Kiryas Yoel, the region’s municipality, with all the expensive capital projects, has just adopted a $7.4 million budget for the upcoming fiscal year with the same tax rate that was set back in 1997. Eight years in a row with no tax increase, largely because of the relentless housing construction. That means the tax rate will remain at an unusually low $14.14 per $1,000 of assessed value.
But what about all the big capital projects completed or started since the last tax hike – the sewage treatment plant, the fire station, the chicken slaughterhouse, the convalescence center for mothers? Or the trucks and equipment for the sanitation and fire departments formed since taxes last rose? Or, for that matter, the money spent so far on engineers and lawyers to plan and defend the village’s proposed $21 million water hookup to the Catskill Aqueduct? The simplest explanation appears to be government grants, which have helped pay for several of the capital projects, and municipal bonds.
Kiryas Joel Administrator explained this week that his village, like other municipalities, accounts for its capital spending outside its operating budget, so that a $21 million water project wouldn’t suddenly crank up spending and taxes.
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