The town of Saugerties will hold a budget hearing Wednesday, Nov. 18 at 6 p.m. at the Senior Center.
The proposed 2016 budget totals $17,729,430, an increase in spending of $188,325 or 1.1 percent.
The amount to be raised by taxes would be $13,116,750, an increase of $243,505 or 1.9 percent.
Those numbers include town-wide taxes paid by all town and village residents, as well as the Highway Fund (town residents only) and special fire, water, sewer and lighting districts paid only by residents of those districts.
The largest increases were in the Highway Department line and Glasco Fire District. The Highway line is proposed to increase by $92,996 or 3.4 percent to $2,803,352. The Glasco Fire District is proposed to increase by $118,695 or 37 percent to $437,955.
Taxes for the portion of the budget controlled directly by the Town Board, called the “town-wide” (paid by all Saugerties taxpayers) and “town-outside-village” (paid by town, not village residents) would go down by $12,902 to $6,630,040. The Highway Department is independent of the board’s control, as are the fire districts, which are administered by elected fire commissioners.
The budget document provides a comparison for the average taxpayer under the 2015 and proposed 2016 budgets.
For a village resident, with a home assessed at $197,355, the average this year, the tax bill would be $940.65. That covers the town-wide tax, library, library bond (from the 2009 project) and ambulance. It doesn’t cover village taxes — add another $6.36 per $1,000 of assessed value for that, or $1255.18, controlled by the Village Board and billed separately.
For a town resident, with a home of the same price, the tax bill would be $1,381.60. That includes the town-wide tax, library, library bond and ambulance, as well as the town-outside-village and highway. It doesn’t include fire districts (which everyone has, ranging from 79 cents to $1.65 per $1,000 assessed value) or other special districts funded through user fees.