Dear Comptroller,
As a former village of Potsdam Trustee, members of that munis reached out this week to question their local FY26-27 budget. The village of Potsdam General Fund budget alone went from $8M last year to over $12M this year, a 64% increase. When I perused their accepted FY27 budget document, I see that $3M of that increase is due the need to “prepay” $3M of DRI funding: The village budgeted $3M towards underway DRI improvements, that will be refunded by NYS.
Is this a trick-gift Trojan horse from NYS to all local munis that have received DRI funding? An opportunity to generously raise the GF tax rate, “for free”? For Potsdam village, the tax levy increased by $3M or over 60% in order to obtain the “granted” DRI funding: the tax burden carried by the homeowners within the village increased as much. The village gets the repairs it wants, while NYS in fact does not pay for it at all: the homeowners do. This slight of hand is sneaky and distasteful. Please correct me if I misunderstand,
Thank you,
M.M. Tirion
Local Government Matters 