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Fredonia starts water, sewer capital project funds

Fredonia’s Board of Trustees approved capital reserve funds for village water and sewer projects.

Village Treasurer James Sedota has sought the funds since soon after he took his position in 2018. He advocated them as a fiscally smart way of allocating millions of dollars of unexpended fund balance, in light of ongoing improvement projects at the wastewater and water treatment plants.

The resolutions establishing the two funds are identical, except for references to their respective purposes. For example, the water fund measure refers to “the village water treatment plant, water reservoir and the village water transmission and distribution system” while the sewer fund law mentions wastewater treatment and collection.

The laws authorize trustees to make transfers to the reserve funds — not just from unexpended financial reserves, but “budgetary appropriation and (money) raised by tax, or such surplus or unexpended village sewer (or water) funds as it shall determine.”

The trustees are the only ones who can authorize use of money in the funds. When they do so, they must clarify the specific items the monies will be used for and then hold a public hearing on the proposed expenditure.

The laws establishing the funds also ensure that they will be kept clerically and fiscally separate from other village funding lines. They also mandate a report on their condition by the treasurer at the end of each fiscal year.

Money in the funds can be used on an emergency basis, without notice or a public hearing, if at least two-thirds of the Board of Trustees votes to do so. In practice, that would mean at least four members of the five-person board would have to approve the expenditure. At least half of the money spent in the emergency cases must be repaid in the next fiscal year, and the rest paid by the following year.

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