Fire truck bumps town budget

Town of Belgium electors on Monday approved exceeding the state levy limit, its local tax levy and its road expenditures for 2019.

By a vote of 14-2, the town agreed to pay $43,305 to help replace a 1993 grass fire truck for the Belgium Fire Department. The cost of the truck is being split with the Village of Belgium, which has agreed to pay $31,695, with the breakdown determined by equalized property value.

The truck costs $89,264. The village and town agreed to split the original projected cost of $75,000, with the fire department to pick up the rest.

Town resident and Plan Commission member Dennis Dimmer stressed that exceeding the state levy limit to pay for the truck is only a one-year expense.

Supr. Bill Janeshek said the town in the past had tried to earmark $10,000 annually for future fire truck purchases, but could never save enough to cover its share.

“We just felt that this was more of an easier way,” he said of the one-year levy increase.

As a result, the town’s tax levy is $459,405, a 10.9% increase from last year. Electors approved that by a 14-2 vote, after which the Town Board passed it, 3-0.

Without the truck purchase, the levy would have risen by $2,015 — one half of 1% — the maximum increase allowed by the state due to net new construction.

Road expenditures of $324,700 were approved, 14-2.

The total town budget is $624,190.

Vegetation control is up 20%, from $20,000 to $24,000, due to removal of dead and dying ash trees, Janeshek said.

The budget includes raises for the town chairman and clerk, which voters approved at the annual meeting in April. The clerk’s salary will riswe 12.5% to $24,600, and the chairman’s 14.5% to $5,010. The increases take effect after the next year’s spring election and will impact whoever wins those positions.

Dimmer said the increases look so large because salaries weren’t raised for such a long time and that the salaries are still low compared to other towns.

Winker defended the increases and said he first proposed a raise for the clerk years ago, then the zoning administrator and treasurer, then the two supervisors and lastly the chairman.

“If you want to have good people in good positions, you need to take care of them,” Town Chairman Tom Winker said.

In a separate motion, the board unanimously approved spending up to $12,000 to repair the engine on the fire department’s 1995 pumper that had a piston go through the engine block.

“I can tell you where it’s going to come out of — the road budget,” Winker said. “I don’t see that we have a choice. It’s an engine that’s needed.”

Winker said he spent about three hours on the phone over three days looking for a warranty on the truck with 20,000 miles without a positive result.

Winker said he hopes the fix extends the life of the truck.