Dear Hartford Taxpayer,
You should have already received your 2017 Town and County Property Tax bill. This bill is made up of three different property tax levies. These three levies are; County levy, Hartford Town levy, and the Hartford Fire Protection levy.
On the reverse side of this letter is a graph showing the recent history of the Hartford Town Tax Levy. A picture is worth a thousand words, or in this case a graph is worth a thousand words. My first budget as Supervisor, for the fiscal year 2011, the Board and I reduced the levy by 15% and have managed to keep it fairly flat since then.
Here are some items of information as a sort of ‘Year in Review’;
• Last year, the Town and School entered into an Intermunicipal Agreement whereas the payment of School tax is now made at the Town Hall. This past fall was the first year for this and hopefully a majority of you felt that this was more convenient for you.
• The Town was awarded a $50,000 grant with the help of Assemblywoman Woerner to assist with the rehabilitation of the Civil War Enlistment Center and Museum. The foundations and structural members of these buildings are crumbling away and this will help us to preserve the only remaining Civil War Enlistment Center in all of New York State. The money has yet to show up, and there is a lot of continuing paperwork attached to it, but hopefully we will be able to do this work in 2017.
• The Town was awarded a $6,000 grant from Washington County Soil and Water Conservation District to provide hydro-seeding of the Youth Commission’s upper recreation field at the school. This seeding will be done this coming spring and then the construction of a youth soccer field and youth baseball diamond will be done. To date a tremendous amount of volunteer work has been performed there. Hartford’s Youth Commission Programs are vibrant and healthy while at the same time many surrounding towns are withering on the vine.
• Broadband: The Verizon 4G Cell Tower will be constructed this year on the west side of Dick Hill Rd. On Shine Hill Rd, the Hudson Valley Wireless Internet Tower is almost complete. Both of these projects will greatly enhance the quality of life in Hartford.
• Town Website: Our website www.hartfordny.com was recently upgraded to become more modern and user friendly. Please go to it, navigate around and provide me your feedback. I feel we have the best and most informative town website of anyone around.
• The Town Barn is now heated in the winter with a wood boiler while using the old oil heat as a back up. The Highway Department now harvests all of the wood from the 50 miles of Town maintained roads. Because of this, the Town has not had to purchase any heating oil since the Fall of 2015. This savings in heating costs has really helped our finances.
As always, please call me at 632-9178 or email me at [email protected] if I may be of any assistance to you. If you wish to be included in my “Hartford Group” email list for periodic Hartford type news, please let me know.
Regards,
Dana Haff
You must be logged in to post a comment.