Mayor Galime Reveals How Much City Taxes Will Increase in 2024-2025 Budget

The first proposed budget by Mayor Michael Galime has been released and it includes a significant property tax increase for the residents in the City of Utica.

A Difficult Decision

The first proposed budget by Mayor Michael Galime has been released and it includes a significant property tax increase for the residents in the City of Utica. Pending council approval, it's set to go in effect in April of this year.

The administration is not taking this lightly and is considering historical factors and current economic times in their decision.

The 2024-2025 proposed budget was released at a board of Estimate and Apportionment meeting on Tuesday night, February 13. The proposed budget shows a total tax rate increasing from 27.03189360 to 31.4921560. That works out to approximately a 16.5% increase on every $1,000 of assessed value of a property.

It was explained that if your property is assessed at $100,500, you would use $100,000 and the tax rate to determine your total city tax bill.

What Does This Mean?

According to the mayor's proposal, city residents will see an increase of approximately $4.46 per thousand of assessed value.

You can see the breakdown in the slide acquired below, which includes the mayor's increase in the final section of the bottom portion of the slide.

His will more than double the average residential increase of other homeowners.

In presentation of the budget, the administration offered an explaination about why this was the appropriate and best option. According to a power point acquired by WIBX, one of the main reasons was a lack of adjustment to city taxes for the past 6 years in addition to zero accounting for current inflation rates.

Some may ask, didn't the increase in sales tax revenue help the city's position? To an extent, it did, but it wasn't enough.

According to the administration, the increase was significant but there is the expectation of it plateauing.

The increase happened over the last decade and a growth of 5% is anticipated. There are also state factors that do not help the cause as State AIM (Aid to Municipalities) funding has not increased and does not account for inflation.

Tax Increase Following Audit

The decision to elevate the proposed tax increase for council approval was made following the findings of an audit that concluded on January 26th, 2024. One of the key findings in the 2023-2024 budget was an overspend of approximately $2.36 million, which resulted in a deficit.

You can see in the budget presentation below of the decrease in the city's fund balance over time.

Tax Increase "Necessary"

While I am sure Utica's new mayor wishes he could keep the current rates the same, it is clear he had to make a dramatic decision to get back on track after seeing too many shortcomings in the city's current finances.

The mayor said during the meeting, "Without action, the city is at risk of losing public safety, public works and infrastructure maintenance." That is everything a city needs to survive.

We will see the impact of this increase in the next calendar year and this is certainly not something the mayor probably intended to do as one of his first acts, it does indeed appear to be necessary.