LEGISLATURE STUFF - Rainy Day Reserve Buckets

CATSKILL - The eight pennies paid by we mules of taxation on every dollar spent doesn’t just go out, a fiscal fact not lost on the Greene County Legislature and its annual budget preparations.

A recent report filed by the New York State Comptroller’s Office shows a Sales Tax inflow of $53.13 million in 2025 for the county.

That represents an increase of $3.6 million from 2024, a repeated albeit fickle upward trend, another reality not lost on officials in charge of compiling the annual financial package.

County administrator Shaun Groden, explaining the conundrum says, “sales tax is our single, biggest source of revenue.

“I can’t underscore the significance enough,” Groden says, noting a plump pay-in has allowed the county to keep the tax levy flat for seven consecutive budget cycles.

At the same time, “this is something we can’t control,” Groden says. “It is based in things like discretionary spending and employment so we have been fairly conservative in our estimates” in terms of incoming money.

County officials factor roughly $40 million into the active budget, channeling additional dollars into various rainy day accounts including an aptly named Reserve Fund Reserve Fund.

“The economy goes in cycles,” Groden says. “Back in 2008, with the financial collapse, we lost ten percent of our sales tax in one year.

“Since then, we have set up the reserve for the reserve, adding to it every year so if we have another down turn, we can bounce back over the next three to four years rather than taking a big hit,” Groden says.

The luxury of seven years with no tax levy hike won’t last ad infinitum, and while the county is confident about the 2027 budget, “the problem is, at some point we will reach a maximum,” Groden says.

“We will have to go back to the tax levy. That is probably a couple of years away but it is why we take a conservative approach,” Groden says.

The sales tax windfall came about after a court decision related to internet purchases, redirecting the money from the address of the seller to the address of the buyer, particularly noticeable during the pandemic.

City dwellers fled to more wide open, rural areas such as the Catskill Mountains and Greene County, often making the move permanent.

“We don’t have the malls. We don’t have the Big Stores but people were still shopping so Greene County really benefitted,” Groden says. 

Greene County is also now receiving revenue from fees on Short Term Rentals, anticipated to similarly be a significant bonanza.

“We don’t know yet what that figure is because it just went into effect in the fourth quarter” [of 2025], Groden says.

“However, we now have a registration system in place that should allow us to get a good gauge on how many STR’s there are in the county, where they are and if they are doing business,” Groden says.

An outside firm has been brought in to collect data on the complex logistics, with the county joining the network in response to outcries from the hotel, motel and resort industries, wanting a level playing field.

There have been appeals to go further than keeping the tax levy even, sending a check to individual taxpayers, a suggestion considered by lawmakers but ultimately rejected.

“We could go out and spend it, but that’s why a lot of counties are short. There are good reasons we haven’t raised the tex rate, even as costs continue to go up,” legislature chairman Patrick Linger says.

Appropriations rose by nearly $5.8 million in the 2026 budget but were balanced by allocated, unspent dollars from 2025 as well as sales tax.

“Some towns may get upset because we aren’t sharing the excess sales tax but it isn’t excess. This year we took over the full cost of emergency medical services,” Linger says, a $2 million subsidy to towns.

“In the past few years, we have rebuilt our transfer stations, paying cash,” Linger says, not needing to borrow money, a $9 million investment..

“We used to spend $1.2 million every year getting rid of our waste,” Linger says. “Now, with the increased volume we can take in because of all the improvements, we are almost breaking even and getting closer.”

“We have a ton of reserve fund buckets. We have put money aside to build a needed [multi-million dollar] Mental Health building. We have a responsibility to taxpayers and we are meeting it,” Linger says.