The Peru Gazette

Peter Glushko

By John T. Ryan

Peter Glushko has been serving the Town of Peru for over 15 years – the first eight years as a Town Counselor and the last four years as Town Supervisor.  On January 1^st, Glushko began his second four-year term of office. The Peru Gazette interviewed Glushko about the Town’s major accomplishments over the past four years and the issues the Town will face in 2014 and succeeding years.

Discussing accomplishments Glushko stated,  “We’ve got all the town finances straightened out and we’ve got the water filtration system up and running the way it should be. The water quality is where it needs to be. It is excellent.”

Glushko mentioned the Town Board’s working relationship. He said,  “We have a good Board. We lost Sue Polhemus, but Don McBrayer will be a good member. Brandy McDonald, Kregg Bruno and Jim Douglass contribute a lot. They’re very active Board members. We don’t agree on everything 100% of the time, but we can talk our way through it and work out some kind of compromise or convince each other of the way we should go. We get things done.”

Regarding the important challenges facing the Town Glushko said,  “A lot of it is financial, staying below the tax cap even though prices are going up. Now we are going to have a little more pressure because the Governor has told everyone that they’re not going to get any tax increases. We’ve been trying to keep the tax increases down and I think we’ve done a good job. We did have to increase the water taxes because of the $3 million improvement project. We’ll start reducing some of that project’s debt service as we pay off older bonds. One bond should be retired in March and we still have to apply a $500,000 grant. That will reduce our debt service.”

Glushko emphasized the importance of residential and commercial development. He explained, “In order to keep taxes down we need to expand the tax base. We have to get more people living here. We had twenty new homes built last year and hopefully we’ll get a lot more. We’ll also need more new businesses on the Bear Swamp Road.”  Glushko mentioned water-sewage expansion as being very important. The Town Board would like to extend the water and sewer service on the Bear Swamp Road to Interstate 87.  A  $30,000 grant will be used to conduct sewer engineering studies.

Financing New York State mandates is a theme every New York local official finds challenging. Asked what was the most onerous mandate, Glushko quickly responded, “ The NYS Retirement System.  Costs keep increasing. Prior to 2008, stock market gains kept the system healthy. Since then costs have increased.”  Last month the Town of Peru made its 2014 contribution – $210,672. Twenty-five employees participate in the program.

Surprisingly the Town’s health care costs have been kept under control. Glushko said, “The plan we offered in 2013 wasn’t being offered in 2014.  Somehow we worked out a better plan with lower deductibles and it saved the town $2,000 overall.” This year the Town of Peru will incur  $250,747 in health care expenses. Current employees and nine retirees participate in the health insurance program.

Other 2014 Town projects include completion of the Walking Trail from Heyworth/Mason Park to Sullivan Park, repairing the Highway Department garage roof, replacing a Fuller Rd. culvert and replacing the Town Hall entrance stairs. A $250,000 Safe Routes to Schools Program grant will be applied to improvements in the walking pattern on the Peru Central School campus and installation of a street-crossing light at the intersection of Route 22B and Lafleur Lane.