Town of Quigley Supervisor Jim Quigley (well at least he thinks that's the name of the town) has proposed another near double digit tax hike..since taking office, the Republican, Conservative has raised taxes almost every year, some in the double digits. The tax hikes are always someone elses fault. For his first term, he blamed them on the former Supervisor, than he decided to blame it on the safety net costs. How about taking some responsibility Mr. Quigley? After all he is the Supervisor and will tell anyone who will listen what a great CPA he is and financial wizard.
However, my fellow residents of Ulster quickly realized while we had to get rid of Woerner, Quigley sold us a bill of goods and failed to deliver on his promises. To the Ulster Supervisor it seems he is more concerned about advancing his political career than running our town. The rumor is he wants to run for County Executive in two years, he's gunna have an uphill battle, because unlike Quigley, Hein has made the difficult choices and actually lowered our taxes.
Maybe it's time that Mr. Quigley think outside of the box ad start lowering some expenses. When Quigley took office, he slashed the salary from Supervisor from 45 thou, to about 27 thousand. In the current budget he has raised his salary back to 45 thousand. Mr. Malloney who is the town assesor has a town cell phone and a nice take home vehicle, I think its a brand new Jeep, rumor is that he is requred to use a Jeep becasue the shocks hold up his signifigant weight. Not sure which is more bloated Maloney or Quigley's budget.
Why for example did the Supervisor's clerk need a raise of more than 15%.. especially when I beleive the Supervisor's clerk is Quigley's sister. NEPOTISM at it's finest.
We also have to wonder if Quigley put the safety net costs in this years budget, unlike last year which resulted in the town facing more embarrassment when the County Comptroller's office issued a report citing the town of Ulster as breaking the law by omitting them.
Fially, Quigley is exceeding the 2% tax cap that is in effect. Gov Cuomo's tax cap is there for a reason, to provide NY residents with real property tax relief. Overriding the cap is really irresponsiable of any town leader, it reaks of smuggess and arrogance on the part of Quigley.
Town resident Dan Barton said it best at a recent town board meeting:
“I do not think that there should be any override of any tax increase (cap),” said town resident Robert Barton. “We’re being taxed to death. ... The continuing increase for all levels of taxation has gotten out of hand.”
Not often, I would agree with malcontent Barton but in this case, well said Mr. Barton, well said.
So I guess you have read the budget and if you have some basic math skills you would know that taking away the Maloney-mobile, cutting Quigley's sister's raise, and putting the Supervisor's salary back to $27k to ensure that no one wants to run for supervisor would only account for a tiny fraction of a percentage of the budget increase.
ReplyDeleteSo the sixty four thousand dollar question is: What would YOU like to cut? Should we lower staffing in the police department further than Quigley already has in his severe cuts to the department that Nicky bankrolled? Should we cut highway employees? Because really if you have read the budget, the only real savings that could possibly be realized would be serious staff cuts and thus cuts also to our retirement and health costs on the town level. Is this what you think we should do?
Or are you just trying to make a huge issue out of a couple tiny costs to because you don't like Quigley? I say we bring back Woener, I so liked 30% increases.
How does the comptroller say that what the Town of Ulster is doing is illegal, but it is the same thing that the City of Kingston has done for years. That's probably why the comptroller report went nowhere.
ReplyDeleteHere are a couple of things Quigley can do to reduce costs:
ReplyDeleteReduce staff across the board.
Negotiate union contracts that are not breaking the backs of the taxpayers and giving the unions raises, longevity increases, step increases that no one else is getting, and other clauses that are increasing the town budget.
Stop Maloney from over assessing large properties and ending up in court with huge paybacks to property owners.
Enforce the Building codes and start collecting fines, even if the offenders are Republicans.
Freeze all discretionary spending, travel,and new vehicles, including Maloney's.
These suggestions are from a brief look at previous budgets, complaints I hear from Employees and neighbors. I am sure there is more, a lot more.