The sun returned Monday, but the darkness in Fredonia’s financial situation remains.

An 18.91% property tax hike isn’t coming, as village trustees last week hacked about $400,000 off the budget proposed by Mayor Michael Ferguson. However, he said that still put the tax hike between 16 and 17%, before Monday’s activity.

Trustees wound up proposing hikes Monday to water and sewer rates to raise more revenue. They settled on rates of $7 per 1,000 gallons used for both services. Base usage water and sewer fees are targeted for $5 raises as well.

The village just raised its water rate by $2, to $6.95 per 1,000 gallons, in March. The current sewer rate is $6.32 per 1,000.

“Our contracts and employment is a major, major issue in this budget,” Ferguson said. “First of all, we have to learn to stagger our contracts. Every single contract that we have is due this year. Nobody does that. … Those of us who are going to be negotiating these contracts, we’ve got to stagger these so they’re not all coming due at the same time.”

He added, “Every scenario with regards to personnel movement, I’ve come up with a brick wall right now — which I’m not going to discuss here.

“If you try moving someone from one department and that person qualifies in a different department, then another person who is doing a very good job is going to lose their job, and by the way, (they were) making a third of what the other person is. We’re caught up in a standstill based on…some of the contracts that we have.

“I’m not looking at this as a fire issue, as a police issue, I’m looking at it as an overall employment issue in the village. We’re already working with a skeleton crew but contracts with those skeleton crews are awfully rich.”

Trustee Jon Espersen commented, “There was no doubt we were going to get where we are now. It was a matter of when it was going to happen.”

Trustee Nicole Siracuse criticized the practice of pulling from fund balances to help even out village budgets. She said that a chunk of the 18.91% tax increase in Ferguson’s initial proposal is just to make up for spending of the fund balance.

Siracuse stated, “This year, everything created a perfect storm between no tax increase, minimal tax increase, inflation hitting as hard as it has, dipping into the fund balance for as long as we did — and expenses, even without inflation, go up every year. There’s no way around where we’re currently sitting.”

“We’re just going to have to dig as far as we can… and do the best we can to keep everybody afloat. This year is going to be fairly status quo at this point,” Ferguson said. “The other thing I think we need to take a look at is department by department billing… I’ve got a couple of departments that, at the beginning of this quarter, there was zero dollars on the books. How that is even remotely possible, is a question that I have. And now, suddenly there’s revenue. Is it a billing issue, a timing of billing issue, a collection issue? That’s something we are going to have to be much more aware of in the coming year.”

Espersen said, “There comes a point where you just can’t make cuts anymore and expect departments to have what they need to do (business with). There’s only so much you can take.”

Siracuse said the only other place to cut would be the summer recreation program at village playgrounds. The program at the Laona hamlet playground got slashed last week — but Siracuse suggested canceling the whole program for 2024.

Ferguson said it could be limited to two sites, stating the village is five miles in either direction and it’s not far to go. He suggested Russell Joy Park and the Barker Playground.

Espersen said he didn’t want to eliminate the program, backing Ferguson’s proposal. After discussion, trustees agreed to the two-playground plan and a cut of three part-time summer jobs to go along with it. That will save approximately $22,000.

Trustee Ben Brauchler said he wanted to get the fund balance down to 15% to take more off the tax hike. He suggested hiking the sewer rate and maybe the water again.

Espersen said he wanted to explore how it could affect Fredonia’s bond rating before supporting the 15% fund balance idea.

“This is no attack on any community, but we all read the news, and there are other communities we don’t want to emulate, and have to go to the state and request a loan to pay our bills,” he said.

The discussion on raising the water and sewer rates came soon after.

Siracuse said, “I know it’s going to be a fight and I know they’re going to be angry. But we’re not even breaking even still. Contrary to what everyone’s saying, we’re not just pulling numbers out of thin air.”

Fredonia’s officials are not done scrutinizing the budget. They decided to have one more session, after today’s regularly scheduled Board of Trustees workshop.