Medina has 2 weeks to cut village budget with tentative tax increase of 22%
Photo by Tom Rivers: Medina Village Board members meet in a conference room at the Shelby Town Hall for a workshop meeting followed by budget discussions on Monday evening. Pictured from left and going clockwise: Trustee Scott Bieliski, Trustee Mark Prawel, Mayor Debbie Padoleski, Clerk-Treasurer Jada Burgess, Trustee Jeff Wagner and Trustee Jess Marciano.
MEDINA – The Village Board faces a tall task of trying to pare down expenses and find more revenues before a final village budget is adopted on April 27.
The board held a public hearing on Monday evening on the tentative budget which shows a 22.5 percent tax increase.
Mayor Debbie Padoleski, who campaigned on a more affordable Medina, said the board has more meetings with department heads to try to bring down the tax increase. Padoleski was elected on March 18.
A year ago, the board was in similar predicament with a big tax increase in the tentative budget. Padoleski was a village trustee then and the board would eliminate four full-time firefighter positions, while not filling a vacancy in the DPW and cutting the K9 program.
Padoleski said there aren’t similar cost-savings to cut this time because those cuts were already made.’
The tentative $8,189,601 budget represents a $466,305 more in spending or a 6.0 percent increase from the $7,723,296 in the 2025-26 budget.
The tax levy, what property owners pay in taxes, would increase by $880,423 or 22.5 percent from $3,910,344 to $4,790,767. The tax rate would increase by $3.19 from $13.995 to $17.189.
“This is just the tentative budget,” Padoleski said Monday evening during a public hearing on the budget. “There is still quite a bit more of cutting to do.”
Part of the increase is an additional $139,225 for the first bond payment for a new ladder truck. The board is working to sell that truck, and it’s possible the sale could exceed what the village owes at $1.8 million. There could be some unanticipated revenue from that truck, Padoleski said.
The budget shows a $340,020 increase in salaries (from $3,210,661 to $3,550,681); $5,000 increase in equipment reserve (from $50,000 to $55,000); $17,700 more for capital projects (from $1,756,548 to $1,837,899).
Total revenues are down by $414,118 from $3,812,952 to $3,398,834.
Padoelski said she met last week with the leaders from the towns of Shelby, Ridgeway and yates to request more money from them than the current $35,000 each annually towards the ambulance services in Western Orleans County. She said she sensed resistance to a higher amount from Yates and Ridgeway, while Padoleski said Jim Heminway, Shelby town supervisor, is open “to a new way of doing things.”
Padoleski said the fire department with 17 career firefighters is operating at a deficit of about $1.6 million.
“We’re obligated to come up with a tax rate in the next two weeks,” Padoleski said about a final village budget for 2026-27. “Honestly, right now I don’t know what that looks like.”
Here are the village tax levies and tax rates in the past seven budgets:
- 2025-26 tax levy, $3,910,344; tax rate, $13.995
- 2024-25 tax levy, $3,903,200; tax rate, $13.97
- 2023-24 tax levy, $3,786,964; tax rate, $21.16
- 2022-23 tax levy, $3,296,140; tax rate, $18.95
- 2021-22 tax levy, $3,259,119; tax rate, $18.77
- 2020-21 tax levy, $3,197,059; tax rate, $18.46
- 2019-20 tax levy, $3,138,059; tax rate, $18.32
The mayor also said the village faces costly upgrades in the near future at the sewer plant and replacing very old waterlines. Those undertakings will likely result in higher sewer and water bills for village customers, although she said Medina would be pursuing grants to hep offset the costs.
