HILLTOWNS — Expenses have outpaced revenues in the Hilltowns, meaning that all are likely to raise taxes, according to the budget proposals currently available from Knox, Rensselaerville, Westerlo, and Berne, most of which are in their earliest stages.

With the exception of Berne, which has left its projected increase off its preliminary budget in violation of state law, but has proposed a local law to override the tax cap, tax increases are expected to stay under the 2-percent state-set levy limit.

Berne has had an unusually low property tax rate this year and the year prior, which has to be increased by relatively large percentages to make a meaningful change in yield. Although the town has published a preliminary budget — which, in the state-required system, is the version after the tentative and before the adopted budget — it has not included the proposed tax increase, a violation of state law. 

Instead, Berne’s preliminary budget simply says “See Front Sheet” where the tax levy would be included in the general and highway funds. But no front sheet is available, and Town Clerk Kristin de Oliveira told The Enterprise earlier this week that one “won’t be prepared and completed until the final budget is done.” She did not reply when The Enterprise notified her that state law requires the tax levy to be included. 

Violations aside, Berne residents need not be overly worried since the town currently taxes at a rate of roughly 54 cents per $1,000 in assessed value, for a total yield of $92,787 this year. To raise the yield just $2,000 — or about one penny per $1,000 of assessed value — would mean a tax increase of around 2.2 percent. 

Berne has appropriations in its tentative 2024 budget set at around $2.7 million, with revenues at a little over $1.8 million, for a gap of $907,119. 

According to the New York State Comptroller’s Open Book New York database, Berne had a fund balance of $1,403,140 as of last year across the restricted, assigned, and unassigned categories (not including what was in its sewer account). 

The Republican town board has been aggressively spending down its formerly large fund balance, accumulated over years of Democratic control, to much criticism from Democrats who say that it leaves the town in a precarious position. 

The press secretary for the state comptroller’s office, Mark Johnson, told The Enterprise in a response to inquiry about the town leaving off the tax increase that it would be “inappropriate for us to weigh in on an ongoing budget process.”

As for specific guidance on what an appropriate fund balance might be, Johnson referred to the OSC’s Local Government Management Guide, which says that each municipality must determine on its own what a “reasonable” fund balance is. 

The guide lists a number of factors to consider in making this determination, such as cash flow requirements, how precisely revenue and appropriations predictions can be made, and prior experience.

Berne’s ultra-low property tax rate went into effect in 2022. In 2021, the town taxed at a rate of about $3.80 per $1,000 of assessed value. To get back to that level, the increase from the 2023 tax rate would be around 604 percent. With around $170 million in assessed value in the town, the total yield of the $3.80 rate would be around $646,000.

Meanwhile, Westerlo, which has proposed roughly $3.5 million in spending for 2024 — up from nearly $3.3 million this year — is estimating a 0.87 percent increase in its tentative budget. 

Knox, which has appropriations at a little under $3 million, down from a little over $3.1 million, is predicting a 1.4 percent increase in its tentative 2024 budget.  

Rensselaerville, which has appropriations at around $3.3 million in its tentative 2024 budget, up from around $3.1 million this year, expects a 1.35 percent increase in taxes, though not for all residents.

The increase is 2.42 percent in the Medusa fire district, 1.83 percent in the Rensselaerville fire district, 8.63 percent in the Tri-Village fire district, and 76.92 percent in the water district (owing to a $10,000 increase in costs for hydrants as the town works to replace them). 

Trends

Personnel and emergency services appear to drive a large portion of the cost increases in each of the towns, as all four towns and the Albany County Sheriff’s Emergency Medical Services — which serves Berne, Rensselaerville, and Westerlo — attempt to boost employee retention during a period of high cost-of-living increases and competitive wages. 

“Twenty years ago, if we had a vacancy in the town highway, there’d be 15 applications. Now, we have a vacancy, you can’t fill it, because nobody wants the job,” Rensselaerville Deputy Supervisor Brian Wood, who is also director of the Albany County Sheriff’s EMS unit, told The Enterprise earlier this month, explaining why it’s important for towns to keep wages on the rise. 

After Sheriff Craig Apple, a Democrat facing no challengers in November, announced that the county would increase its first-responder pay, several municipalities in the Enterprise coverage area — Rensselaerville, Berne, New Scotland, and Voorheesville, in addition to Bethlehem, Coeymans, and Ravena — asked the county to establish a special district so that towns could avoid blowing past their tax caps. 

The move would make little difference to taxpayers, however, since the tax burden is merely offloaded from a town’s tax bill to the county’s.

For now, though, the cost is on the towns. 

In Westerlo, the cost for county EMS went from $225,000 to nearly $290,000. In Rensselaerville, it went from about $131,000 to nearly $160,000. And in Berne, it went from about $176,000 to $200,000. 

Salaries have also gone up for most positions in each town. 

Costs are also continuing to increase for the few remaining volunteer emergency squads to cover the cost of training, which is imposed by the state, Wood said, which The Enterprise reported on earlier. 

Volunteer squads are inevitably cheaper than paid services such as through the county, but low interest in volunteering has caused many to close down in recent years. 

In Knox, the Altamont Rescue Squad did not submit a budget request — for now, subsisting off of its reserves as it figures out its future — after Guilderland EMS changed a policy that drastically affected the Altamont squad’s bottom line.

Knox is served by both groups, in addition to Helderberg Ambulance, but now is considering replacing Altamont with Guilderland, which is requesting essentially the same amount that Knox had been paying Altamont.