The Town of Shawangunk unanimously adopted its 2024 budget that exceeds the state-mandated 2.0 tax cap for the second year in a row at its November 2 Town Board meeting.

The board voted 5-0 to approve the budget after a public hearing on the preliminary budget was held in which Democratic Town Board candidate Adrienne Gelfand-Perine was critical of pay raises for elected town officials in the new spending plan. She was the only person to speak about the budget in two public hearings.

Supervisor John Valk said the amount to be raised by taxes in 2024 that is controlled by the town is $4,631,854, an increase of $240,186 over the previous year.

Valk said the tax increase by percentage would amount to about 3.0 percent in Walker Valley and Pine Bush and 2.5 percent in Wallkill. There would be no increase for residents in the Shawangunk Valley Fire District.

The amount to be raised by taxes in the general fund decreased by 7.7 percent, while it increased by 7.0 percent in the highway department.

Valk said the 2024 budget went over the tax cap due to the town’s decision to fund ambulance service starting next year.

“The reason we’re exceeding the tax cap this year is because both ends of town are implementing paid ambulance service,” Valk said. “Shawangunk Valley Fire District won’t see any increase because they provide their own ambulance service.”

The town exceeded the tax cap in 2023 by $83,872, the first time the town had gone over the tax cap since it was implemented by New York State in 2012.

Gelfand-Perine said the board should have held off on giving elected officials 2.0 percent pay raises in light of the increase in the new spending plan.

“Why did you choose at this time to do it when there was a possibility of exceeding the tax cap?” she asked. “It just seems that you might have held back this year.”

“We’re far behind other towns anyway as far as pay for our supervisor, highway superintendent and the town clerk,” Valk responded. “So, we try and keep them up. We had many of our non-union employees that we gave a bigger raise to.”

Under the proposed spending plan, elected officials will receive 2.0 percent pay increases starting next year.

The supervisor’s salary will increase from $37,585 to $38,226, the five town board members’ salaries will go from $13,484 to $13,753 each, the two town justices will increase from $16,401 to $16,729 each, the town highway superintendent’s salary will increase from $58,978 to $60,157 and the town clerk’s position will go from $56,157 to $57,280.

In other news, the board unanimously approved the hiring of Eric Drozenski as a computer specialist for the town at $45 an hour.

The board voted 5-0 to continue using Cooper Arias, LLP to do the town’s annual audit.