JOHNSTOWN — The Fulton County Board of Supervisors voted Monday to use $3 million of the county’s surplus and cut $86,700 in spending from the tentative 2009 budget to reduce the average county property tax rate hike from 22.34 percent to 8.71 percent.

After calculating the changes, the average property tax rate per $1,000 of assessed valuation would be $10.61, up from $9.76 this year. An earlier draft of the budget had the average rate rising to $11.94. The county’s total property tax levy had been set to increase 29.8 percent from $21.3 million in 2008 to $27.7 million but has been reduced to $24.6 million, a 16 percent increase.

County Budget Director Alice Kuntzsch said the use of $3 million of the county’s fund balance, its surplus built up over years from unspent tax revenues, would drop to about $15 million.

The board deferred debate on its 2009-2011 capital plan which includes $1.7 million in proposed paving projects for county highways running through the towns of Bleecker, Broadalbin, Perth, Johnstown, Mayfield, Northampton and Caroga. As a long budget meeting wore on Monday, several supervisors left the meeting, prompting others to choose to stall debate over the projects until the full board can vote on whether to include them as planned on Nov. 24.

Gloversville 5th Ward Supervisor Michael Rooney, county board chairman, said if taxpayers want to lower the tax rate further they should call their respective supervisors.

“I sure would hope we’d bring it down and that cooler heads would prevail,” Rooney said. “What I would do if I was the public is I’d call their supervisor and tell them they don’t want the [tax rate increase] to go up more than 3 percent.”

Several towns face county tax rate increases of higher than 30 percent even after cuts made Monday.

The debate over the roads projects illustrated a clear divide between city supervisors and town supervisors who represent the areas to be paved.

Johnstown 1st Ward Supervisor Richard Handy said city taxpayers pay much higher combined city and county property taxes then citizens in the towns.

“What is the county doing for our city streets? They don’t do nothing for us, it’s all the county routes. I have to answer to my constituents,” Handy said. “I know you’ve got issues with those roads, my heart bleeds for you, but look at the city supervisors and what we have to go through with our constituents. People don’t have that money.”

Mayfield Supervisor Alan “Herb” McLain defended the road spending.

“Do you guys ride on any county roads?” McLain asked Handy and the other city supervisors.

“Do you ride on any city streets? How did you get here?” Handy shot back, in reference to the county building being located in the city of Johnstown.

McLain blasted Rooney for dividing the board over the road issue.

“Mike, you were the one who brought it up that this is a town versus city guys, and that’s bull,” McLain said. “We already cut, I believe, $400,000 of the request. All we took was priorities and I don’t know if you were joking or not but you made it a town versus city. Nobody wants to see our taxes rise but it’s irresponsible to let these roads go when it could cost us twice as much in the end. You’ve got safety hazards, your cost of [asphalt] is going to go up, your labor costs are going to go up and by the time it deteriorates it’s going to cost us more to fix the road.”

Rooney denied politicizing the roads budget, but has supported cutting money from the capital plan to reduce the tax rate increase.

Bleecker Supervisor David Howard said he suspects the price of oil, from which asphalt is partially derived, will climb again soon and now is the time to repair roads. He said he shares other supervisors’ frustrations that only an estimated 36 percent of the county budget goes to non-mandated state and federal programs, most of them to benefit the poor who pay the least taxes.

“Most of our budget goes to people who don’t pay the bill for it, but I still think we should support our roads one of the few things our taxpayers need from us,” Howard said.

The public hearing on the budget is set for 2 p.m. Monday.