By Paul Wisniewski
MARILLA — Thursday night is a big one for Marilla’s Town Board. In a single meeting it plans to adopt a 2027 budget, appoint someone to an empty board seat and fill a Planning Board vacancy, all two days after an election in which the town’s interim supervisor faces no opponent.
The board will hold a public hearing on the budget at the start of its 7 p.m. meeting Nov. 5 and plans to vote to adopt it that night, the East Aurora Advertiser reported. Board members voted 4-0 on Oct. 20 to set the preliminary budget, and no changes can be made before the adoption vote, according to a second Advertiser report.
That makes the hearing the last chance for residents to weigh in on a spending plan that grows a lot more than the tax bill does.
Spending up, highway rate down
The proposed budget totals $3,683,775, with $1,647,000 in revenue, according to the Advertiser. This year’s plan was $3,151,350 with $1,642,000 in revenue. By the Chronicle’s math, that’s about $532,000 more in spending, an increase of roughly 17%, while expected revenue rises only $5,000.
Property owners will feel much less of that. The tax levy, the amount raised from property taxes, would rise $11,700, from $1,331,150 to $1,342,850. The highway tax rate would actually drop a penny, from 65 cents to 64 cents per $1,000 of assessed value. Marilla doesn’t levy a general fund tax.
Interim Supervisor Brian Nolan said the process felt familiar. “Our accountant said it compared equally to past budgets,” he told the Advertiser.
The biggest new costs are health insurance, a new garbage truck and fire service, and Nolan said reserves are covering much of them. He called fire service the hardest piece.
“That was probably the most challenging,” Nolan said. “We have reserve funds we’re putting toward that.”
Health insurance costs are up 12%. “We were able to subsidize that with some reserves,” he said.
The Advertiser’s reports don’t say how much of the town’s reserves the budget uses or how much will be left afterward. That’s a fair question for Thursday’s hearing, since reserves can only cover a gap once.
The other numbers on the bill
The fire levy stays at $470,000, at an unchanged rate of $2.47 per $1,000. The garbage and recycling levy rises from $491,400 to $503,100, which means the per-property fee goes from $210 to $215.
Nolan gave Highway Superintendent Ronald Unverdorben credit for keeping highway taxes low. “He keeps a tight ship over there,” he said.
Salaried elected and appointed officials would get 3% raises, and hourly workers would get $1 more an hour. The supervisor’s salary would go from $42,550 to $43,850. The four other board members would go from $12,600 to $13,025, and the town clerk from $65,420 to $67,400. Unverdorben would earn $69,600 as highway superintendent, up from $67,550, and $11,050 as sanitation superintendent, up from $10,720.
Filling an empty seat
Thursday’s meeting also closes out a hard fall for town government. Longtime Supervisor Earl “Skip” Gingerich Jr. died in a farming accident Aug. 28. Nolan, then deputy supervisor, became interim supervisor and had to give up his council seat to stay in the job through Dec. 31, the Advertiser reported in September.
“This is not how I wanted to take on this position,” Nolan said then.
Nolan, a Republican, is the only candidate on Tuesday’s ballot for the two-year supervisor term. Kevin Monheim, the town Republican chairman, told the Advertiser the party had to nominate a replacement after Gingerich’s death. “We had to convene a meeting and nominate a replacement,” he said. Monheim said the Conservative Party had planned to nominate Gingerich but missed the filing deadline or lacked enough signatures, and that Democrats no longer have a town committee.
Five people applied for Nolan’s old seat, the Advertiser reported: Planning Board chairwoman Wendy Schoenwetter; Planning Board member Shawn Slammon; Brad Wurthner, a 20-year member of the Marilla Fire Company and its chief for 12 years; Nate Bernard, a former Planning Board and Conservation Advisory Board member; and Jeffrey Mochrie, a Cheektowaga-Sloan elementary school principal. Board members interviewed them in pairs in separate rooms, which kept the interviews private, because three or more members together would have been a public meeting.
Whoever is appointed will serve through Dec. 31, 2028, and would have to run in November 2028 to keep the seat. In September Nolan promised a careful search. “We will do our due diligence and take our time to make sure we get the right person,” he said.
The board also plans to fill a Planning Board seat Thursday. Nolan said candidates who aren’t picked for the Town Board could be considered for it.
How to weigh in
The meeting is at 7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 5, at Town Hall, 1740 Two Rod Road. Copies of the proposed budget are available from the supervisor’s office at 716-652-5350 ext. 403 or the town clerk at ext. 402. More information is on the town website.
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