ELLENVILLE – Efforts to tighten the fiscal belt within village government have paid off, as Mayor Jeff Kaplan announced two weeks ago that the village's operating budget deficit — which had swollen to about $1.1 million after two years — had been cut down to about $660,000. The deficit's reduction came as a result of a $325,000 surplus in the 2008-2009 operating budget, as well as $115,000 in returns from the "mountain money," the informal name given to the funds the village acquired after selling ridge property to the Open Space Institute several years ago.

"That number, added to the amount we had as a surplus, allowed us to reduce our deficit by $440,000," says the mayor.

Kaplan says that while this year's surplus is a great boon to the village's financial ledger, it's unlikely that we'll see a repeat in next year's budget, citing one-time savings that probably won't repeat.

"We have a tighter budget this year, and some of the things that we were able to save money on," he explains, "are things that may not duplicate themselves again.

"At the end of each year, we take a look at each revenue line and see how much we spent out of that line, and then we try to set our budget for next year accordingly. We might've reduced some of these numbers already, and eliminated them."

As an example, Kaplan cites the part-time police dispatcher position that was eliminated with the '08-'09 budget.

"Those types of things might be one-time savings," he says.

In order to finally crush the deficit once and for all, the village board is still considering whether or not to access the mountain money fund to bring the budget back to a zero balance and to cease living each fiscal year with a deficit. To do so, however, the idea would have to be put to a public referendum, giving village residents the opportunity to vote on whether or not they want to authorize such a move.

Kaplan points out that because the fund is now at $4.6 million and that the principal fund was $3.8 million, accessing the fund to pay off the operating budget and the growing sewer department deficit would not necessitate altering the principal.

"We could actually do it out of interest that's accrued and stays in the account and not even touch the original principal now that our number has been reduced," he explains. Kaplan says, however, that he wanted to wait until the end of the state audit of the village before proposing the referendum.

"After the final numbers are out from the state audit, and they give us our recommendations, I'd be curious to hear how they suggest we take care of the deficit, if at all," he says. "Maybe they'll just say 'keep living under the deficit,' which is hard. From an accounting point of view, I don't think they'd want you to do that. We'll wait to hear their recommendation."