The tentative 2019 county budget will increase the tax levy by 2.2 percent.

On Wednesday, Chautauqua County Executive George Borrello presented his proposed budget to the County Legislature during its regular meeting, with the full budget being available to review online this Sunday.

On Thursday, Borrello told the OBSERVER the tax levy, which is the amount raised through the property tax according to the state Department of Taxation and Finance website, will increase $1,350,250 to a total of $62,74,600. If the tentative budget is passed as presented, the proposed 2.2 percent increase would be the highest tax levy hike in the county’s fiscal plan since 2012, when it increased 3.7 percent.

In other budget business, Borrello said he has appropriated an additional $65,000 to the county District Attorney’s Office for a new attorney. Overall, he said the district attorney’s budget had a net increase of $28,601, which was lower than the amount appropriated for the new attorney because of some additional cuts made in other areas of the DA’s fiscal plan.

On Tuesday, Patrick Swanson, county district attorney, sent the newspaper a copy of the letter he sent to the County Legislature Public Safety Committee dated Sept. 11 detailing his intent to hire a new lawyer if the county budget includes the funding. Swanson said he would like to take in a more experienced attorney in his office to be the narcotics prosecutor, who will be free to more efficiently and effectively prosecute drug dealers. He said the narcotics prosecutor will only handle narcotics cases.

Swanson sent the letter to the committee because of the request by Legislator Terry Niebel, R-Sheridan, who wanted a letter stating that if the DA’s Office budget is increased the funding will go toward an additional attorney.

Borrello said even though he appropriated the additional funding, it is still up to the head of the department, Swanson, on how that money is spent.

During Borrello’s budget presentation Wednesday, the financial plan for the first time in at least 10 years has no proposed use of unassigned fund balance, which is comparable to a savings account. He said it is recommended that the county has a fund balance of between 5 to 15 percent of the total budget. He added that the county has 6.5 percent of its total budget in savings, which is barely above the minimum recommended amount.

Other highlights of the tentative budget included Borrello discussing how he has proposed no change in the tax rate, which is $8.44 per $1,000 assessed property value. He said because the proposed budget doesn’t include any one-shot revenue increases it is a “major achievement” to have a tentative budget without a tax rate increase.

Borrello has also proposed a budget to invest $4.4 million in county infrastructure. He said county officials earlier this year had to reallocated about $4 million from the undesignated fund balance over to the capital reserve account. Because of this, he said it is an opportunity to “beef up” the capital projects budget for 2019. He added that $3.4 million will be used to invest in Public Facilities Department equipment and to improve roads and bridges. Also, $600,000 will go to improve county facilities and $400,000 will go toward other vehicle and equipment investments.

The county executive is also proposing to shut down the landfill methane electric plan, which has been losing money. Borrello said in 2017 the operation lost $139,089 and this year the plant is projected to lose around $200,000. He said the proposal is to sell the methane gas as renewable natural gas. He added the plan should generate more than $1 million in profit with no investment in infrastructure.

In 2019, Borrello also wants to operate the emergency medical services program — also known as “fly-cars” — as a 24-hour, seven days a week operation. Currently, the fly-car program operates 12 hours a day, six days a week. He said the fly-car system has filled important gaps in EMS service throughout the county. However, he said sometimes there is still up to a 40-minute response time wait for EMS calls.

Overall, the $254 million 2019 budget proposal increases spending by $200,000 compared to the 2018 budget, which is less than .1 percent.

The budget will be available online at co.chautauqua.ny.us/186/County-Executive.