After months of debate, public hearings and meetings, the 2025 Tompkins County Budget was approved Tuesday night.
The budget has been discussed extensively at County Legislature meetings since the proposal came out on Sept. 3. Over the past three months, the passage was stalled as legislators expressed concern over the tax burden on county residents, all while the county’s state-mandated expenses continued to rise.
Tuesday’s discussion of the budget — which lasted over an hour and a half — included ways to reduce the tax levy on homeowners. The legislature passed amendments to the budget that drew money out of the county’s contingency fund — reserve money that the county can access for emergencies or unexpected costs — to reduce the tax levy. The original budget would have increased the property tax cost to residents by 4.45 percent, but after various amendments, legislators brought the increase down to 2.72 percent.
Ultimately, the budget passed with 9 votes in favor and 5 against.
Prior to the full meeting, the budget draft was approved by the Budget, Capital and Personnel Committee on Nov. 14. The committee did not raise any specific objections with the budget at the time, but noted an increased financial strain this year and difficulty of choosing which programs to fund.
“This was a surprisingly difficult budget process,” said Legislator Prof. Rich John ’81, law, (Fourth District) before the committee. “This was real pain, and we caused real pain to a lot of the agencies and departments that we depend upon to provide public services. I think this was a reasonable compromise.”
Legislators expressed concerns primarily with the tax levy increase. John described the tax increase as “not optimal,” but said he felt the compromises made to lower the tax levy from the original proposal were sufficient.
Legislator Shawna Black (11th District) described the three-percent tax levy increase as “doable,” but noted that increasing taxes harms constituents.
“Our county is not broke,” Black said in a statement to the committee. “Whenever we talk about a hard budget year, what that means is we’ve expanded our operations, [and] we’ve expanded the amount that we’re spending in our county.”
Black said the budget process forced the County to look closely at programs or positions that weren’t being maximized or used sufficiently by the community.
“I’ve been a legislator for seven years, and six of those years we haven’t really had a whole lot of hard decisions,” Black said to the committee. “This was the first time that we really had to say no, and I think for all of us it’s difficult, because we’re letting someone down, and it’s never easy to feel like you’re not providing everything you can.”