After listening to many of the 75 or so residents at the meeting, the Brookfield Town Board adjusted next year’s budget to reduce the tax increase.
The meeting - which had to be moved upstairs to the Town Courtroom - brought people out after the tentative 2025 budget contained a tax levy increase of 6.4 percent.
For a property assessed at $100,000, that would have added $44 to the tax bill.
The property tax was going to go from $6.90 per assessed $1,000 to $7.34.With the adjustments made the 44 cents per $1,000 increase dropped to 26.5 cents.
Approving the changed budget were Town Supervisor Loren Corbin and Councilmen Clint Abrams and Jeff Mayne.
Saying no to the budget were Councilmen Dewitt Head and Joe Walker.
The meeting opened as Town Supervisor Loren Corbin reviewed the proposed budget and explaining why revenues and expenses were estimated as they were.
While the Town does have a fund balance of money to be used as needed, Corbin cautioned that to reduce that savings would put the Town in a bad way in a couple of years.
That money, he said, is often used for cash flow when the Town is waiting on reimbursement, such as from the state’s highway improvement fund, or CHIPS.
“If we had to borrow we would be paying on interest that would cost the town more,’’ he said.
Corbin outlined unexpected expenses for 2024, such as the need to switch communication systems for the Highway ...
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