BERNE — Berne Supervisor Dennis Palow’s 2025 tentative budget, released this week, proposes a tax-rate increase of 19 percent, compounding the 754-percent increase that residents weathered to fund the town’s 2024 budget. 

The 19-percent increase would put the rate at roughly $5.49 per $1,000 in assessed value, which would be the highest tax rate since at least 2012, according to a tax-rate calculation chart the town published on its website along with the tentative budget.

To increase taxes above the state-set cap of 2 percent, the town board would need to give supermajority approval — that is 4 of its 5 members would have to approve it.

However, the board currently lacks even a simple majority to pass a budget that stays beneath the cap, let alone one that busts it wide open for the third year in a row. 

Three of the town board’s five members resigned in August, citing concerns with Palow’s leadership and the town’s finances, making it impossible to hold meetings.

 It is unclear when and how the board will be revived.

The town is forced to raise taxes after spending down its unassigned fund balance to cover expenses (at least on paper — in reality, as The Enterprise has covered extensively, the town has made a habit of missing bill payments and overdrawing key accounts under Palow). 

According to the state comptroller’s most recent data, from 2023, the town reported that it had less than $55,000 in its unassigned fund balance that year, down from nearly $1 million just two years earlier.

The large rainy-day account had been built up over decades under Democratic administrations; once Republicans gained a majority on the town board, taxes were cut, causing the fund to be drawn down.

The town also appears to have been unable to cut enough costs to bring down total appropriations for 2025. The tentative budget is valued at roughly $2.8 million, up from 2024’s $2.74 million, per the summary sheets for each.

Meanwhile, revenue besides taxes has taken a dip in the tentative budget at $1.79 million, as compared to $1.85 million in 2024. 

This is the first look residents are getting of the town’s projected finances for next year — about a month after the tentative budget was first due. Town Clerk Kristin de Oliveira had resisted sharing the budget with The Enterprise upon request earlier this month, saying that, even though the budget had been filed with her office by the supervisor, distributing it was out of her purview. 

The Enterprise filed a Freedom of Information law request for the tentative budget, and it was posted online around the time the request was fulfilled. 

The final budget is due Nov. 20.