Duanesburg 2020 budget holds tax hike down

PHOTOGRAPHER: Stephen Williams

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DUANESBURG

The Duanesburg Town Board won’t be trying to override the state’s two percent tax cap in 2020, Town Supervisor Roger Tidball said.

The board will hold a public hearing on the nearly $2.2 million town budget proposal at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Town Hall on Western Turnpike.

A public hearing on overriding the cap was also scheduled for Thursday’s Town Board meeting. But Tidball said that hearing has been cancelled because refinement of the budget numbers determined a tax increase could be kept modest enough to stay under the cap.

“When I was first doing my budget, it looked like we would be really close to the override, Tidball said. “But at the end of the day it came in under.”

The town tax rate is currently projected to rise from $92.59 per $1,000 assessed value to $95.12 per $1,000, meaning a home assessed at $100,000 would pay $2.53 more in taxes next year, Tidball said.

The tentative budget totals $2.17 million, with a projected $481,466 to be raised from property taxes, up about $15,000 from the current town budget. Tidball said the change in the tax rate is still being calculated, though he plans to have it available on Thursday.

“It will be pennies,” Tidball said.

Spending is up from about $1.9 million this year, mostly due highway equipment purchases and a seven percent increase in health insurance, he said.

“Nothing ever comed down in cost,” Tidball said.

The highway department is planning to buy a new sand and gravel loader and new skid steer, which between them will cost about $250,000, to be paid for from surplus funds, he said.

He said the town will be drawing about $100,000 from its reserve funds to balance the budget and support the general fund. The town is also drawing $275,000 from the highway-outside-village fund balance, most of it for the new equipment purchases.

The town supervisor will continue to earn the current salary of $21,140 in 2020, and the four Town Board members will continue to receive $7,025 each, based on the proposed budget.

Reach Gazette reporter Stephen Williams at 518-395-3086, [email protected] or @gazettesteve on Twitter.