BEACON – The $25.4 million Beacon city budget for 2024 is expected to be approved in two weeks. No residents spoke out about the spending plan during Monday night’s public hearing.
As proposed by Mayor Lee Kyriacou, the homestead property tax would increase by just under four percent while the non-homestead rate would decline by 14.2 percent.
As in other municipalities, Beacon is having difficulty recruiting and retaining employees so the budget includes the first ever Employee Retention Initiative that would add $1,000 to the base pay of every full-time employee and be pro-ratted for part-timers. “This initiative was designed to help the city to retain its talented and dedicated workforce and to help our employees weather the high inflation of the past two years, which has eroded the cost-of-living adjustments we negotiated in 2021 when inflation was low,” the mayor said.
Kyriacou said the largest single cost increase is the city’s mandatory contribution to the state’s pension system, which will jump nearly $436,000 in one year, an increase of 22.4 percent over 2023.
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