find,” Mr. Basford said. “This audit does not cost us anything and the recommendations are not binding.”/pp“There is no obligation,” Mr. Warr said. “They make recommendations based on your fiscal stress. Money is available through loan or grant to accomplish the things they recommend.” /ppIf the village does apply for loans or grants through the program, it must follow through on the board’s recommendations./pp“The resources of very very qualified people from New York State are at your disposal,” Mr. Warr said./ppTwo other villages in New York have used the financial restructuring board. /ppIn the village of Alfred in Allegheny County, which is the home of Alfred State College and Alfred University, the board recommended the village develop, along with its neighbors, shared service plans, such as highways and police. /ppImplementing such plans, “will lower the annual cost of providing specific services and address the inherent duplication of services via multi-governmental jurisdictions. If the Village agrees to abide by and implement this recommendation, the Board may, in its sole discretion, award a grant to assist the Village and its neighboring governments with implementing such shared services plan,” the board’s report read. /ppThe board also recommended the village consider dissolution./ppIn the village of Wilson in Niagara County, the board recommended the village seek to dissolve. /ppThose present at the Potsdam Village Board meeting, Mr. Warr, Mayor Reinhold J Tischler and Trustee Nicholas Sheehan voted to make an application for the comprehensive review. /ppThe village will have to fill out an application that asks for specific financial documents, official contact and area information such as major employers and largest property taxpayers. /ppMr. Basford could not say how long the process would take or when the audits would begin. /p
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