Bidding and rebidding makes a healthier budget

NORTH EAST — The Town Board met last week, Thursday, Oct. 23, to once again tackle the budget. It’s looking to have a preliminary budget put together by Nov. 6, around which time a public hearing needs to be scheduled. The county’s guidelines suggest the final budget be submitted toward the end of November. Before that time comes, however, the town will continue to work on its budget figures.

"We’ve got a little more calculation to do," town Supervisor Dave Sherman said. "Our biggest concern has been the portion of the town budget supported by the town outside of the village. The reason for that is because of highway expenses, which were discussed with the highway superintendent in great detail at the last workshop."

There may be some downward changes in the Highway Department’s budget. For starters, energy costs have been coming down since the beginning of September.

"Since we’re in the process of pulling numbers together, probably one of the more significant things is the board going to choose or reject the bids of fuels and also on asphalt materials and road oils that are petroleum-based," Sherman said, adding the Town Board consequently asked the highway superintendent to rebid those materials, which he is in the process of doing. "We know because of the time frame for all of this to occur it will not be possible to have all that information by the time we have to pull together the preliminary budget, but we will definitely have that information by the end of the month, as we move forward to the public hearing."

That is also when the town will be making its adjustments to the final budget.

Sherman said that because of the volatility in the markets on fuel and oil-based products, the town felt its bidding was probably occurring during peak, and therefore worth rebidding before the budget had to be filed. The potential savings could mean a lot to the town.

"We are doing our best to keep costs down," the supervisor said. "We’re highly concerned we’re not accomplishing as much roadway work as we would like to, but in order to provide significant savings that do not put us in a position of being further behind, so we can make larger increases in the future, it’s a balancing act the board is trying to accomplish here."