Hilltown budgets take final form
Enterprise file photo — Michael Koff
Taxes are largely up in the Hilltowns, like Rensselaervile, pictured here, for next year as costs of services rise, though not enough to pierce the 2-percent tax cap.
HILLTOWNS — With a week to go before New York State’s municipal budget deadline of Nov. 20, the Hilltown budgets for 2025 are in their final or near-final shape, with the towns that haven’t yet adopted a 2025 budget putting on the finishing touches.
Rensselaerville has adopted its budget for 2025 while Knox and Westerlo are still finalizing their preliminary budgets. The Knox Town Board will meet on Nov. 12, just after The Enterprise’s publication deadline, while Westerlo is next scheduled to meet on Nov. 19.
Because Berne has not had a town board for the entirety of its budget cycle, Supervisor Dennis Palow is authorized to adopt the town’s budget on his own, as The Enterprise has previously reported.
Key changes
As is to be expected, numbers have shifted in the budgets from their earliest proposals, giving residents a clearer idea of what to expect next year.
Rensselaerville’s tax levy went up 1.98 percent overall in the adopted 2025 budget — which is valued at $3.4 million — compared to the 0.5-percent increase in the tentative, which had affected only special districts. Special-district taxes largely went down in the final budget, moderately offsetting the $33,472 tax increase in the highway account.
The bulk of the increase in the highway account from the tentative budget can be attributed to $19,000 highway insurance, as well as increases to compensation for snow-removal personnel.
Knox’s tax levy has not changed, but the preliminary budget is smaller than the $3.1 million tentative budget at $2.9 million, with a corresponding drop in revenue along with a smaller unexpended fund balance.
Supervisor Russ Pokorny told The Enterprise this week that the revenue side lost $98,000 from a New York State Energy Research and Development Authority grant, which was used on a solar array for the town.
Westerlo — which was initially the only town to project a townwide tax levy increase, at 2 percent — has seen few changes, save for a substantial correction to a miscalculated code-enforcement line that brings the overall budget down by $88,798, for a new total of $3.7 million.
The tax levy will stay at its 2 percent increase, with the “saved” money coming from the town’s fund balance.
