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The Fredonia Village Board is looking at ways to reduce expenditures, and a variety of options including suspending capital projects for a year were discussed during the first in a series of budget meetings.

Mayor Doug Essek recently proposed a 17% increase in taxes, though he later revised that proposal. He noted that the plan is to possibly increase taxes minimally while also using some of the $1.9 million the village is expected to receive from the second COVID relief package passed in Washington earlier this month.

According to board member James Lynden, the budget was overspent last year.

“We have to be careful with that this year,” he said. “We need to protect the community in case of an emergency. We had an emergency with the loss of the elevator.”

“I think one of the easiest things to do in regard to reducing expenditures is to suspend capital projects for a year,” board member EvaDawn Bashaw said.

“I think the capital projects were over-projected on some of them,” Lynden responded.

“Specifically water, but that’s in its own department. I don’t know if we can necessarily suspend all of those.”

Bashaw pointed out that some things such as police and fire equipment could wait a year if necessary.

“We just bought a new police car. I think we can go a year without one,” Bashaw said. “I think we might need to leave something in the road maintenance, but I’d like to know what CHIPS covers in that. I’m looking at this list of capital costs and other than the roads, I think it could all wait for a year.”

Lynden agreed there were some things that could be pushed back, however, there are some things that can’t such as a contractual obligation of $10,000 that has to be done as it’s an agreement with the town. Also, the village has fire hydrants, road maintenance and sewers on the list and they’re not sure how much of that can be eliminated.

“When looking at the fire department, the gear extractor, the dryer, the rescue equipment and the HVAC can wait,” Bashaw said. “I think the (police) car can wait. The computer network should be left alone because of the auditor; we don’t really have much of a choice with that because of the security.”

The board hopes to eliminate an estimated $200,000 from expenses as they go through the capital and budget lines.