Robbed Again

The 2007 Budget
Mr. Talmage suggests that the rising cost of town government is due to the highway budgets. Comparing the General and Highway Fund budgets when Mr. Talmage took office in 2004 with his final budget for 2007, we find that the General Fund has risen 52.5 percent, while the Highway Fund has only increased 33.7 percent. Keep in mind that the highway budget is far more sensitive to increases in petroleum costs than is the General Fund.
Looking at specific accounts for:
2006 2007 Percent of Change
Supervisor Salary $ 12,420 $ 14,000 + 12.7
(Most others received a 4 percent increase.)
Supervisor’s
Private Secretary $ 6,000 $ 10,000 + 67.0
Attorney $ 20,000 $ 55,000 +275
Recreation $ 15,000 $ 15,000 0.0
Zoning $ 66,200 $ 72,000 + 8.8
Planning Personnel $ 2,200 $ 11,000 +500
Employee Benefits
General $112,000 $145,500 + 29.9
Highway $ 63,338 $ 50,562 - 20.0
Buried in these numbers is a full-time position of building inspector/zoning enforcement officer, a part-time town planner and a part-time wetlands specialist.
One can certainly see that the town board’s priorities have nothing to do with maintenance of the town’s roads. The town highway department has been losing ground every year since Mr. Talmage took office. Blaming the decline on past boards and past and present highway superintendents is dishonest. If the town has the money to provide for a private secretary, nearly tripling the attorney fees (not including the money in the zoning and planning budgets), and hiring more personnel to enforce more laws, it should have been able to provide enough money to fix the roads. The objective of the gang of four on the town board is to make government in Milan full time; that is their idea of rural