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CANAJOHARIE, N.Y. (NEWS10) — Residents in Canajoharie are facing an unprecedented tax levy increase and water and sewage rate hike this year, caused by misfilings in tax documents from years prior.
“It’s a beautiful town it has so much history, it’s peaceful, it’s quiet, I love it here, my kids are on the honor roll I don’t want to take my kids and uproot and move them away from here,” said Lisa M. Harding, a Canajoharie resident.
However, dozens of Canajoharie residents like Kari Lemp, Lisa Harding and Jason Gaughan, are now worried about their options following a large hike in taxes and water/sewage bills.
“I don’t want to have to sell, I don’t want to have to go back to renting a house or living in an apartment,” said Gaughan.
“I’m not going to be able to stay here with these increases. But how am I gonna be able to sell my home, when this is what a buyer could be facing?,” asked Lemp.
Residents are facing a 33.6% tax levy increase and a 43% overall increase in water and sewage rates. Lemp told NEWS10’s Vanessa Blasi that her water and sewage bill more than doubled. Her previous bill was $303 and now her current bill is $788.43. Harding’s bill also nearly doubled — increasing from nearly $500 to nearly $900.
“I got my bill and almost fell over backwards and all the neighbors were on the street comparing bills and we’re like how does this happen?,” said Harding.
Village of Canajoharie Deputy Mayor Peter Lyden explained that the increases weren’t supposed to happen the way they did. He explained that for at least the last decade, the village has been making their water and sewage budget based on an estimated, flat number of 46 million gallons that they believed residents were using each year. This means that instead of calculating the number of gallons that residents were actually using, they largely overestimated.
“And actually looking at the numbers that we’ve sold, the average over the last three years has been 35.1 million. So the increase is due to we have to offset that 11 million gallon difference,” said Lyden.
This finally caught up to the village this past spring, when they began running out of money. Lyden said they had to take a $320,000 Tax Anticipation Note in order to make payroll in May and cover the remaining expenses of the last fiscal year.
Plus, residents will also see a separate 33.6% tax levy increase this fiscal year. Lyden said this increase was only supposed to be about 18%, however upon reviewing last year’s documents, on June 2, the village found that last year’s tax rate was misfiled.
“The rate was supposed to be 17.04 per thousand. It’s in the minutes. What was filed with the county after we adopted that was 15.12. We don’t have an explanation as to why, but staff adjustments have been made,” said Lyden. “And it’s probably part of the reason why we almost ran out of money, because it about a $200,000 difference in our tax revenue.”
Therefore, the change from a rate of 15.12 to 20.21 ended up being a 45.3% tax levy increase. Lyden said this is what they will have to work with for the next year, although they’re working on reassessing the minimum bill. Lyden said the village has also been in contact with the state comptroller’s office to navigate how to move forward.
Gaughan believes more should be done to help residents. He submitted a letter to Governor Kathy Hochul with hopes to get her involved in this as well. He has not yet heard back. Canajoharie Mayor Ron Dievendorf said an increase like this will not happen again.
“We are aware of all the concerns. We have the concerns ourselves. We have to pay the taxes like everybody else. And its not going to happen again,” said Dievendorf.
“Everyone’s scared, everyone’s walking on egg shells because they don’t want to use water. And its sad when you got to tell your kids hurry up ten minutes in the shower,” said Harding. “We all work hard, we have kids going back to school, they need school supplies we got to support the kids and if we cant take care of the kids, who’s gonna take care of it?”
Lyden also mentioned the village is in the process of working on a consolidations study with the other three villages in the valley and Mohawk Tribe, that could be a long term solution for lower rates.
“It would create a new water sewage district that would help expand the user base thereby lowering the rates for everyone,” said Lyden.
There will be a village meeting on Sept. 2, where they plan to introduce a budget panel for community members to get involved in and discuss how to move forward. Lyden said they will be waiting until October to push out the panel, as that is when they anticipate new accounting software to be up and running.
“We’re hoping that they can budget this and fix it and go back to normal and figure out a different way to make money for the community,” said Harding.
“It’s a quaint town, lot of history here and you know, I would hate to see it go away but if they don’t figure something out, I have a feeling that’s what’s going to happen,” said Gaughan.
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Vanessa Blasi
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