Kent Overrides State Tax Cap

By Holly Crocco

The Kent Town Board voted unanimously Nov. 18 to override the state-mandated 2 percent property tax cap and approve the 2026 town budget, which includes an approximate $1.5 million tax levy increase over the current year, but not before hearing from residents, business owners, and department heads – some of whom denounced the spending plan, and some who defended it.

“Unfortunately, we have to go over the 2 percent this year for the budget,” explained Supervisor Jaime McGlasson at the start of last week’s public hearing.

According to Cahill, one of the biggest reasons the town needs to increase the tax levy so significantly is because it didn’t raise it at all for several years. This includes the budgets for 2015 through 2019, as well as 2021 and 2022.

“Why are we in a dilemma? All these years the taxes were raised at 0 percent,” said Cahill. “They (the prior administration) didn’t even at least meet the tax cap. While tax revenue stayed flat, everything else increased naturally. Inflation went up, salaries increased, the rising cost of goods…”

Instead, she explained that the fund balance was used to fill the budget gaps – which she said was a mistake. “That’s a significant problem because now we’re in the mess that we are to try to get back to a stable financial situation,” said Cahill.

Since 2023, when external auditors expressed concern that the town’s fund balance was very low, the current town board started imposing a tax increase. “Since then, we’ve had to break the tax cap because little by little we have to get back to stable ground,” said the finance director.

And doing so will only have the town breaking even this year, without putting any money back into its reserves.

Cahill explained that in 2015, the town’s total fund balance was about $8 million, but at the end of 2024, it was down to $1.4 million. “That just shows you how significantly it went down,” she said.

So to increase that, she said the taxes have to be higher than what is needed to meet the budget, to grow the fund balance.

Town Assessor Seth Plawsky reiterated that sentiment.

“It looks terrible because we’re coming from low comps,” he said. “We had years where we didn’t raise it (the tax levy). If those raises had been there, where we kept up with the budget and kept up with the general fund and stopped writing IOUs to the special districts, we wouldn’t be looking at the increase that were looking at this year. This is just an effort to balance out the expenditures.”

Resident Keith Orvieto said that in the 10 years he’s lived in town, his taxes have gone up more than $3,000.

“I don’t get water from you guys,” he said. “You don’t take care of my sewage. You don’t pick up my garbage. You barely plow my road, and you never fill any potholes. Where’s my $12,000 going?”

Another resident said her taxes have gone up $6,000 in four years. “What happens when there’s a glut? When everybody’s putting their houses up for sale because nobody can afford to live here and all the values come down?” she asked. “Then what?”

Kent Highway Superintendent Richard Othmer acknowledged that the highway department is a big expense for the town – as it is for every municipality – and is, in fact, operating at a deficit.

“If you’re going to yell at anybody, yell at me. Don’t yell at the town board,” he said.

Othmer said the cost of blacktop has increased about 46 percent, and the cost of road maintenance has increased 33 percent since the COVID-19 pandemic, to about $150,000 per mile. At an average of 7 miles per year, that’s more than $1 million.

He said the highway department was in dire straits for years, with antique equipment, dilapidated bridges, and unsafe roads. “We’ve come a long way and built it up, but it cost a lot of money,” he said.

Othmer said the town should have never been “backfilling” the budget with the fund balance.

“Eight years of zeros was ridiculous,” he said. “I begged the then-supervisor for eight years in a row, just raise it 1 percent, just raise it 1.5 percent… Now we’re paying for it.”

Othmer said the previous administration spent the town’s strategic reserves on “everyday bills” that we should have been supported by a 1 or 2 percent tax increase. “It’s not their (the current board’s) fault. They’re stuck with it and they’re dealing with it,” he said.

Further, the highway superintendent said the state’s departments of environmental protection and environmental conservation have a “stranglehold” on the town.

“Seventy percent of Kent is New York City watershed – it’s undevelopable,” he said. “We have to get creative. We have to figure out ways to build a tax base within our wetlands… I have the second most road mileage in Putnam County, second to only Carmel. We have 216 lane miles of road. Carmel has 230-something. They have triple our budget. They have double my workforce. They have stores and businesses and they have a tax base.”

Supervisor McGlasson said the board understands the public’s plight, but the fact remains that the town has to raise taxes to be able to provide services.

“We all live here,” she said. “I have four kids. I know. I understand. It’s hard. We don’t make these decisions on the fly.”

She also noted that Kent isn’t the only municipality that has surpassed the tax cap for 2026. “A lot of towns in Putnam and Westchester did vote to go over the tax cap this year,” she said.

Local business owner Henry Boyd offered a “silver lining.”

“A lot of businesses want to come to the Town of Kent – a lot of businesses,” he said. “And once we get the sewer infrastructure going… Those tax dollars that are walking away can be captured.”