Town Tax Reduced? Hold on... Look at the underlying numbers... - a correction

The Special Town Meeting of October 6 was the meeting where the Town Supervisor presented a tentative budget.

The Town Supervisor and the Town Comptroller made a presentation to the Board -- who will now review, make their marks and pass the final budget at a later date.

So - the town 2026 tentative budget is over $21 Million dollars, but with other revenues coming to the town - like sales tax, mortgage tax, return on the town's investments, fines, fees (like site rentals etc) -- the Town Tax Levy is around $9.2 Million dollars.

So -- ON the whole -- including Water, Sewer, Lighting Districts etc. -- this amounts to an 1.82 percent tax levy increase from the previous year -- which is under the state tax cap of 2 percent. Yea.... BUT WAIT.... this number is only meaningful to you if you are in an area of the town where you pay for water, sewer and lighting. Which is about 1/2 the town. If you are in the other half -- providing your own water, your own septic... your Tax Levy is increased 3.76 percent correction - is a weighted average of the 3.76% and the 0% from the General A and B Funds -- which the premlimiary budget shows as 1.82% increase and that is the number you will see on your tax bill for Town Wide Tax -

So here's how it breaks out:

Year to Year Increases

General Fund A 3.76%

General Fund B 0%

Water -10.99%

Sewer 2.35%

Lighting 0.00% (from the chart presented, though math with the numbers presented would say it is a 1% increase)

The other numbers that were mentioned was the homestead rate is being reduced from last year's $1.59/$1000 to $1.48/$1000...... this is a bit of sleeves out of the vest - BECAUSE -- the assessment value of your property has inevitably increased ... so the amount of tax that you pay will also increase, even though the price per unit is going down. The assessments are reflecting the increasing market values of our properties... a double edged sword -- we want to be able to sell/refinance our properties with higher values -- but want lower values when we are taxed.

These numbers may change with the final budget.

The Town Board congratulated themselves on all the Park Improvements made in 2025. - which have been substantial and have improved the facilities -- but please remember that these were federal funds provided to the town as part of the American Recovery Act funding -- which came from a different federal government than we have now. These were not funds that the Town sought, and in fact, were on the cusp of loosing because the previous town administration didn't act on it.

The Town Board Members present (one council person was not in attendance) used this opportunity to bring out their campaign pitches -- "the town has the lowest taxes in Southern Dutchess" -- (like that is such a vast area... commenting that there are rural communities in Dutchess County that have lower tax rates... and it must be because they are rural - wouldn't they have less people to share the costs with?) ... and our fire districts are saving us millions, we have incredible emergency services etc. One Town Board member chose this time to denigrate the employment background of our current town comptroller (you came from a village, a town is very different, much more complex - no idea where that assertition comes from).

That said, the efforts to get town funds into higher yield instruments, bringing more services in-house to reduce charges to third parties are all good measures.

AND please remember that of your property taxes -- the town tax represents only 8% of the tax bill .... our school taxes represent 76% of our tax bill -- with very few members of the population taking the time to understand that whopper of a bill and casting their vote on it. Please remember that when the next School Budget is voted on.