Medina Village Board joins effort seeking more of local sales tax from county

Photo by Tom Rivers: Downtown Medina, including Bent’s Opera House at right, is shown on Monday night.

MEDINA – The Village Board unanimously approved a resolution on Monday evening, calling on the Orleans County Legislature to share more of the local sales tax with towns and villages.

The 10 towns and four villages have been frozen at $1,366,671 since 2001. Medina’s portion of that amount was $149,638 in 2022. That is less than 1 percent (0.67 percent) of the $22.5 million total in local sales tax collected in the county last year.

Clarendon Town Supervisor Richard Moy circulated a letter to the 10 towns and four villages last month, asking for their support in making a unified plea to the County Legislature to share more of the local sales tax.

Moy would like to see the amount shared be at least 14 percent. That’s what the Legislature was sharing in 1996. Back then, the total local sales tax for the year was $9,499,138.

With the local sales tax growing to $22.5 million last year, the share to towns and villages now only represents 6.1 percent of the total.

To get to 14 percent of $22.5 million, the county would have to increase the amount to towns and villages to $3,150,000.

Medina village officials said a sizable increase is long overdue as village struggle to maintain services with their cost increasing for salaries, benefits, fire trucks, plows, dump trucks – just about everything.

Deputy Mayor Owen Toale said the villages provide many quality-of-life issues and other support for businesses, which allow residents and visitors to spend money in Orleans, generating the sales tax.

He noted that sales tax revenue was up $4.8 million or by 27 percent from 2019 to 2022 – from $17.7 million to $22.5 million. Yet none of that increase trickled down to the villages or towns.

“We have to tell them it’s time to share correctly,” Toale said during Monday’s Village Board meeting.

Trustee Marguerite Sherman said village officials have pressed the Legislature before on the issue. “They laughed in our faces,” she said.

The Legislature isn’t obligated to share any of the local sales tax. County legislators have said the county faces rising costs, and could get hit with a $1 million shift in Medicaid costs from the state to the county.

Toale bristled at that response, saying the village is inundated with needs and costly expenses. (The board on Monday voted to pursue a new ladder truck that could top $1.5 million, replacing one that is 27 years old.)

“We need to tell the county legislators how we feel,” Toale said. “We need to be forceful.”

The Village Board next month will be focused on the village budget, and Toale said those meetings last hours as the board and department heads try desperately to find ways to cut costs.

“We’re spending four to five hours to find $5,” he said.

Trustee Tim Elliott said the County Legislature should look at a fair distribution of the local sales tax, including factoring in which communities generate the most. But for now, he favors the resolution initiated by the Clarendon Town Board to have an increase at the 14 percent level.

“It’s a starting point, so let’s start there,” he said.

The resolution adopted by the Medina Village Board states:

“WHEREAS, pursuant to the Orleans County Treasurer records, in 1996 the Orleans County Legislature distributed 14% ($1,366,671) of the total sales tax revenue collected ($9,499,138.31) to the towns and villages in Orleans County; and

“WHEREAS, said dollar amounts have remained the same for town and village revenues from sales tax revenue collected; and

“WHEREAS, there has been no revenue increase to the towns and villages since then even though the sales tax revenue collected by the county has increased more than 40%;

“THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Village Board of the Village of Medina does hereby request consideration from the Orleans County Legislature to share 14% of the total sales tax revenue collected with the towns and villages each year here and after, to be utilized in the best way to benefit said communities according to its governing bodies.”