To the Editor:

In the past decade, our town has thoughtfully used its statutory “discretion” to allocate sales taxes, the town’s largest source of revenue, to eliminate real property taxes in its “B” Fund (excluding the village), and significantly reduce property taxes in its “A” Fund (including the village) and “DB” Highway Fund (excluding the village).

It was a concerted effort to deploy sales taxes to deliver essential services to all town residents. This approach was consistently shown in the town’s filed Annual Financial Reports and was never questioned by the state comptroller during its yearly reviews.

However, during a recent audit, the state comptroller’s team surprisingly advised that we must apply the town’s sales tax revenues “to reduce to zero” property taxes in the “DB” Highway Fund before using sales taxes to reduce property taxes in the “A” Fund.

We respectfully disagree with the state comptroller’s interpretation of “to reduce” by adding “to zero” in the statute (NYS Town Law § 1262(c)), which governs how we allocate our sales taxes and negates the statutory “discretion” given to the town to use the balance of those revenues in the “A” Fund.

We could not ignore this recent guidance as we prepared our 2026 budget. We also hoped that the state comptroller would reconsider our interpretation, and allow the town to continue using its discretion in allocating sales-tax revenue in our 2026 budget.

The state comptroller’s audits of municipalities can be quite challenging, with months of exhaustive review of financial and personnel records, no real opportunity to change the state comptroller’s prior opinions, repeated cautions against public disclosure of its preliminary findings, and a long wait, often more than a year, for the release of the final public written audit report. 

The state comptroller’s more than six-month review of the town’s records was no different. During that extended audit, we continued to prepare the town’s 2026 budget, mindful of the state comptroller’s preliminary guidance but not yet officially issued in the final audit report.

This guidance, and how we should respond, was openly discussed at our town board’s public budget workshops, and was included in our preliminary 2026 budget posted on the town’s website. The final decision to reluctantly follow the state comptroller’s guidance was made in early November, and discussed at our town board’s public hearing on the 2026 budget on Thursday, Nov. 6.  A PowerPoint also explained the state comptroller’s guidance, our response, and the resulting impacts of the guidance on property taxes.

A next-day article in this paper (“Town taxes to jump 162% for Altamont residents”) also provided detailed coverage of this issue. While the headline grabs attention, the presentation showed that the increase on village residents is on the smallest portion of their annual property tax bill and equates to $240 for the average assessment.

The mayor rightly questions why appropriations, such as town board and town court, are in the “A” Fund, including the village. That is because New York State Town Law § 20 and state comptroller opinions require that these town offices and, with a few exceptions, town departments must be in the “A” Fund. The mayor also correctly notes that Colonie and New Scotland use sales taxes to support services in their villages, but that is only after they have reduced “to zero” property taxes in their “B” Funds.

The mayor accurately writes that the town and village have a cooperative relationship in providing highway, police, ambulance, and other essential services, and we both strive to share services as much as possible.

For decades, the town used both sales-tax revenues and property taxes to support departments in the “A” Fund, including in the village. The state comptroller’s guidance now unfairly bars the town from using its sales taxes in providing services to village residents, and we must now only use property taxes in the “A” Fund as explained at our public workshops and hearing.  

The mayor is understandably disappointed that we did not have time to discuss this issue before the town budget was adopted. The mayor deserved a fair warning on this increase. We reasonably expected that the state comptroller would release its written audit report before we adopted the 2026 budget, which would have allowed for a more robust discussion.

We also hoped, but did not expect, that the state comptroller would agree with our interpretation, and allow us to continue to use sales taxes in the best interest of our residents. Unfortunately, neither event occurred, and we had no choice but to adhere to the state comptroller’s guidance. We will share the state comptroller’s written report, including our rebuttal, as soon as it has been released.  

Peter G. Barber, Town Supervisor

Christine Napierski, Deputy Supervisor

Amanda Beedle, Town Board member

Jacob Crawford, Town Board member

Gustavo Santos, Town Board member