February 5th, 2018
CANISTEO, NY – At the February monthly meeting Canisteo Village Mayor Monica Recktenwald put a plan in place to rectify oversights by the previous Village Clerk, and lay out changes that will recoup and save the village money in the future.
The first move will be to work closely with the Comptroller’s office and get all necessary paperwork submitted to them. Also a new program has been implemented that monitors the budget, and also tracks the water/sewer bills and taxes. Several onsite training sessions have already occurred with the Clerk in regards to that.
Water/Sewer bills will now be issued 4 times a year instead of two in hopes that residents will be able to stay on top of it better and be more punctual in their payments. Meter readings will still only occur twice a year. Non village residents that live in the town and Belle Haven could possibly face termination of services for failure to pay the bills.
The Clerk and Mayor now meet regularly with department heads and go over their budgets closely so there are no surprises come budget time.
The village also started streamlining some services several months ago to decrease operational costs. Paying bills electronically, developing a website to keep residents informed of important dates, switching credit cards to one that is tax exempt and also offers rewards, decreased the cleaning services, changes in how they purchase office supplies, and renegotiating their electricity to a lower rate are some of the steps taken.
In other news the Village will be looking at possibly laying underground electricity to the Town Park for events such as Krazy Daze and surrounding it with concrete posts.
Three new volunteer firefighters have been approved for the Village; Erica and Catherine Freitag, and Justin Campbell.
Also the village will be looking into LED street lighting similar to the route Hornell has just taken. The cost to the village would be around $5,000 with a possible 35% savings in electricity each year.
And finally the village will hold a public hearing right before the 7pm meeting March 5th to discuss exceeding the 2% tax cap.
