HAMPTONBURGH—At $736.4 million, Orange County Executive Steven Neuhaus’s proposed 2017 budget is almost 2 percent higher than 2016’s, but he predicts taxes for most residents and businesses will go down and the county will stay below the tax cap.
In his state of the county address Sept. 30, Neuhaus said the tax base—the value of taxable property—is growing in most parts of the county, so while the budget is bigger this year, the added cost in most places is offset.
Of Orange County’s 23 towns and cities, only the towns of Mount Hope, Deerpark, Highlands, Tuxedo, and the City of Newburgh did not see an increase in their tax base this year, the county executive showed with a map.
And the increase has been getting bigger for the last three years. In 2014, it was less than 1 percent, in 2015 it was over 1 percent, and so far this year, the tax base has grown over 3 percent, Neuhaus said.
Of the $736.4 million budget, $437 million would go toward contractual expenses, $156.4 million would go to employees, and another $101.9 would go toward their benefits. Another $32.8 million would be for debt and debt interest, and just $1 million would be left for equipment and capital expenses.
Sales tax for the county will stay the same at 3.75 percent and is estimated to generate at $265.4 million for the county and municipalities.
Neuhaus said they are using a more realistic formula this year to calculate sales tax because they learned the hard way from previous years when the county overestimated sales tax revenue, and both the county and the municipalities that followed their formula fell short.
