County Treasurer Ruffles Has Way Out Of Crunch At 194 Main St., Cooperstown, the seat of Otsego County government, there’s been wailing and gnashing of teeth since COVID-19 arrived six months ago. Revenues dried up. Fifty-nine jobs were chopped. The county board waited fearfully as state and federal mandarins declined to pay back money spent on mandated programs in 2019. The county reps pondered raising taxes above the 2 percent state cap, political hari kari. County Treasurer Allen Ruffles cut…
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CLICK FOR TODAY’S PRESENTATION Ruffles Uses CHIPS, Plus Low-Cost Debt, To Balance ’21 Budget County Treasurer’s Model May Provide A Roadmap For Reps By JIM KEVLIN • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com COOPERSTOWN – Otsego County’s roads are paved with gold, County Treasurer Allen Ruffles has discovered. And that gold can balance the county’s 2021 budget and keep the tax-rate increase under the state-mandated 2 percent next year, Ruffles told the county board’s Budget Committee today. In unveiling a preliminary county budget…
CLICK TO WATCH VIDEO LIVE County Treasurer Ruffles Set To Unveil His Version Of Tax-Hike Free ’21 Budget https://www.facebook.com/102347451408765/videos/369948947720001 Follow County Treasurer Allen Ruffle’s presentation of a proposed 2021 Otsego County budget, including recommendations for how to avoid a tax increase, when the county board’s Budget Committee convenes in a few moments. Click on video to listen live.…
EDITORIAL If Not Allen Ruffles, Someone With SOME Of His Qualities The question was, “Do you think THEY will let the county administrator do the job?” They, of course, being the county Board of Representatives. But the question misunderstands how the new county administrator job is envisioned. Judging from discussions surrounding the new job’s creation, the county representatives aren’t looking for someone to tell them what to do. They’re looking for someone who will allow them to do what THEY…
Videotaping Set Off Elephant Rampage County Treasurer Ruffles Ecaped County Treasurer Allen Ruffles, just returned from a year in East Africa as a sergeant in the Army Reserves, said the only time he felt in danger was when he was videotaping this herd that wandered past his unit’s bivouac in Uganda. This is a still from the video. The elephants noticed him and charged, but Ruffles, who returned to Cooperstown from his one-year assignment last Sunday, was able to take…
Out of Africa County County’s 2020 Budget Under Tax Cap, Over $120M By JIM KEVLIN • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com COOPERSTOWN – The 2020 tentative Otsego County budget is done, by way of Uganda, Burundi and Tanganyika. It is under New York State’s tax cap, and Otsego County continues to be “one of the lowest taxed counties in the state,” County Treasurer (and Sgt.) Allen Ruffles reported Monday, Nov. 18, in a Zoom-enabled videoconference from his quarters in Djibouti, where he…
County Treasurer Deployed In 2019 Ruffles Called To Horn of Africa By JIM KEVLIN • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com COOPERSTOWN – Allen Ruffles, in his first year as county treasurer, has received word he will be deployed to the Horn of Africa early in 2019, perhaps for nine months. As his predecessor Dan Crowell, he is in the Army Reserves, serving as an E5 sergeant in the 403rd Civil Affairs Delta Company. Crowell was also deployed for nine months during his…
Editorial for November 30, 2018. Ruffles Takes First Step Against Whack-A-Mole For years now, Otsego County’s annual auction of foreclosed-on tax-delinquent properties has eaten up a lot of oxygen at the county Board of Representatives’ monthly meetings. It’s the Whack-A-Mole of county government, which suggests: There are unresolved issues. So a take-charge presentation by the new county treasurer, Allen Ruffles, at the November meeting was welcome, if partial. First, he declared, having studied the issue, giving delinquent taxpayers four years…