SHAWANGUNK – Town Supervisor John Valk looks forward to 2010 with an experienced eye. Valk has seen the economy rise and fall many times, and so while there is resignation in his voice, there is also a measure of hope.

"It's going to be a very tough year and I don't see the economy changing that much. We took the hit in 2009 and then it leveled off."

Valk has no problem at all in identifying the gorilla in the room, as far as the town's budget is concerned. "Mortgage tax is a third of what we received five years ago. But, sales tax is only down a little bit. However, there's a problem posed by low interest rates. We take the sales tax money in January and spend it through the year. And we get interest on that money during the time it's ours. We were getting 3 and 4 percent, but now we're getting nothing. And that can amount to a loss of as much as $100,000 to the town."

On the plus side?

"Our board has worked together on our problems. I've done budgets for 20 years, and I might well have expected some difficulties on this one, since we have to make decisions about where to cut. But, it wasn't like we were fighting over it. We're managers and we have to manage our budget."

So, cost-cutting is the name of the game today. "We were going to hire a full-time police dispatcher, but we had to stay with the part-time arrangement we have now. And we won't be getting a new police car. We felt we could squeeze another year out of the car we have. Next year we will have to buy a new car."

Valk notes his frustrations with the stimulus money handouts. "I attempted to get stimulus money for the new town hall. Everything was ready to go, but nobody would give me an answer, until a lady at NYSERDA told me that they were looking to support new energy-efficient buildings. 'Well, fine,' I said. But then she said, 'We'd have to review yours and you're too far along in the process.'"

The town hall, by the way, is costing $3.8 million. "It is funded with our capital fund," says Valk, "$1.3 million saved for this purpose, and the rest bonded."

Another source of frustration came from the upgrading of the sewer plant. "We're going to fund that with local tax dollars, because we couldn't get any stimulus money on that project.

"We open bids at the end of January 2010, and will select the winning bid at the February meeting of the board. We plan to start construction in the spring."

The new plant will be at the same location as the current one. "We're upgrading from 625,000 gallons a day to 835,000 gallons a day."

The work on the sewer plant comes after years of effort. "It's taken a long time to get this approved by the DEC," says Valk. "Three years, in fact. They had concerns about our plans, and things went back and forth a couple of times. I think I can say that the plans have been thoroughly reviewed."

Valk notes that, "We also process the sewage from the two prisons, Shawangunk and Wallkill, and they've used up some of the hamlet's space. Out of their user fees they'll pay for a portion of the upgrade."

Valk then observes that Senator Chuck Schumer, in a recent press release, lauded the expenditure of $750,000 for removing concrete runways at Galeville.

"Now, as opposed to a sewer plant that's much more efficient than the one it's replacing, or a bridge that's in need of being replaced, why spend this money on pulling out concrete from Galeville? There's plenty of habitat space there for birds and wildlife already. Even our environmental committee here, they are questioning this spending at Galeville. My concern is that this seems like just a waste of money, when money is tight."

Turning back to the future, John Valk is grimly realistic. "We're going to see slow growth. We're not going to see a big boom, and it will be years before the unemployed recoup what they've lost."