SARANAC LAKE — The Saranac Lake village board unanimously passed a $7.2 million budget for the coming year on Monday. It meets the tax cap and includes a number of minor changes from the tentative budget, including raises for the village manager and police chief.

The village plans to spend $7,202,350 in the 2025-26 fiscal year — $56,164, or 0.79%, more than the previous fiscal year.

To pay for this, the tentative budget currently calls for the village to collect, or levy, $4,560,147 from taxpayers, a $106,219 increase from last year and the maximum amount this figure can go up without going over the state-imposed tax cap. The tax cap this year was set at 2.26% — the state base of 2% plus a growth percentage of 0.26%.

The village is expecting to earn $2,077,598 in revenue this year, $88,631 more than was anticipated the previous year.

The budget calls for the village to pull $871,607 from its reserves in its fund balance, $92,350 less than what last year’s budget called for. There is about $2.5 million in the general fund balance currently, though this is subject to change.

The final budget plans to spend around $100,000 less than the tentative budget did. Village Manager Bachana Tsiklauri said he was able to make several reductions throughout the budget process. The electric expenses for the village’s 1-3 Main St. building were brought down by a couple thousand dollars because the police department is not stationed there anymore. He also said there was a clerical error with data files that doubled the payment lines for village beach lifeguards, which he caught and corrected.

Because of this, the village plans to pull $100,000 less from its reserves than was initially expected.

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Tax rate

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The village sits inside three towns. The tax rates in each town are different because each town assesses properties differently. To ensure that each town’s taxpayers pay their fair share in taxes, the state has something called an equalization rate, which equalizes each town’s assessments to full market value to make up for any differences in how properties are assessed.

Harrietstown has an equalization rate of 70% because it is under-assessed and St. Armand has an equalization rate of 84% because is less under-assessed, according to the state. North Elba, on the other hand, is fully assessed at 100%.

Residents who live in the Harrietstown part of Saranac Lake would pay $13.86 per $1,000 of assessed property value under the proposed budget, a $0.03 — or 0.18% — increase per $1,000 from the current fiscal year.

Someone who owns a $300,000 house in the Harrietstown part of Saranac Lake would pay $4,156.86 in village taxes, $7.59 more than last year.

Residents in the North Elba part of Saranac Lake would pay $9.73 per $1,000 of assessed property value, a $0.35 — or 3.46% — decrease per $1,000.

Someone who owns a $300,000 house in the North Elba part of Saranac Lake would pay $2,918.52 in village taxes, $104.64 less than last year.

Residents in the St. Armand part of Saranac Lake would pay $11.58 per $1,000 of assessed property value, a $0.37 — or 3.3% — increase per $1,000.

Someone who owns a $300,000 house in the St. Armand part of Saranac Lake would pay $3,474.42 in village taxes, $110.85 more than last year.

The comparisons for how much more or less homeowners in North Elba or St. Armand would pay compared to last year changed since the previously reported tentative budget, though the actual rate they pay did not, because initially, the rates were compared to the 2023-24 fiscal year, instead of the 2024-25 year.

To read more about the earlier tentative budget and how the budget was created, go to tinyurl.com/ckwdkjh3.

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Frugalness

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Before the vote, Trustee Aurora White had concerns — not with the budget itself, but with how the money budgeted will be spent. She was concerned by previous comments about spending up to what is budgeted each year.

“We need to be careful that we do still have an attitude of frugalness,” White said.

She asked that the village try to minimize transfers from the reserves to the general fund during the year.

Tsiklauri said new budgeting practices should mean that the reserves should be used less often from year to year.

Raises

Earlier this month, village resident Mark Wilson took issue with a $5,000 raise for Tsiklauri and a $6,000 raise for police Chief Darin Perrotte being added after the work session and before the public hearing.

He felt these raises weren’t discussed among the board and that they were slipped in between the budget work session and public hearing in what he called a “bait and switch.”

Mayor Jimmy Williams said financial compensation for individual employees is done in executive session and not included in meeting minutes. Tsiklauri said he excused himself from the session where his salary was discussed.

Wilson felt raises of these sizes should have been discussed publicly.

The village manager salary is now $99,360.24 and the police chief salary is now $105,831.94.

Wilson clarified that his objection was about process, not the people. He felt these changes should have been made before the budget work session, for transparency to the public.

Wages for the mayor and trustees are staying the same — $5,000 for each trustee, a total of $20,000 for the four-member board, and $10,000 for the mayor.

Including the village’s $2.14 million water budget and $2.75 million sewer budget, its total spending for the next fiscal year would be $12.09 million.

Tsiklauri said the village has been earning “hefty” interest on money it keeps in the bank for water and sewer — enough to cover cost increases to those departments this year.

The village board is set to discuss its water and sewer rates at meetings sometime later this month.

Currently, the water and sewer rates per 1,000 gallons are $10.75 for water and $8.62 for sewer.