WAMPSVILLE — Madison County’s Board of Supervisors will hold a pair of public hearings regarding their tentative 2017 budget.

The hearings have been scheduled for 10:10 a.m. and 6 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 17 in supervisors chambers, building four of the county office complex, in Wampsville.

The 2017 tax increase will be 1.95 percent. That equals $706,325, and will increase eight cents per $1,000 of assessed value of a home.

“On average, for a property valued at $100,000, the increase in county taxes would amount to $8.36,” county budget officer Cindy J. Edick said.

The largest tax increases of the past decade came in 2014 and 2015, when the levy increased by 7.99 percent and 8.49 percent, respectively. In 2016 the rate increase was also 1.95 percent.

The county’s 2017 budget calls for $117,274,862 in spending. “The (spending plan) provides for all state mandates, it delivers desired highway and sheriff’s patrol services, and it maintains funding for all not-for-profit agencies at 2016 levels,” Edick said.

New York state mandates, or money the state requires counties to pay for programs they provide, will cost Madison County almost all of the $36,938,324 it will raise through real property taxes. These programs include Medicaid, the sheriff’s correctional facility and probation services and indigent defense.

“We anticipate a larger number of cases being brought to us to provide legal counsel to those who can not afford lawyers,” Edick said.

Edick presented the tentative budget to the board on Nov. 10. In a letter outlining the budget she explained why the amount used from the
county fund balance is planned to increase from $3,634,747 in 2016 to $4,212,149 in 2017. That’s a difference of $577,402.

The county will spend $362,149 of that amount on a new E-911 system and $50,000 (from tobacco settlement money) towards tobacco education and prevention. The county will use the remaining $200,000 of the $11 million it received (and placed in the fund balance) in the 2013 gaming compact to replace the skylights in the county office building.

Spending from the county road fund will increase from $1,161,000 in 2016 to $3,279,334 in 2017. The $2,279,334 will be used for five bridge projects.

That money had been taken from the $11 million the county received from the Oneida Indian Nation as part of the agreement in the 2013 gaming compact. It will be transferred from the county highway department to the county’s capital projects fund to pay for the work.