Webster's biggest departments close budget season with flat levies, and none got there by spending less

Three of Webster's largest departments closed the town's 2027 budget season Thursday with a tax levy line that is flat, falling or set at zero. None of the three got there by spending less.

The police department's law enforcement levy falls $11,949 for 2027. An $85,000 federal bonus line that ends accounts for more than that entire decrease, and a separate police benefits block in the same worksheet rises $175,000. The highway department's part-town fund raises nothing at all in taxes. It balances on a $3 million draw from fund balance, which is $400,000 larger than last year's draw. The library's levy line also reads $0, because the library is paid for by a transfer out of the general fund rather than a levy of its own. That is how the library fund is built, not a change for 2027. The levy line stayed at zero while the transfer rose: $3,000,768 for 2027, up $241,766. A board member told the room the budgets will not stay as flat as they look, because three union contracts are still open.

In this piece:

• Why three levy lines read zero
• Police: a levy that falls because a federal line ends
• Highway: a $3 million draw holds the part-town levy at zero
• The library: the $0 levy line and the transfer underneath it
• The $150,000 zoning line, and the grant that has not yet been awarded
• The raises question now has four different answers
• What happens next

Six worksheets covering seven presentations came to the Webster Town Board on Thursday afternoon, at the second and last of the town's 2027 budget workshops. Community development, engineering, the town clerk, the police department, the sewer fund, the Webster Public Library and the highway department each walked the board through a request. These were the departments the chair had called "all of the big ones" when he closed the first workshop on July 30. The sewer fund, which residents pay through a bill rather than a tax, is covered in a separate piece.

A budget workshop is department heads explaining their own numbers to the board that oversees them. There is no public comment period and no adversarial voice in the room. Each department posted a worksheet with the agenda, showing 2027 against 2026 line by line. Five of the six are dated July 23. The police worksheet is one revision older, dated July 14, so any police figure below may have moved since. These are departmental worksheets, not the compiled tentative budget the supervisor files with the town clerk, and that filing is still to come.

Why three levy lines read zero

The six worksheets span five separate funds, and they do not sit on the same tax base. That matters before any of the numbers below make sense.

The general fund town-wide and the highway town-wide fund are paid by every town taxpayer. The general fund part-town and the highway part-town fund are paid only by property owners outside the Village of Webster. The sewer fund is paid by sewer ratepayers, not by taxes at all. The library fund carries a $0 levy line and is funded by a transfer from the general fund. Our guide to reading a Webster property tax bill walks through which of those lines lands on which bill.

So "the library raises nothing in taxes" and "highway part-town raises nothing in taxes" are both accurate, and neither describes what the town actually spends. There is no single figure for what the six departments add up to, because there is no single tax base underneath them.

The town-wide portion is comparable. Adding the general fund town-wide levy lines across the four worksheets that carry them gives $10,930,715 for 2027 against $10,737,905 for 2026, an increase of $192,810 or 1.80%. That excludes tax collection, which has no levy line and runs a planned surplus. It is not comparable to the $3,767,666 total published after the first workshop, which covered seven units that all sat in one fund.

Police: a levy that falls because a federal line ends

Law enforcement appropriations rise $11,251 for 2027, to $5,870,275. The amount to be raised by taxes goes the other way, down $11,949 to $5,605,775.

One line explains most of that. A3120.10054 Officer ARPA Bonus Compensation carried $85,000 in 2026 and carries $0 in 2027. The chief of police told the board it was not a discretionary payment the town chose to stop making.

"One for discussion, ARPA bonus. That was a contractual benefit for the officers as part of the last contract negotiations. Obviously that's not carrying over to '27, so that's not in the budget."

That is the second workshop in a row where Webster's remaining federal pandemic aid shows up as something ending. At the first workshop it was parks and recreation, where the money was never a line item at all and its end showed up only in which account paid for a program. Here it has an account number of its own, and the account goes to zero.

Policing does not cost less next year. A separate employee benefits block in the same worksheet rises $175,000, or 4.8%, to $3,822,000. Medical insurance for police goes from $560,000 to $670,000. Medical insurance for police retirees goes from $1,220,000 to $1,327,000. The retirement contribution line falls $50,000 and partly offsets both. Both blocks sit in the general fund town-wide, on the same worksheet.

The chief flagged the retiree line specifically. Officers retire young and then spend a long stretch on retiree benefits, he told the board, and the town has been using contract terms that reduce the retiree contribution for officers who stay longer.

Highway: a $3 million draw holds the part-town levy at zero

Highway Superintendent Patrick Stephens presented a budget spread across four funds.

The highway town-wide fund is nearly flat. Its amount to be raised by taxes is $1,306,066 against $1,303,639, up $2,427. That is a separate fund from the general fund town-wide lines counted earlier, which include highway administration, so the two figures do not overlap.

The highway administration lines, which sit in the general fund town-wide rather than the highway town-wide fund, move for a reason that is easy to misread. Stephens said seasonal part-timers have been consolidated out of several seasonal labor lines into the part-time employee line, and that the reclassification accounts for about three-quarters of the increase in that section. It is bookkeeping, not hiring.

The part-town side is where the pressure sits. Appropriations rise $329,951, or 5.0%, to $6,875,937.

Two things close that gap, and neither is a tax. The fund's share of Monroe County sales tax falls $134,000 to $3,283,000. The worksheet labels that share as 49% for 2027 against 51% for 2026. And the appropriated fund balance line goes from $2.6 million to $3 million.

The mechanism was stated plainly on the record. New York's tax cap limits how much a local government can increase its property tax levy from one year to the next, and a town board can exceed it only by adopting a local law to override it.

"The highway part-town fund has a sizable fund balance to keep us under the tax cap."

"This highway part-town fund, we actually reduced the tax rate to zero, which allows us to use sales tax money in the general town-wide fund, which actually is helping pay for some of the debt service on the highway building. So we're going to do that as long as we can. At some point I'll have to flip back, but it's been a pretty good strategy so far."

It is not a highway quirk. Two hours earlier, closing the community development presentation, the finance director described the same approach for the general part-town fund: the levy brought to zero so the sales tax can be used town-wide, and the town trying to keep that going as long as it can.

This is at least the fourth consecutive year both part-town levies have been set to zero this way. The town's 2025 adopted budget says it used sales tax revenue and appropriated fund balance to bring the part-town tax rate to zero for 2024 and 2025, and the 2026 adopted budget carried the same combination forward. What changed for 2027 is the cost of continuing it in the highway part-town fund, where the draw grows $400,000 while that fund's sales tax share shrinks. A fund balance draw is a one-time source by definition. The worksheets show what is being drawn and not what remains, so they do not answer how long the approach can run.

The other half of the sales tax story sits in the community development worksheet, where the part-town general fund's share rises from 12% to 18%, worth $402,000. The finance director told the board the reallocation is deliberate and happens every year.

"It's paid to us on a quarterly basis and it's currently being split between the general town-wide fund, this fund here which is the general part-town fund, and the highway part-town fund. So I do reallocate it each year to maximize the benefit, and we actually had a pretty good increase here of $402,000."

Those two lines together are up 6.3% across the two funds. Departments that presented at the first workshop carry their own sales tax lines, so this is a subtotal and not the town's sales tax revenue.

The library: the $0 levy line and the transfer underneath it

The library's total appropriations rise 9.3%, from $2,835,740 to $3,099,339, and none of that lands on a library tax line. The levy line reads $0, and the general fund transfer that pays for the library instead is $3,000,768 for 2027, up $241,766.

The line driving most of the increase was conditional on a vote that had not happened. L9950.90000 Transfer to Library Capital Reserve carries $150,000 against $0, followed by a footnote in the worksheet itself: "This line item is dependent on the Webster Public Library Board establishing a capital reserve at the next scheduled board meeting."

Strip that line out and the library's appropriations rise 4.0%. Library Director Adam Traub used a different measure and reached 3.3%: with the reserve removed, that is how much more the library is asking of the general fund. Either way, he told the board, the reserve is more than half of his increase.

The $150,000 zoning line, and the grant that has not yet been awarded

One line in the six worksheets carries no offsetting revenue for 2027.

B8020.40296 Masterplan / Smart Growth Zoning Revisions goes from $50,000 to $150,000. The line that offset it last year, B410.03989 Masterplan Grant Revenue, goes from $50,000 to $0. The combined effect is that the Planning Board's amount to be raised by taxes rises from $71,954 to $221,503, an increase of 207.8% and the largest percentage jump in the set. That line sits inside the general fund part-town, the fund whose bottom-line levy is brought to zero, so it is a worksheet allocation rather than a levy a taxpayer is billed.

That is not a grant that went away. It is a grant the town has applied for and has decided not to book until it is awarded. Webster asked New York State for $150,000 to rewrite its zoning code through the state's Smart Growth Community Planning Program, as we reported last month. The state has not announced awards. Director of Community Development Josh Artuso explained the budget treatment.

"You will see the smart growth zoning revisions as being reflected as a $150,000 expense. We did just last week submit the grant application to New York State by the deadline. But nonetheless, we must reflect this in our budget."

The finance director answered immediately: "We'll hold off on showing the revenue until we know for sure."

So the 207.8% is a worst case, and Artuso told the board he is hopeful the state grant will offset it. If the state funds the application, the revenue side comes back and the levy impact largely disappears. If it does not, the worksheet line carries it. The worksheet shows the second outcome because that is the one the town can currently prove.

The raises question now has four different answers

The first workshop's headline was that no department request included a cost-of-living adjustment, because the town's three union contracts are all being negotiated. That was restated Thursday.

"I should probably say that the 2027 budget does not include COLA increases for the employees because our three union contracts are all being negotiated currently. So those numbers won't go in until we know them. So that's why you see some of the salary amounts are relatively flat year to year."

Thursday's presentations showed the picture is not uniform.

Most town departments carry no COLA and flat salary lines, as described.

The sewer fund did budget a placeholder. Asked about a compensation line roughly $100,000 higher, the presenter said part of it is a requested maintenance mechanic and part of it is provision for a settlement. "We have budgeted in COLA just in case, and step increases," he said. A board member noted on the record that this "differs from our other lines, our other departments."

The highway department carries no COLA and no blue-collar contract, and still budgets salary growth.

"It's flat, but it doesn't include the blue collar contract. It doesn't include the COLA. So I take the, I assess the 36 or so employees that we have and try to anticipate merit increases. What we look at represents about a 5% increase across the board, through just which folks get merit, which ones don't. That's based on an estimate by me. I try to be conservative. If I think somebody's on the right track, we put that in the budget. It doesn't mean they automatically get it. They still have to earn it."

And the library, outside collective bargaining entirely, budgeted a 3% cost-of-living increase and 1% steps.

So "the 2027 budget contains no raises" is not accurate. The largest single unknown in the budget is still the settlement of three union contracts covering town employees. What Thursday added is that different funds have made different assumptions about how that lands.

The board made the point itself. A member observed that the budgets look flat year over year because of the open white collar, blue collar and police negotiations, and asked when there would be any insight into the increases. The finance director said not at this time, that it was too preliminary.

"It's going to change. It's not going to be as flat as it appears."

What happens next

One town-wide cost is still an assumption rather than a number. The finance director told the board he applied the same medical insurance increase, about 12%, across every fund presented Thursday, calculated off actual spending rather than off a quoted premium, and that he hopes to know the real figure in September. It is why medical insurance rises in parallel in departments that have nothing else in common, up 19.6% in the police worksheet and 31.4% in sewer, and again at the library.

After that the numbers move into the compiled tentative budget the supervisor files with the town clerk, then to board review, a preliminary budget published for the public, a public hearing and a vote. Monroe County towns are required to file a tentative budget with the town clerk by Oct. 30 under state Town Law. Webster filed on Aug. 29 last cycle and adopted on Oct. 16, which is the town's habit rather than the statutory schedule.

The board met again at 7:30 the same evening for its regular meeting, on a separate agenda.

AI tools were used in drafting and research.