Thomaston budget ‘usual’

John Santa

The Village of Thomaston Board of Trustees took care of what Mayor Robert Stern called “usual maintenance” when it approved on Monday a $1.9-million budget for 2012-13.

After a public hearing at Thomaston Village Hall, the trustees voted to accept a $1,912,206 budget, which reflects a 2.4-percent increase from last year’s $1,867,311 budget.

Stern said was he was most pleased with the village’s ability to hold the line on taxes. The new budget will not include an increase in property taxes.

“There hasn’t been any (tax increase) in the last four years,” Stern said. “(Residents) got used to it.”

The newly adopted budget will go into effect on March 1 and will run until Feb. 28, 2013.

“I hope the taxpayers will be pleased,” Stern said. “I like to run a tight ship. We have improved things around here pretty well. We run a good economic plan. This is only part of it. It’s just beginning to show what it can do. In the next couple of years, Thomaston will be in good shape.”

Stern said the $44,895 increase in spending the village will incur this year came from a 9-percent increase in employee benefits.

“We got the usual things,” said Stern, whose is now in his 15th year as Thomaston’s mayor. “We had an increase in pension contributions to the state and to the health-insurance policies.”

Pension costs the village has to pay the state rose from $59,000 last year to $65,000 this year, while social security payments went from $30,000 to $35,000 as part of the new budget.

The village will also pay $96,000 for medical and dental costs this year, which shows an increase from the $90,000 the trustees budgeted a year ago.

But Stern said the rising costs are not a cause for concern.

“Usual maintenance,” he said. “Nothing dramatic.”

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