Farmington residents should see no increase in the town’s portion of their next property tax bill.
The Farmington Town Board voted Monday, Nov. 17 to levy $651,317 in property taxes for 2015, the same as it levied for 2014.
The town’s expenditures will increase by just over $10,000, or 1 percent, to nearly $1.3 million.
Farmington expects to receive $267,333 in state aid, an increase of more than $9,000.
Other revenues include permit fees and insurance recovery on the abandoned landfill.
The town’s 2015 transportation budget includes $502,550 in spending for road maintenance, snow plowing, street lights and road name signs.
The second largest line item on the budget is $175,254 for public safety, which includes fire protection, ambulance service, lake patrol, building inspections and numbered fire signs.
General government expenses for 2015 are budgeted at $170,392. Town board and clerk/treasurer salaries, office equipment and expenses, elections, insurance and legal fees fall under general government.
Farmington is budgeted to spend $2,000 on legal fees and less than $14,000 on liability, property, medical and disability insurance.
The town expects to spend $49,582 for sanitation, which includes $40,000 for the landfill and $9,582 for its share of the county Processing and Transfer Facility in Manawa. Farmington normally pays about $11,600 for its share of the regional recycling center in Waupaca. The participating municipalities will not have to pay recycling fees in 2015 due to a surplus in the program’s budget.
Monday’s budget hearing was held inside the new town hall, located across State Highway 54 from the old town hall.
Kevin Will, who was running his first meeting as Farmington’s new town chairman, said the prior two chairmen and their town boards had set aside funds for more than a dozen years to build the new hall.
“The cost of this new town hall is not raising your taxes,” Will said.
The town set aside $45,000 in capital outlay to build a shed near the new town hall.
Farmington is projected to maintain an $830,524 fund balance from the beginning to the end of 2015.