Diana proposed 10 percent property tax cut

The real question here is how many dollars are comming in from the Woodbury Commons, when will we get our fair share!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Diana proposed 10 percent property tax cut

Diana
Orange County Executive Edward Diana yesterday proposed a 2006 county budget of over $543 million, up from the $515 million spending plan this year, but with a 10 percent property tax reduction. The $3.04 per $1,000 of assessed valuation will be the lowest amount in the last 60 years, he said.

Diana’s challenger in the November election, Michael Edelstein, found fault with the spending plan. “This little dip in the property tax is merely a pre-election ploy and I think any taxpaying voter in Orange County is going to recognize that,” he said.

Two-thirds of the spending plan, $340 million, is state and federally funded mandates, Diana said. The Department of Social Services and the Medicaid program alone will cost the county $176 million in the new year.

Among the new expenses in 2006 will be an extra $1 million to cost the costs of fuel for county vehicles and to heat county buildings.

Diana has placed in his budget $8 million as initial funding for the $40 million new Emergency Services Facility; $1.5 million for Phase II of the Orange County Law Records Management System; $45,000 for additional emergency response training for the men and women who risk their lives to save us from fires; $3 million to upgrade the Orange County Fire Training Center in New Hampton; $2 million for a centralized kitchen for the county’s Senior Dining Program; $27,500 to fund Healthy Orange/ Partners for Children; an additional $10,000 now totaling $120,000 to keep libraries as a vital part of the community; $20,000 to Literacy Volunteers of America; $5 million will be used for a new Municipal Infrastructure Improvement Loan Fund; $3.5 million will preserve open space throughout the county; and $4 million to enhance the county parks system.