BETHEL — The Town of Bethel adopted the 2021 town budget and 2021 sewer user rates at its most recent meeting after public hearings regarding both.

Bethel's $9.577 million budget remains under the tax cap, which was 1.56 percent this year instead of two percent based on state calculations. The tax rate increase came in around a 1.1 percent actual increase compared to last year.

“There's no frills - a bare bones budget,” Town of Bethel Supervisor Daniel Sturm said. “We're taking care of our youth, our seniors, our employees, our roads, our assets and the tax payers in what are very difficult economic times. Because of our past oversight and conservative budget and management practices, we are in a good financial position.”

Sturm was happy to report that the town received a very positive fiscal stress score from the state. Sturm said that Moody's Corporation gave the town a AAA Credit review and the town refinanced its long-term sewer extension bond which, Sturm said, allows them to save over $200,000 over the next five years.

Sturm said because of the new company the town hired to run their sewer plant, the Operations and Maintenance (O&M) rates would remain the same in both sewer districts, although the debt service will increase from $175 to $192 annually.

“This is to cover the $3.1 million project in which construction should start this coming year. We should be going out to bid over the winter and construction should start in the spring,” Sturm said. “We did get a zero percent interest free loan and a $900,000 New York State grant to offset some of the costs, but there are only about 1,000 users in our districts so we had to raise those funds with a limited amount of users.”

Councilwoman Vicky Simpson said, “For the extent of what we're going to be doing, and we need to have it done, to pay $17 more dollars - $4.25 a quarter, is well worth the money. That should be the end of increases for a while.”

Sturm also reported that, due to an error in 2020, there were no charges to anyone in the lighting district this year.

“We caught it, but it wasn't until March that we caught it and then it was too late to correct,” Sturm said. “The good news is we had enough in our lighting district fund balance to pay for this year.”

The 2021 budget includes double what is usually budgeted for the lighting district, but it's only to recoup the funds that were not collected in 2020. Simpson said that because the lighting district fees account for such a small amount of their tax bill, many people didn't notice it wasn't there.

Sturm said the LED light conversion program that was recently adopted in Bethel would provide the town savings and more sustainable energy in the long term.

Sturm said the town is saving $100,000 from mining its own sand, which he estimated would save the town $5 million over the next 50 years.

Strategies to save the town money and become more self-sufficient come at a time when Sturm anticipates State Aid could be cut up to 20 percent for this year and next year.

Tax Collector's Race

In election news, Susan Brown Otto currently leads Tammy Lapolt in the race for Town of Bethel Tax Collector.

According to unofficial results from the Sullivan County Board of Elections, Brown Otto currently has 856 votes running on the Republican and Independence Party lines. Lapolt currently stands at 680 votes running on the Democratic and Conservative Party lines.

These numbers do not reflect some 627 absentee ballots which were postmarked by November 3 and received at the Board of Elections by November 10.

Absentee ballots will begin being counted on Monday, November 16.