The Bloomingburg Village Board passed the 2022-23 sewer and village budgets Monday night that included raises for the mayor, trustees and clerks; money for a security guard for Justice Court; a boost in spending and taxes; and still managed to get an ovation from the dozen or so people who turned out for a public hearing that preceded the vote.

One speaker who stood to address the board said he’s all for an increase in the budget “if it improves the lives of the residents, improves the quality of life of villagers.”

Asked after the meeting if the public’s response was surprising, Trustee Samuel Weingarten said, “We didn’t do anything crazy.”

The public will get one more chance to comment on the budget because the village must hold a public hearing that will address the tax increase; because, as it stands, it exceeds the New York State tax cap.

The village budget for the year that begins on June 1 is $382,237, up $54,244 from this year’s $327,993 budget. The amount to be raised by taxes is $314,305. Village Mayor Russell Wood, Jr. said that works out to a tax increase of roughly $1.60 per $1,000 of assessed value, or $160 on a house assessed at $100,000.

Discussing the raises, Wood said that the board has been underpaid for years even as the workload has increased. The mayor’s salary will rise to $23,400, up from $15,400. The two trustees will each see a raise of $4,200, doubling their current salary.

More money is also allocated for the village clerk, up $3,500 to $13,500. The building/planning/zoning clerk’s salary went up $6,044 to $12,500, and the tax collector went up $2,000 to $3,500. Currently the same person, Joel Jungreis, holds all of those jobs.

The budget line for village engineering fees took a steep increase to $20,000 from $3,500, but the fees for the building inspector and village attorney both dropped, the former by $9,000 to $16,000, and the latter by $5,000 to $12,000. All of those line items were adjusted to better reflect actual spending over the past year, Wood said. Much of the engineering fees went to ongoing preliminary work on the proposed municipal water system and the new sidewalks along Winterton Road, Wood said.

Justice Court expenses will also increase. The judge, the Honorable Julia Sherman, will see a raise of $1,500 to $6,500. The court clerk, a position currently vacant, will be paid $8,000, up from $5,000, and a new position, court security guard, is budgeted at $1,500. Sherman had asked the trustees to hire a guard, a routine position in a court without an official court officer, or covered by a police department or deputy sheriff. The village had relied on the Sullivan County Sheriff’s Office to provide a deputy, but the county could not always spare someone to cover the monthly court session, Wood said.

After the budget was passed, the trustees voted to hire Charlie Simpson, who also provides security for Mamakating Town Court.

The only significant boost in the sewer budget is the result of an increase in the operating fees paid to JCO Environment Service. The company had wanted to raise its monthly fee to $7,000 from $5,800 beginning in June and to $8,500 in June 2023. The village and JCO negotiated a more gradual increase to be spread out over five years. The idea being that as more units are hooked up to the sewer system, the cost borne by each customer will drop. In the new budget, JCO will be paid $6,500 per month. In another effort to ease the cost for sewer customers, the village will put $20,000 into a special capital fund for maintenance and repairs instead of the usual $40,000.

Zoning, Sidewalks, Buses

Now that the budget is passed, Trustee Chaim Freidman said one of the first orders of business should be a comprehensive look at zoning. A plan to overhaul the codes, and rewrite the rules for the residential R-1 zone has languished, in part because of the COVID pandemic and in part for lack of money. In the absence of a revamped code, developers have requested shifting zoning of properties in R-1 to the Neighborhood Business District, to permit building denser housing. The latest request, received Monday, asked the trustees to shift four parcels on North Road and Joseph Court to the NBD.

The board had been dealing with changes piecemeal, but the trustees agree that it would be better to take on the zoning issue now in light of the rapid growth in Bloomingburg.

Wood also announced to great relief that he met with Mamakating Supervisor Michael Robbins and the two of them signed off the last of the easements needed for the new sidewalk along Winterton Road. Wood said the next step is to meet with the developer of Chestnut Ridge to work out a construction timetable.

Sullivan County Legislator Nicholas Salomone, R, D-4, stopped by the meeting to say that Move Sullivan, the community transportation service, will begin operating between Bloomingburg and Monticello and points in between. Details of the service should be released shortly, he said.