We are in the middle of the budget process in Chemung County. County Executive Moss provided his proposed budget to the Legislature on November 12th. A copy of the budget is embedded below and can be found here.
The Legislature held four budget workshops during November. Chemung County Budget Director Steve Hoover led three discussions where he allowed for a very candid exchange in a question-and-answer format among himself and legislators as we attempted to learn more about what impacts the proposed budget would have on various sectors of our community as well as local government itself. The fourth workshop was an open discussion among legislators.
The first three workshops were live-streamed to the Chemung County Matters Facebook page, found here, where the videos remain embedded. I had to miss the final workshop due to a family obligation.
The Legislature’s Response
The Chemung County Charter requires the Legislature to provide a report back to the County Executive by November 25th with any recommended changes or amendments.
The document below constitutes the legislature’s report.
Of note, Exhibit “A” of the report, beginning at page 19, sets forth the Legislature’s budget recommendations.
John Burin, Vice Chairperson of the Legislature, did an outstanding job analyzing the budget and helping us brainstorm ways to possibly improve it. Drawing on his experience as the City of Elmira Manager at a time when Elmira faced extreme fiscal stress, Burin developed a proposal that calls for limited spending from reserves ($84,246) while accounting for additional mandates handed down from Albany this year.
An informal poll of the legislators has revealed unanimous support for the recommended changes. I embedded the recommended changes alone to make them easier to access.
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