To the Editor:

It’s not too late to take corrective action.

I am writing to offer my comments/advice regarding the town of Guilderland’s 2026 budget.

The Nov. 13, 2025, Enterprise article, “Town taxes jump 162% for villagers,” and letters submitted to the Enterprise editor by the Altamont Village Board, “Why didn’t the town alert us?” and the Guilderland Town Board, “We hoped the comptroller would agree with us,” raise serious concerns for me about the development of the Town’s 2026 budget.  

During my 12-year tenure as mayor of the village of Altamont, I oversaw the development of countless budgets and spent many meetings with the town supervisor discussing budgets and other important fiscal matters of the two municipalities.

Although we both worked through many thorny issues, I cannot recall ever being caught off guard by not being informed well ahead of time by the town leaders about the impact of major fiscal changes. As mayor, I was always given advance notice so matters could be discussed fully before final decisions were made affecting the town and the village.

As best I can determine from the coverage provided in The Enterprise and my discussions with town and village officials since then, there appears to have been a lapse in communication about the increased taxes put in place based on a “preliminary” comptroller’s audit, the details of which were available as early as September. Although the town can claim that it could not share the findings of a “preliminary” or “confidential” report, I believe the supervisor or the town board Altamont liaison could have alerted the village officials about the issue.

The “final” report still has not yet been issued. If the town continues to claim it could not share the “preliminary” report with anyone, I am perplexed how it felt justified in outlining the issue in detail at the budget hearing when it had not yet received the “final” report. Any claim that it could not share the same information with village officials since September while the report was still “preliminary” holds little water, in my opinion.

From my viewpoint, the action taken by the Guilderland Town Board in approving its 2026 budget in early November, which includes an estimated $240 average tax increase for village residents, is unacceptable. This tax increase is based on the preliminary comptroller’s report not the final report.   Besides this lack of transparency by the town’s supervisor and its board, there are other circumstances that I believe should be highlighted and should have been part of a more thoughtful decision about how to respond to the comptroller’s report.

In my experience, once a municipality receives a “final” audit report, it must outline how it will implement the recommendations included in the report and may raise objections to parts of the report, difficulties with implementing recommendations, and impediments that prevent exact compliance, for example. It would seem to me that the town officials could have delayed implementing the comptroller’s preliminary findings until the final report was issued, and consulted with village officials, thus providing an opportunity to respond to the “unfair” and “antiquated” provisions and possible misinterpretations of the 1965 state law as opined by the Guilderland supervisor in his letter to the editor.

Going forward with developing and approving the budget, including the tax increase for the village of Altamont, without discussing with village officials, was unacceptable, in my opinion. Given the town’s underlying belief that the comptroller’s preliminary determination was a questionable interpretation of the law, their contention that the comptroller’s interpretation deprived the town of its discretion in applying the law and their asserted belief that the comptroller’s interpretation was patently unfair, are significant factors, and all deserved serious questioning and discussion with the affected party.

The issues discussed in the Enterprise article raise other questions that should be answered. Primarily among them are understanding what, and the extent to which, services are provided to the village by the town. In the Enterprise article, the town supervisor suggests highway work, police back-up, transportation for seniors, and assistance with information technology is provided by the town. I would be interested in assessing how these services measure against the estimated tax impact on Altamont residents in the 2026 Guilderland budget.

I, however, am not aware of any extensive town support for village highways and what technological assistance the town provides the village and their costs. I do believe that the transport for all seniors is reimbursed by the county, which would mean there is minimal cost to the town for senior transport of village residents. Police back-up costs need to be calculated and compared to the costs of coverage supplied by the Altamont police to the town’s rural areas.

Overall, I am unsure if the cost of these items amounts to the increased tax cost predictions estimated in the Enterprise article. Further, I question using some of these parameters to make comparisons since many shared-services agreements have been developed over time in these areas to reduce costs for multiple municipalities and are usually not charged to cooperating municipalities.

I don’t think it is too late to take corrective action on the recently passed Guilderland budget. It certainly is possible, in my opinion, to pass an amendment to the budget for 2026, removing the tax on Altamont citizens and shift that portion of the budget back to what has been in place for decades and use the time to seek solutions that mitigate the outcome on village residents. 

I believe a municipality has at least 180 days to respond to the comptroller’s final report which, given what I have read, has not been issued. This is plenty of time to discuss this issue with the village officials and propose any changes to the comptroller based on its final audit report. 

Within that allowable time frame, the town can propose changes to the 2027 budget based on consultations with Altamont officials, rather than impose the large tax increase on Altamont citizens in January 2026, based solely on the “preliminary” audit and without any meaningful discussion with Altamont.

At the very least, I suggest that the town board or its representatives come to the next village board meeting to explain this complicated story and why they felt they had to implement the comptroller’s preliminary recommendations now rather than wait until they received the final report. This would allow village officials and residents time to discuss with town officials how the impact their actions affect them in a public setting. This issue deserves more thoughtful attention for all concerned, especially for those impacted by the “unfair” and “antiquated” provision of a 1965 Law.  

James M. Gaughan

Altamont

Editor’s note: James. M. Gaughan was Altamont’s mayor from 2005 to 2017.