County Facing Steep Tax Increase

The Schoharie County Board of Supervisors is working on a 2026 budget that will likely include a steep property tax increase. Photo by Chris English.

By Chris English

SCHOHARIE COUNTY — The Schoharie County Board of Supervisors and county administrators are working on a 2026 budget, and none of the property tax increase options look great for taxpayers.

At a Monday morning, Nov. 10 public hearing on the 2026 tentative budget, Supervisor and Finance Committee Chair Alex Luniewski and county Administrator Bryan Best laid out tax hike scenarios for next year ranging from 11.99 percent to 16.42 percent. The amount of the tax increase would depend on how much is drawn from the fund balance, or surplus.

A $6 million draw from the fund balance would result in an 11.99 percent tax increase, $5.5 million in a 14.2 percent hike and a $5 million draw in a 16.42 percent increase. None of those options were decided on at the Nov. 10 meeting and the BOE might come up with some other scenario between now and the time it votes to adopt a budget, which could happen at the Nov. 21 regular meeting or possibly later.

In a brief conversation after the Nov. 10 hearing, Luniewski said the tax increase that was eventually approved would likely be one of the highest he can remember in his 10 years as a Supervisor. County taxpayers are facing such a hefty increase because of increasing costs in just about every area, including a projected $1.7 million increase for employee health insurance in 2026.

At the Oct. 17 BOE meeting, Best said the current unassigned fund balance stands at about $24 million, and he believed the assigned fund balance was around another $10 million for a total of $34 million. Projected expenditures in the 2026 tentative budget currently stand at $104.96 million, but that number could change before a budget is adopted.

The BOE approved three motions at the Nov. 10 meeting. One puts in place a hiring freeze for the remainder of this year with the exceptions of a new Department of Public Works Commissioner, corrections officers, mental health department staffers, and EMTs and paramedics.

Another approved motion authorizes drawing a total of $662,881 from six different reserve accounts to somewhat offset the tax increase. The third approved motion places sales tax revenue at a little more than $23 million in the 2026 budget. The figure for this year was a little more than $24 million, but Luniewski said sales tax revenue for this year is currently running about $700,000 short of that projection.

There was a motion put forth at the Nov. 10 meeting to save an estimated $118,000 to $139,000 on retiree health insurance by increasing retiree premium contributions from the current zero to 5 or 10 percent. The motion was tabled because there are questions and details of the proposal that need to be worked out.

Supervisor Donald Airey pressed the case for using a $1.6 million reimbursement from a long-running county streambank restoration project to lessen the tax increase. However, there seem to be complications involved with that idea, and county officials will see if they can be worked out.