The Oswego County Legislature approved the 2023 budget during its end of year meeting on Thursday night. The $231 million budget contains no increase to the property tax levy and decreases the generic tax rate by 11%.

The real property tax levy decreased by 5,686 from the 2022 budget, while the county valuation increased over $790 million. The $44,703,586 tax levy in the 2023 budget, together with the full value of the county of $7,227,477,046 produces a generic tax rate of $6.19 per thousand dollars of assessed value, down from $6.95 in 2022.

Owners of a property valued at $100,000 will pay roughly $619 in county property taxes in the coming year, representing a savings of more than $76 from the current year.

“Since 2005, the county’s tax rate has fallen from $9.20 per $1,000 of assessed value to roughly $6.19 in the coming year,” said Oswego County Legislature Chairman James Weatherup, “That’s a more than 30% reduction in the tax rate, despite significantly rising costs and inflation over that time period. Also, while cutting costs for our residents is critical, this spending plan includes strategic investments in our communities and provides us with the ability to be flexible in the coming year. I want to thank everyone for their hard work in making this happen.”

Prioritizing this critical goal of cutting costs has been a challenge in the current economy. The nation has suffered the largest rate of inflation it has seen in decades and Oswego County government has not been immune to its effects.

“Some commodities we rely on, in particular materials needed to maintain facilities and infrastructure, have seen price increases as much as 30% or more, with fuel alone increasing 40%,” said Oswego County Administrator Philip Church. “Despite the current economic crisis, we have been able to limit the overall budget increase to just 5%. That’s more than 2% lower than the national inflation rate. It has been a real group effort to try to hold this line and I commend the hard work of everyone involved.”

The 2023 budget is more than $2 million below the New York State tax cap and continues to meet county leadership’s goal of not using unappropriated fund balances (savings from previous years) to maintain daily operations. It makes minimal use of the internal portion of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding and conservatively forecasts sales tax to protect taxpayers against an economic downturn. Once again, Oswego County remains debt-free.

Church thanked each of the departments along with leadership for contributing ideas and working together to develop a budget that meets the needs of county citizens.

“This budget sufficiently funds enhanced public safety services for our residents and businesses,” he said. “It also provides for new initiatives to tackle opioid addition and the continued stellar maintenance of our public infrastructure, along with ongoing economic development, public assistance, programs for youth and seniors, and improvements to internal operations.”

One of the major improvements lies in access to the budget itself. Created nearly 40 years ago, the current book format is not user-friendly. With basic narratives and columns of numbers, it does not go far enough to inform the public about their county government’s funding, services and policies or meet the modern expectations of transparency.

In 2023, a new online form of the book will be available to help solve these issues. Using ClearGov technology, it will offer easy access to more information than ever before. People will be able to explore the budget and examine expenditures, revenues and trends in their choice of numeric or graph form. They will also be able to print the book and customize it with the specific information they’re interested in. More information will be coming as that project nears completion.

Of particular note in the 2023 budget are public safety enhancements. They include providing more special patrol officers in schools and secure entrances at all county buildings. These security measures are intended to provide a greater sense of safety and peace-of-mind for our county’s parents and children, as well as school staff, county employees and the public.

The budget also includes plans to restructure the E-911 Center to take advantage of new technology developments such as next-generation 911 and first response drones. Another goal is to work toward more fully integrating the EMS Coordinator and Drone Coordinator positions created last year into the operational budget.

The 2023 budget also uses local Opioid Settlement funding (which will continue into the 2030s) to improve access to drug addiction services across various county programs. Services will be provided for incarcerated individuals in need at the Oswego County Jail, addiction counseling will be integrated into social services programs and rapid access to treatment programs will be improved. The health department will conduct thorough opioid addiction research, which is critical to assessing needs and designing addiction services.

Oswego County received $23 million in federal ARPA funding; $10 million of which is allowed to fund internal needs, although a portion of that may be saved for external allocation for ongoing community recovery efforts. For this reason, county leadership has been conservative with its internal use of ARPA funding.

New initiatives, operational efficiencies and employee retention and recruitment efforts have been prioritized for its internal use. These include providing EMS training services, completing the E-911 microwave system upgrades, improving drone capabilities for public safety, waiving civil service exam fees and enhancing employee recruitment using social media platforms.

Actual property tax rates in each municipality can vary depending on the state’s equalization rate for the municipality, and the municipality’s direct costs of workers’ compensation and community college.

For more information on the county’s budget and finances, visit www.oswegocounty.com.