YORKTOWN, N.Y. — A public hearing is scheduled for Dec. 3 on the town’s tentative 2025 budget, which Supervisor Ed Lachterman released earlier this month, which calls for an 8.6 percent town tax increase.
The tentative budget is $47.5 million, an increase of $2.2 million from the 2024 adopted budget, or just under a 5% increase. This includes the general fund, which includes police, and also includes highway and library services. This excludes special taxing districts, such as advanced life services, garbage, sewer and water, which are assessed separately.
The tax levy increase in the proposed budget from 2024 to 2025 would be $1,878,662, or an 8.65% increase. For every $1,000 of assessed property, a homeowner would pay $180.13 in town taxes. The average assessed home is approximately $10,000 (a very different figure than market value), so the average homeowner would pay about $1,803.33 in town taxes, or an increase of about $143.50 in total.
Town taxes represent about 11 percent of the total tax bill for taxpayers. School taxes, on the other hand, which the town does not control, represent about 70 percent of the total.
Lachterman explained that in comparison, next year the average school tax bill would be about $11,000.
“We operate the town a hell of a lot more leaner…than the schools do,” Lachterman said.
Councilwoman Susan Siegel said that this increase comes at the heels of not raising taxes for four years.
“It looks like my colleagues on the Town Board will have to finally face reality this year,” Siegel said. “The four-year run of not raising the town tax despite sharply rising expenditures has finally caught up with them. Good politics but poor fiscal planning that has resulted in the sharp and unprecedented proposed 8.65% increase. Going forward, if we want to avoid similar tax rate increases without cutbacks in services, we need to increase our non-tax revenues and/or find ways to reduce expenses by increasing efficiency.”
The proposed budget, according to Lachterman, is directly impacted by challenges from escalating costs to economic pressures on both the New York State level and nationally.
“Let’s take the biggest impact: healthcare and retirement,” Lachterman said. Albany and the federal government have done nothing to stabilize health costs. Over the five years that we did not raise our taxes, our healthcare costs have gone up $2.5 million, or 40 percent. Albany needs to somewhere step in … we’re seeing increases of 40 percent over a five-year period, which is absolutely insane.”
Inflation, Lachterman said, is another “big issue through the federal government overspending.”
Lachterman added that Albany needs to offer more aid for road paving due to the rise in oil prices, which is an ingredient in asphalt creation.
“Albany has kept that number flat,” Lachterman said. “Matter of fact, Gov. Hochul tried to pull it out of the budgets originally.”
The town, he said, is not “just slapping a little patch over the top and making it look nice.” The board, he added, is doing “the right thing.”
Lachterman said he has enjoyed the opportunity to collaborate with the board as well as other partners across the town and in managerial offices to move projects forward.
The town will vote to adopt a budget between Dec. 3 and Dec. 17.
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