Brockport taxpayers will see tax rate increase

Taxpayers will likely be faced with a larger tax bill this year once the budgeting process has been complete, Mayor Josephine Matela said.

Village officials are in the second phase of their budget analysis and although there are no firm numbers yet, Matela said there would be a tax increase this year.

Blaming the trickle down effect of the September 11 tragedy, a loss in the village’s share of the Monroe County sales tax and the fact that the village’s interest on their investments went from 5 percent down to .5 percent. "I think people understand it is clearly a profound trickle down effect from the recent events," she said.

Because of the loss of more than 100,000 jobs in Manhattan and because there are less people paying taxes and contributing to the tax base and less people spending money there is going to be a shortfall in revenues.

"Costs have gone up over the past years and the village has not kept up with raising taxes … even marginally due to the cost of living or other costs associated with running the village," she said. "We have to make sure we have a strong fiscal policy in place as we move forward."

Matela said a re-evaluation of properties in the village was recently completed and the village’s assessments went down. "Because of the evaluation some people may see no increase in taxes because their assessments may have gone down."

There are no solid figures yet, Matela said and there won’t be until next week following a budget meeting. "In the spirit of open and honest communication in my administration I just wanted to communicate this information to the community and keep them apprised of what is going on."

Treasurer Scott Rightmeyer said the last time taxes were increased was the 1995-96 fiscal year.