Thanks to Jeff Chudzinksi’s helpful overview of the proposed 2025 St. Lawrence County budget in the Nov 29 – Dec 5, 2025 issue of North Country Now (“County hikes tax levy, cuts rate; budget adds 10 jobs”), we learn the following:
The year-to-year county tax rate will decrease 2.5%, from $7.15 to $6.97 per thousand dollars in property value, compared to 2024…
At the same time, the county-wide tax levy (or take) will increase from $54,051,752 to $56,545,493; an increase of $2.5 million or 4.6%. How to reconcile that the levy goes up, yet the tax rate comes down?
A bit of math determines how much total, county-wide property-value is required to raise $54,051,752 with a tax rate of $7.15:
$54,051,752 = $7.15 * Total Property Value/1000 gives that the total assessed value of the County last year was $7,559,685,594 or $7.56 billion.
While for 2025:
$56,545,493 = $6.97 * Total Property Value/1000 gives that the current total assessed value for the County is $8,112,696,269 or $8.11 billion.
Bottom line: the total property value of the County rose by $553,010,675 or $553 million, a whopping 7.3%.
If the 7.3% increase in total assessed value is due to the addition of new businesses like bitcoin mining in Massena, that’s great for everyone (else). If instead the increase is due to an increase of the assessed values of existing properties (as done in the city of Ogdensburg), then we may all end up paying more in county taxes, even though the tax rate went down! (The added tax burden on property owners in Ogdensburg due to increased assessments gets somewhat averaged over the entire County via the county-wide equalization rates.)
As always, caveat emptor, or buyer beware. Or perhaps, voter beware?
Local Government Matters 