Walden is in the heart of budget season, as the Village Board was to host the first of five public budget work sessions following its meeting on April 2. Subsequent workshops will be held on April 3, 5, 8 and possibly April 15, with each session beginning at 6 p.m. on the third floor of the Municipal Building. Village Manager John Revella has submitted his 2019-2020 Manager’s Budget to the board that includes the budget requests from the village department heads.

The early draft of the proposed budget includes $11,191,628 in total appropriations for all funds, with $8,688,768 in spending for the general fund, $889,710 for the water fund, $1,022,100 for the sewer fund and $591,050 for the library fund. The tax cap for 2019-2020 with the growth factor is 2.26 percent, with a 6.76 percent increase in the tax levy.

The village still needs to trim $200,000 from the budget to get under the tax cap, which Revella said would happen before it passes. “Absolutely we’ll get there,” he said. “One way or another we’ll get under the tax cap, because we’re not adopting a resolution to breach the tax cap and if they don’t, we’re not allowed. So it kind of forces our hand.” A public hearing on the budget will be held during the board’s April 16 meeting.

In the upcoming budget sessions, which will see the board work with the manager and the agency heads to hone the spending plan, Walden Mayor Susan Rumbold said the council will consider the feedback from the department leaders while they work to craft the budget. “The big priority is to listen to the input from the manager, the treasurer and the department heads about what they feel is critical in their part of the budget,” she noted. “Then if we need to trim the budget anywhere, we have to listen to the manager, the treasurer and the department heads about what they think they may be able to cut from their budgets if we find that necessary.”

In a report to the board during the group’s March 26 meeting, Revella informed the council that a timeline has been set for the upcoming Ulster Avenue sidewalk project. The construction will see sidewalks renovated from Main Street to the Most Precious Blood school. The manager recently met with the engineers and contractor of the project, and the group hopes to begin work by June 1. “They’ll have the signs up prior to for the work zone,” Revella told the board. “The entire project will be one lane the entire time so they can work on one side of the street at a time. They’ll do the drainage, the curbing, the sidewalks and the retaining walls.” The contractor will be renting local office space on Main Street during the duration of the roadwork, which could last up to four months.

The project has been in the works since 2004, but was finalized at long last in July, when the board approved a bond resolution for the work after a prolonged state approval process. “It really was a matter of revising the plans and actually going door-to-door, the clerk and I went door-to-door to get the signatures we needed for certain documentation that the state required,” Revella said. “It just really changed over time, the DOT (Department of Transportation) kept asking for different documentation and every six to eight months we had to do it again. In the end, we had to do it fast enough before they changed the rules. Once we did, we ended up getting more funding from other projects that weren’t actually shovel-ready, so we were able to move more funding into our project and get more things covered.”

Rumbold said that when the project is completed, it’ll represent a welcome refresh for the sidewalks along the route. “The importance is that it’s a project that’s needed to be done for years and it will improve our infrastructure on Ulster Avenue,” she said. “It’s just been paperwork and engineering issues, and to finally be able to get it done and completed is going to be a breath of fresh air for that area. The sidewalks will be refurbished, and they’re going to work on drainage and infrastructure issues that have been needed to be taken care of for a long period of time. So we’re looking forward to a new face on Ulster Avenue.”