Evan Vitale Consulting: Consulting firm recommends more than a dozen changes to proposed Ulster …

Thursday, October 30, 2014

Consulting firm recommends more than a dozen changes to proposed Ulster … – The Daily Freeman

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KINGSTON >>Financial consultants for the Ulster County Legislature found little to quibble with in the $334.52 million 2015 budget proposed by Ulster County Executive Michael Hein.

O’Connor Davies, the Westchester County firm hired to review the administration’s budget plan, recommended 13 changes to the administration’s budget projections.

If the county Legislature were to incorporate all 13 changes proposed, by consultants the county’s property tax levy would drop by $500,000.

“On a $334 million budget, that’s very good,” said consultant Chris Kopf, during a presentation Wednesday to the Ulster County Legislature’s Budget and Finance Committee.

The consultants said Ulster County will likely end 2014 with a $10 million surplus, despite the fact that it received $700,000 less in sales tax revenue than budgeted.

Savings in personnel costs, including salaries, retirement and other benefits more than made up for that loss, they said.

Among the more significant changes proposed for 2015 is a $600,000 decrease in the amount of money paid to Ulster County for boarding inmates from other counties.

Kopf said that based on conversations with Dutchess County, which is installing pods to house inmates now being housed in Ulster and other counties across the state, the number of inmates coming into Ulster from Dutchess could drop significantly in 2015.

He said Dutchess County officials have said the number could drop as low as between two and five inmates from the 25 to 35 inmates now coming into Ulster.

Ways and Means Chairman Richard Gerentine said that Dutchess has indicated it may begin taking its excess inmates to Albany County, which is charging Dutchess less than it pays Ulster County.

“They are saying they might be using another county altogether,” said Gerentine, R-Marlborough. “That’s what the consultants were told. That’s not what the budget director and the sheriff were told,” he said.

The consulting firm also recommended reducing by $600,000 the amount the county pays when residents attend community colleges in other counties, and said the county could reduce by about $300,000 the $7 million budgeted for Safety Net public assistance costs for the upcoming year.

But the firm recommended increasing by $100,000 each the amounts the county budgeted for electricity and gas and for salt and chloride, and also suggested the legislature decrease by $350,000 the revenue anticipated from sales tax.

The Ulster County Legislature is expected to conduct its review of the budget next week and adopt a final 2015 spending plan on Nov. 18.

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