THE BACKSTORY: A year and a half ago, the Town of Franklin received almost $198,000 under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. Our share of the $350 billion State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds amounts to more than a tenth of our entire annual budget. Since then, our board has not made use of […]
How to Spend $200K? Do You Accept the Challenge? Read More »
Last October at a special meeting, the Franklin town board unanimously voted to ban licenses for retail sale or on-site consumption with Local Law 1-2021. Within a month, the townspeople were able to place the question of these bans on the ballot for the following year.
150 Years of Prohibition Read More »
Due to the cancellation of the Constitution Pipeline project last February, the now-excess inventory of pipe is available for purchase
For Sale: Constitution Pipe Read More »
By Brian Brock The tentative 2021 budget for the Town of Franklin would spend $1.80 million. To partially finance this, the town board plans to raise $1.23 million in property taxes from landowners, an increase of $ 0.017 million (1.38%) over the 2020 budget. This increase in the levy would be just under the state-imposed
Tentative Town Taxes 2021 Read More »
By Brian Brock The Town of Franklin could use more office space, and our town board has tried for three years to build some. The issue that sparked this search for office space lay in the lease from 2000 that gave the town half of the Rich tenant house to use for 50 years. With
Office Efforts Part I: Not Here nor There Read More »
Last year, the Franklin town government spent $1.72 million. Most of that came from property taxes (66 percent) and state aid (27 percent). Where did this all go, and how did this spending compare to similar towns? Financially, the nineteen towns in Delaware County fall naturally into four groups. In 2018, the two smallest towns
Budget Matters: Town Spending Read More »
This year, the option of phone, video, and internet via fiber-optic cable is coming to many in Franklin as an alternative to the existing service via copper-wire cable. Long-time provider, Frontier Communications Corporation, has been the bane of local businesses and homeowners with its slow data transmission rates and poor service. All last year, the
Freedom From Frontier – A Boost for Local Business Read More »
The tentative 2019 budget for the Town of Franklin spends $1.76 million. To partially finance this, the town board plans to raise $1.19 million in property taxes from landowners, an increase of $ 0.03 million (2.4%) over the 2018 budget. This levy is just under the state-imposed soft cap and similar to the increase in
Tentative Town Taxes Read More »
In 2010, the Franklin Town Board stopped their annual internal auditing of the town books and stopped releasing an accounting, both required under NY Town Law. In addition, they did not file an Annual Update Document of this accounting with the Office of the State Comptroller, required under NY Municipal Law. In 2014, after the
Franklin Fiscal Fact-Finding Read More »
By Brian Brock For many years now, the Town of Franklin has annually violated New York Town Law by the board not auditing the town books (Section 62) and by the supervisor not releasing the end-of-year accounting (Section 29(10)). How could their malfeasance bring trouble down on our town? Possibilities include ineligibility for state assistance
Franklin Fiscal Fallout Read More »
