Medina board tries to rein in tax hike in village

MEDINA – The Medina Village Board is working on the village’s budget for 2025-26, with three more meetings scheduled this week to try to bring down a tax increase that stood at 23.5 percent during last week’s public hearing.

Total spending in the general was at $8,438,681 for 2025-26, which is up 9.9 percent from the $7,679,256 in the current budget.

The tax levy would increase by 23.5 percent or by $916,631 – from $3,903,200 to $4,819,831. That would result in the tax rate going up from $13.97 to $17.25 per $1,000 of assessed property.

However, Village Board members said they are determined to bring down that increase, hopefully under the state tax cap, which generally is about a 2 percent increase.

“This budget is still in its infancy stage,” Mayor Marguerite Sherman said during the public hearing. “There is still a lot of work to do on the budget.”

The board has budget sessions scheduled for today, Tuesday and Wednesday this week. The budget needs to be adopted by April 30.

Board members said they would discuss the budget in more detail at the 6 p.m. April 28 meeting. The board also is looking at the possibility of creating a fire district which would move the fire department out of the village budget and into its own taxing entity.

Deb Padoleski, a village trustee, said the numbers will come down before the budget is passed.

“I’m committed to keeping the increase as low as possible,” she said.

Residents in recent meetings have told the board they are concerned that the villages taxes are too high, and could push some residents out of the village.

“We hear you and share your pain because we are village taxpayers, too,” Sherman said.

When the board worked on the budget a year ago, Medina’s tax base increased by $100.5 million, going from $178,984,667 to $279,494,874. That is a 56.2 percent increase following town-wide reassessments in both Shelby and Ridgeway.

That huge boost in the tax base allowed the tax rate to plunge by more than $7 – from $21.16 to $13.97 per $1,000 of assessed properties.

But this time the tax base is showing a slight decline of $87,963 – from $279,494,874 to $279,406,911.

The village budget will include a new revenue: Medina will be collecting a 2 percent bed tax on hotels, motels, short-term rentals and other lodging establishments. The board is budgeting $10,000 in revenue from the new tax.

The tentative budget presented last week at the hearing also includes $2,287,949 for the Water Fund, up 8.8 percent from the $2,102,947 in 2024-25; and $1,486,921 for the Sewer Fund, up 18.4 percent from the $1,256,195 in 2024-25.