ALBANY COUNTY — At $794.2 million, Albany County Executive Daniel McCoy has proposed a budget for 2023 that is 5 percent higher than this year’s adopted county spending plan. 

“But if you look at the national inflation rate of 8 [percent], we’re under that,” McCoy told The Enterprise prior to his budget address at noon on Friday. 

The Enterprise has included interfund transfers as part of the budget; because Albany County considers it an appropriation, the county has said next year’s budget will be $756.8 million.

McCoy’s proposed budget, his 10th, is under the state-set levy limit for the 10th year in a row and, for each of those years, the tax rate has decreased.

The country tax rate will drop from about $3.45 per $1,000 of equalized value this year to about $3.17 per $1,000 in 2023. 

Democrat McCoy’s budget still has to be approved by the county legislature, where Democrats outnumber Republicans 30 to 9. Last year, the legislature passed McCoy’s budget by a 29-to-9 vote — in recent years, all or nearly all legislators approved McCoy’s proposed spending plans. 

The nine votes against last year’s budget were all members of the legislature’s Republican caucus. 

“We felt there should be greater tax relief,” Mark Grimm, Republican county legislator of Guilderland, told The Enterprise this week. “And this year there is. So there’s no doubt in my mind that we had some influence on what is being proposed this year.”

Grimm, the ranking Republican on the legislature’s Finance Committee, said a proposed 8-percent cut in the county tax rate will put more money in the pockets of people struggling with rampant inflation. Grimm said the proposed budget will require weeks of scrutiny, but “we are off to a good start for taxpayers.” He also said the assessment practices of local towns and cities will affect property tax bills. 

Revenue

McCoy is projecting $326 million in sales-tax revenue for Albany County in 2022, up from this year’s projection of $292.5 million. Actual sales receipts from the first eight months of this year are up 11.6 percent over the same period last year, from $199.3 million in 2021 to $225.5 million in 2022.

Property taxes are expected to generate close to $100 million in revenue, which is the same as this year. 

About $99 million is expected from the state and about $97 million from the federal government.

Albany County is expecting to receive almost $55 million from department and miscellaneous income in 2022, which includes fees charged by the county clerk, public-health fees, civic-center revenues, fees charged to other governments for boarding prisoners at the county jail, and income collected by the county nursing home for residential care.

The county will have to use $8.5 million from its rainy-day fund to fill its budget deficit. 

Expenditures 

Among the largest appropriations in the proposed 2023 budget are:

— Economic assistance and opportunity, including social services, medical assistance, and children and family services, $244.9 million;

— General government operations, $214.2 million;

— Distribution of sales tax to local municipalities, $130.4 million

— Public safety, including the sheriff’s office, county jail, and probation office, $100.8million; 

— Health and mental-health services, $49.4 million; and

— Education, $35.3 million. ​

In both his interview with The Enterprise and during his budget address, McCoy went out of his way to praise the Advance Albany County Alliance and its work on the Plug Power project in Bethlehem.

With Albany County kicking in $250,000 in operational funding for the alliance — and highlighting the fact in its press release — McCoy was asked what else the alliance has done in its two years of existence. 

After offering a sales pitch and summary of the organization’s activities, McCoy was asked again if he could point to a specific project, besides Plug Power, that the alliance has had a hand in. “Yeah. It’s kind of hard,” the county executive said, “we met with a couple of companies this week alone,” but McCoy couldn’t offer a specific project or company the alliance has helped draw to Albany County.