“It’s Criminal” Proposed County Sales Tax Agreement Could Force Homer to Raise Taxes by 40%
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During the Village of Homer Board of Trustees meeting last night, Village of Homer Mayor Hal McCabe gave an update on the ongoing sales tax negotiations the county is currently having with municipalities within Cortland County. In two words, Mayor McCabe said the update is “not good.”
Currently, the county plans to essentially cut the Village of Homer’s sales tax cut in half. Projections show the village will receive in 2025 around $914,000 thousand dollars in sales tax revenues; for 2030, the village would receive around $470,000. Representatives of Cortland County reportedly said during a meeting McCabe attended, the massive cut in sales tax distributions to municipalities as the county being “a poor county” and has been “too generous” in sales tax distributions.
Mayor McCabe then researched information on the county in regards to tax revenues. He cited Cortland County is number one in the state, outside of the New York Metropolitan area, in having the highest property tax rate in the 57 counties; 8th highest taxes per-capita in the state, and 3rd highest real property tax assessments per-capita and 3rd highest property taxes per-capita.
“They’re [Cortland County] already taxing us [municipalities] way higher than any other county.” Mayor McCabe said.
He continued on saying Cortland County is ranked 9th in total expenditures throughout the state. Mayor McCabe questioned what exactly the county is spending their money on. He noted the county takes one million a year to reserve funds for a future jail, but said the county told him there’s no effort to actually build the jail, especially with skyrocketing costs.
Mayor McCabe then asked where the county spends the most of their funds on, to which the county replied they were unsure:
“It’s five clicks of a mouse and I have the data [of spending] right here and I can tell where we’re heavy. The landfill, employee benefit[s], the landfill closure form, elder services. [Cortland County] spends a lot on seniors; we just cut all the senior centers basically. And we still spend a ton on seniors, I don’t know where it’s going.” Mayor McCabe said to the Board of Trustees.
He continued on saying Cortland County told municipalities they were “too reliant” on sales tax revenues to which it was rebutted that the county was too reliant on the revenue source as well.
If the proposed sales tax proposal by the county passes, it could result in an increase in taxes in the Village of Homer by as much as 40%, or face major cuts by 2030. Some examples of cuts mentioned by McCabe ranged from the recreation department, garbage service, to the police department. The entire board, though, stressed they would not cut the police department.
“It’s not a small amount for [the village] to make up. It’s not like we can tighten our belts a little bit. The county goes on, they just take more money and just keep on going. It’s absolutely criminal.”
McCabe continued.
Other municipalities in the meeting with the county all voiced their objections towards the proposed sales tax distribution, McCabe added. The Town of Cortlandville could see their revenue cut by $1.5 million dollars.
Mayor McCabe said a majority of the meeting was the county informing municipalities of how dire their financial situation Cortland County was in, but when asked about where their spending is going, no real answer was given.
“We just need people to contact the Legislature. Because this is gonna be… I can’t image what this is going to do if this goes through. For some other municipalities, it’s just gonna devastate them completely.” McCabe said.
The Board of Trustees questioned if the possibility of signing a no confidence against the county was a possibility. Prior to the current agreement, numerous municipalities (14 of 16) signed a motion of no confidence against the county during negotiations a few years ago. Another concern was three towns already in Cortland County already give back their sales tax distribution to offset county taxes.
The only municipality from the proposed agreement that would see an increase was the City of Cortland, who would receive a 1.5% increase. Cortland County would see an increase of 12.5%. Mayor McCabe says the county showed no interest in finding where the spending by the county was heavy in an effort to cut back. He added there were also a number of Legislators who weren’t aware of the ongoing negotiations and the needs of each municipality were not considered.
The Village of Homer plans to post on the village website additional information Mayor McCabe provided during the Trustees meeting at HomerNY.org.
