Kent Tackles 2025 ‘Fiscal Stress'

By Holly Crocco

The Town of Kent is among 22 local governments in New York State to be designated in fiscal stress for the year ending in 2025, according to a recent report by State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.

“Local governments are facing increased fiscal pressures due to a combination of the end of federal pandemic aid, higher inflation, rising operating costs, and moderating sales tax revenue growth,” he said.

DiNapoli launched the Fiscal Stress Monitoring System in 2013 to evaluate fiscal stress for local governments, using objective scoring indicators based on year-end fund balance, operating deficits, cash-on-hand, short-term borrowing, and fixed costs.

Town of Kent was designated in the highest-ranking category of “significant stress.”

Town Supervisor Jaime McGlasson said she takes the report seriously – but pointed out that it is based on the town’s 2025 financial information, and “does not necessarily reflect where we stand financially today.”

“It is a useful tool to identify areas that need attention, but it is not a complete snapshot of our current finances,” she said. “It does not mean that Kent cannot pay its bills and it’s not a finding of misconduct or wrongdoing by the current administration.”

During the Oct. 6 Kent Town Board meeting, she said the current leadership has inherited financial problems that developed over many years.

“For eight years, the town did not raise taxes while the cost of providing services continued to increase,” said McGlasson. “We did not get here overnight, and we are not going to fix it overnight either.”

“When I became supervisor, the town had been operating without a full-time accountant,” said McGlasson. “Expenses had continued to increase while difficult financial decisions were being put off. Taxes were kept low, but eventually the town had to deal with the consequences of not raising taxes at all.”

The supervisor said a full-time accountant is now working with the town to get reporting updated, increase oversight and transparency, and “make difficult decisions to address challenges instead of continuing to push them into the future.”

One of those decisions was to levy a significant tax increase last year.

Going forward, the town is looking to pave the way to a more stable financial future, such as pursuing grants, increasing the tax base, securing new revenue streams, and saving money on expenses.

“There’s more work to do, but Kent is moving in the right direction and we are addressing the issues head-on,” she said.

As such, the town intends to break the state-mandated 2 percent property tax cap next year. The required public hearing is scheduled Oct. 20 at 7 p.m., at Town Hall, which is the same night the budget will be presented to the public. The spending plan is available at www.townofkentny.gov, under the finance page.

The $24.7 million budget includes $4 million in revenue, leaving about $20.7 million be raised by taxes – which represents a 5.49 percent or $1 million increase over the current year.

Expenses are driven by winter storm impacts that lead to significant highway department costs, increased costs for highway department materials such as road salt, police and union contract negotiations, health insurance and other employee benefit costs, rising fuel and oil prices, increased utility rates, and other factors.

Councilman Shawn Boyd said breaking the tax cap is painful, but necessary to right the ship. “We need to be pragmatic,” he said.

He noted that if the town increases the tax levy by 6 percent, that means a person with a home valued at $450,000 will see about a $90 increase in their tax bill next year.