Albion’s tentative village budget would raise taxes 13%

ALBION – The Albion Village Board is working on a budget for 2025-26 that will likely include a sizable tax increase.

The board held a public hearing on the budget on Wednesday. Although spending is up a modest 2.7 percent, the village is looking at a 13 percent tax increase.

The budget needs to be adopted by an April 30 deadline. There could be some additional reductions in spending and the in tax levy, but Mayor Angel Javier Jr. said there is little to cut in the budget.

The general fund expenses would increase by $126,976 or by 2.7 percent from $4,701,848 in 2024-25 to $4,828,825 in the new budget.

The tax levy, what the village collects in property taxes, would go up 13.2 percent or by $410,520 – from $3,117,813 to $3,528,333.

The budget for 2025-26 doesn’t include the fire department, which is now in its own taxing entity as a fire district. That new district sent out its first tax bills in January as part of the tax bill from the town and county, and the fire district doubled the fire department’s budget.

The village has increased the water and sewer rates, and the 2024-25 village budget imposed a 6.6 percent tax increase.

Mayor Javier said he is sensitive to the rising costs on taxpayers, and he thinks dissolving the village is worth considering to help better spread out the costs of services into the towns of Albion and Gaines. There will be a 6 p.m. public hearing on June 11 at the Village Hall to hear from residents about whether the board should pursue a dissolution of the village.

Albion faces rising costs for equipment, including two new dump trucks in the 2025-26 budget, and lots of other capital expenses in the coming years for water and sewer lines, and other infrastructure and equipment.

The board also is using about $200,000 less of fund balance which is a big factor in the proposed increase. The budget for 2024-25 included $261,150 in fund balance, while the proposed budget for 2025-26 only taps $64,000 in fund balance.

Jeff Holler, a local resident, urged the board to set aside more money in reserve funds for those costs in the future. But Javier said that would only jack up the taxes even more.

Javier said the village has tried to get an increase from the county in the local sales tax but has been rebuffed. The local towns and villages remain at the same level since 2001, while the county has been able to keep the rising sales tax revenue since then. The local sales tax totaled $23.4 million in 2024. The county kept all of it except $ 1,366,671 that is divvied up among the 10 towns and four villages. The Village of Albion will get $162,169 of the sales tax in 2025, less than 1 percent.

Trustee William Gabalski acknowledged the village is in a grim predicament of trying to prevent a tax increase despite the need to provide services and fund infrastructure projects, without a boost in outside revenue. The village taxpayers are bearing nearly the full burden, he said.

“We’re in a very difficult situation,” he said at the hearing, when asked about increasing the reserves. “I’d like to do a lot more, but when I look at where the tax levy is no one will be able to afford to live here.”

Trustee Joyce Riley said she favors an incremental approach to adding to the reserves, and also raising water and sewer rates to fund infrastructure.

A consultant gave the village a report last year, suggesting more aggressive rate increases for water and sewer, but Riley said that was an “outlandish” proposal due to the impact on residents.

“The entire village would have come in here and beat us with a broomstick,” Riley said about those steeper costs.

Riley said she doesn’t think dissolving the village will be the best answer for taxpayers, and for providing services.

“We need to explore all of the options,” she said. “We should use a surgical knife and not a hatchet. Melding into the towns may not be the answer.”

Village taxpayers will see a lower tax rate in the next budget, and that’s from reassessments in the village last year that increased the tax base by 42.2 percent or by $63.0 million – from $152,867,932 in 2024-25 to $215,893,938 in 2025-26.

The bigger tax base will have the tax rate drop from $20.40 per $1,000 of assessed property to a tentative $16.34.

The water fund budget would change from $2,069,406 in 2024-25 to $2,195,250 in the new budget. The sewer fund would increase from $1,412,000 to $1,487,250.

The board will meet again at 6 p.m. on Tuesday to discuss and try to finalize the budget.