Town of Saugerties spending plan is met with criticism by members of the community and a councilman

The Saugerties Town Board adopted a roughly $16 million budget for 2025 last month, with officials trimming “a few hundred thousand” further from the tentative $16.83 million iteration prior to the deadline day meeting. The spending plan, which required town officials to first approve exceeding the state’s property tax levy limit, was met with criticism by both members of the community and a councilman who was unable to attend the meeting.

Key aspects of the budget include a $12.84 million property tax levy, with town residents seeing an increase of around 10.10 percent, and village resident an increase of roughly 12.17 percent.

At the November 20 town board meeting, supervisor Fred Costello explained that the budget faced significant challenges, particularly due to inflation impacting the costs of various essential services.

In an interview with Hudson Valley One last week, Costello said cuts of around $60,000 to the Saugerties Police Department and Building Department were among the budget reductions ahead of the November 20 meeting, adding that like municipal governments across the state, Saugerties was faced with difficult choices in an effort to maintain services without overburdening local taxpayers.

“It’s not just happening in Saugerties,” Costello said. “And even within Saugerties, it’s happening to other taxing jurisdictions,” including emergency services like the fire department and Diaz Memorial Ambulance. Costello added that due to a switch to LED technology a few years ago, local lighting districts were one of the few areas seeing a reduction in costs this year.

The solar farm on the site of the former town landfill is also helping the town, both as a revenue stream and in stabilizing energy costs.

“We still suffer increase in energy distribution like everyone else,” Costello said.

Other future savings may be seen in collaborating with Ulster County on tax collection software, and other departments may follow, either at the county level or with other municipal neighbors.

“We’re evaluating the benefits of doing (data storage) as a standalone versus collaborating with another peer,” Costello said. “What are the benefits for joining that versus maintaining our own system?…There’s a cost to maintaining that data and we’re not at 60gb hard drives anymore, we’re buying terabytes and the cost of that is not insignificant anymore. So we have to weigh in addition to the synergy of sharing data, the cost of maintaining our own data.”

At the November 20 meeting, some residents asked that the town board reconsider going over the tax levy cap.

“I think every single person in this room is experiencing what you are experiencing looking at your budget,” said Gilda Riccardi. “Taxes have gone up. Health insurance has gone up. Food has gone up. Home insurance has gone up. Gas and electric has gone up. Everything has gone up. For many of us, including myself on a fixed income, there are only a few things you can do…“You must do what must be done and you cannot increase those taxes.”

Suzanne VanWagenen suggested council members get creative, as the public often does in their own homes.

“I come up with a lot of ways to save in my house,” she said. “In fact, my friends think I’m nuts because in the wintertime I was at 60 (degrees). So I put on some extra clothes. You learn to be inventive when you have to.”

Councilman Zachery Horton was unable to attend the November 20 meeting, but in a Facebook post four days earlier he shared his misgivings about the spending plan in no uncertain terms.

“I want it to be known that I WILL NOT be supporting this budget proposal,” Horton said. “I made it known to my colleagues that we should remove this item from the agenda and host a special meeting to address the budget, which would afford me the opportunity to make these comments in person. Unfortunately, that request was not agreed upon.”

Horton added that he specifically opposed raises for elected officials and department heads.

“We, as Upstate New Yorkers, shoulder the highest burden of taxation in the nation and you deserve relief to provide for your families,” Horton said. “I stay committed to defending and protecting the best interests of the taxpayers in our town, and that is why I adamantly oppose this proposed budget.”

Last week, Costello said he found Horton’s post disappointing.

“There’s only five of us tasked with the responsibility to bring a budget forward,” he said. “It’s challenging when all five of us participate, and when only four of us participate it’s more of a challenge…I just I think it made the job of the four of us that were left to do the work significantly harder. And the idea that he wasn’t there for the final vote didn’t prohibit him from engaging in the process.”

The Town of Saugerties 2025 adopted budget can be found at: https://saugerties.ny.us/application/files/5017/3227/7748/2025_Town_of_Saugerties_Adopted_Budget_-_incl_ToC_and_Tax_Rates_and_Assessments.pdf.

Significant changes in the adopted budget compared to the 2024 spending plan

Salary increases for elected officials

Supervisor: $52,500, a 3.96 percent increase ($2,000)

Town board members: $14,500 each, a 3.57 percent increase ($500)

Justices: $40,000, a 6.39 percent increase ($2,403)

Clerk: $60,000, a 5.26 percent increase ($3,000)

Tax collector: $55,758, a 5.69 percent increase ($3,000)

Highway superintendent: $77,626, a 4.02 percent increase ($3,000)

Departmental budget changes:

Police: $3.55 million, a 5.64 percent increase ($189,718)

Highway maintenance: $2.21 million, a 5.1 percent increase ($107,131)