Last November, the Town of Montgomery made the difficult decision to increase the town tax rate by 17% during its 2025 budget session, the first major increase for residents within the last five years. This decision was a corrective action after the town relied too much on fund balancing, and the board is currently working to steer the budget in a better direction.

Since the start of the year, however, many village residents noticed that their town taxes went up much higher than 17%, somewhere around the 30s and 40s, and several of them voiced their criticisms and questions to the board during its January 8 meeting.

During public comment, Village Resident Ken O’Brien expressed his shock and frustration to the board after seeing a 48% increase to his tax bill earlier that day. He questioned the town’s spending practices and wished that the board sent a letter notifying him about the increase.

“To say I was surprised when I got my tax bill today would be an understatement. I was unaware that you guys approved a 17% increase to break our cap, because I was never notified about that,” O’Brien said. “You can’t just put a blurb in the newspaper and say ‘that’s public notice,’ you can’t say that ‘I’m just going to post it on the town website’ and that constitutes public notice. You guys sent me a letter about sewer districts last year or the year before, so why didn’t I get a letter from this body that is supposed to be working for me? That my taxes aren’t going up 17%, but as I look at my bill tonight, 48%?”

“What are we spending the money on? We literally spent $20,000 in this municipality to tell us that we are being over-policed, that we have too many overlying agencies here. Yet we are expanding our police department and building them a new home,” he continued. “Why are we expanding the police in the Valley Central School District? And why are some people in this municipality being double taxed? They pay taxes in the village as well as the town for the same services.”

Valley Central School Board Member Fran Fox-Pizzonia raised concerns about residents who cannot afford the tax increase, speculating that the increase could drive them out of the town. She felt that the board members did not base their budget decision factual information, but rather information they thought was factual, and she asked them to explain the difference between the 17% and 48% increase.

“Decisions get made based on what you believe is factual information, so at some point, you all made decision about expenditures based on what you thought what was actually in your budget. It sounds like something changed between what was already a very high increase of 17% to a 48% increase. I would like to ask: what made the change? Where is that calculated? And how can we understand what the increase was?”

“I find it challenging that there have been decisions made about expenditures when clearly we don’t have enough money in this town to support those expenditures. We really should of been thinking about that,” she continued. “We have to take care of people that are living on fixed incomes. I hear it all the time; during school board meetings, people talk about how those increases are going to impact them and maybe decide to leave the community because they can’t stay here.”

Katie McKnight, the town’s finance budget officer, answered Fox-Pizzonia’s inquiry and provided clarity on the difference between the tax rates. She explained that the town’s tax rate comprises all the funds within the town, including the A fund, the B fund, and the special districts. Each line of the budget has its own percentage based on comparisons from last year’s budget, which affect the tax rate for an individual household. Depending on where a resident lives and the districts they fall in, their tax rate could end up higher or lower compared to someone else’s. Hence, everyone’s tax rates will vary, and after taking special districts into account, may actually end up lower than the 48% listed on their tax bills.

“I don’t know if a lot of people understand that the total tax rate of 17% is made up of multiple different lines, and that’s reflected on your tax bill,” McKnight said. “Depending on where you are, you may be in a water district where the rate went way down, so you’re going to see an 80% decrease in that line, but may see a 40% increase somewhere else. So individual tax rates, depending on where you fall, are what they are for the town as a whole.”

Montgomery Village Resident Karina Tipton confirmed McKnight’s explanation later in the meeting; after taking both the town and ambulance district into account, her town tax rate ended up being a 35% increase instead of a 48% increase.

“I was surprised by the 48% next to the town line on my tax bill because I did attend the hearing,” Tipton said. “I did the math, including the town and the ambulance, and that dropped it down to 35% increase.”

Town Supervisor Steve Brescia provided a few more clarifications; he stated that the town held and advertised a public hearing for the budget on November 14 that anyone could attend and comment on. He summarized the reasons as to why the tax rate increased this year, including overuse of fund balances, raises to police salaries, and payments for the town’s new highway garage. While Brescia has never been in this situation before, he assured residents that the 2025 budget will have very few major increases, and he and the board would do their best to course correct.

“When we come in here and have a fund balance that’s been depleted over the last five years, that makes it extremely difficult to stay below the cap,” Brescia said. “We’re not just spending willy nilly here; we have money in the budget for the police station because the board started going down that route a couple of years ago, and a half a million dollars has been put toward engineering and architecture, among other things. We also have to pay for the highway garage, which was built, so now we’re paying $400,000 for a highway garage that was approved two years ago. Now the money’s come due.”

“In 34 years of budgeting, I’ve never been in this situation before, but if you go through the budget and see where our increases are, you’re going to see that we didn’t spend out of control. But now we have to balance the budget,” he continued. “We’re all taking the heat for taxes, I pay property taxes as well as everybody in this room, and nobody likes that kind of of increase. It sucks, it really does.”

Village Resident Mark Palczewski asked the board what increases should residents expect for their tax bills within the next few years.

“My feeling is the taxes this year are being paid and done, so there’s nothing else we can do about that. My question going forward, for the next couple of years, what kind of increases should we anticipate?” Palczewski said. “Because I am on a fixed budget now, I retired, so I need to budget for my family. Are we we looking at the same amount? Less? 5%? 10%?”

“We don’t know at this juncture, but we want to be below the cap next year,” Brescia said. “It’s not easy to make up that kind of fund balance but we’re certainly going to do what we can.”

Resident Traci Gleason asked if the town’s warehouses were paying the same amount of taxes and where the money was going, as she assumed those projects would mitigate tax rate increases. Brescia confirmed that the warehouses pay millions of dollars in taxes and received the same tax increases as everyone else in the town.

“We’ve been told over the years we’ve lived here that they’re building more warehouses in the town and the village,” Gleason said. “I’m just wondering where are the contributions that they’re supposed to be making; that’s why they were approved, because they were going to contribute to our tax base. And now we’re getting a 48% increase, but we have more warehouses than any other town around.”

“They pay taxes. On County 99 alone, they pay millions of dollars in taxes,” Brescia said. “From day one, they’ve been paying taxes, and they go up at least 10% every year…they’re getting a similar increase to 48%, so they’re going to be paying more.”