Further Down the Budget Rabbit Hole
Just when you think you're finally beginning to understand Putnam Valley's complicated budget, new insights emerge. Today's installment comes courtesy of John Wolham, the Town Assessor who began working here in March.
Previously published stories tried to explain individual aspects of this year's proposed budget: why costs are going up so much in the Highway Department; how fire protection services are being paid for; the historical reliance on reserve funds; and, though it should have been labeled more explicitly, the taxes needed to cover general town functions (excluding items that the Supervisor has less control over, like maintaining highways, fire protection and the special districts).
Rather than focus on individual aspects of the budget, Wolham pulls back to 20,000 feet and looks at the property tax base for the town as a whole. And because he spent 41 years analyzing tax rolls for villages and towns across the state before landing in Putnam Valley, he is able to offer telling comparisons.
It's well known that Putnam Valley has virtually no commercial tax base, but Wolham quantifies that. Of the 5,772 tax parcels here, only 56 are commercial. Wolham says at the end of 2025 the state put the assessed value of residential property in Putnam Valley at a little over $2.2 billion. The assessment of commercial properties here was a little over $51 million. Vacant land assessments were just under $49 million and utility assessments were a little over $38 million.
Wolham says he thinks Putnam Valley has accomplished something truly remarkable. It is a suburban community in close proximity to New York City that has nonetheless successfully managed to preserve its rural character. Most other towns have had real estate developers create new subdivisions with new homes that increase the tax base, along with commercial strip malls to support them. That new construction is what other towns have relied on to create new assessed value for their tax rolls. The flip side of Putnam Valley's pristine environment is that there is almost no commercial or residential development. Given the lack of municipal water and sewer infrastructure and the town's rocky terrain, that option is pretty much foreclosed. "I'm hard pressed to think of any other town that is quite like Putnam Valley," Wolham said.
General assessment levels have not been raised here for the last two years and Wolham estimates that it could be another year or two before he will be able to reevaluate all the town's properties. His immediate focus is on individual properties where sales or renovations have taken place. Wolham estimates that if an outside vendor were hired to do a town-wide reassessment, it would cost about $600,000, an amount he considers untenable given current fiscal conditions.
Analyzing Putnam Valley's finances is further complicated by the array of grants and infusions from the state and federal government that have come in over the last few years. After the severe storm in July 2023, for instance, the town received commitments from FEMA to support rebuilding our infrastructure. But the town has had to issue bonds to cover the upfront cost of that rebuilding and FEMA has been slow to reimburse. Eventually those FEMA funds will come in, enabling the town to reduce its debt and the interest it is paying on it.
During the four years of the Annabi administration, the total amount of revenue the town was projected to need to cover its costs rose by 17%. Thanks to about $5.9 million that was budgeted to be taken from various fund balances during those same years, the increase in property tax revenue needed to cover those costs was held to just 7%. Supervisor Alison Jolicoeur's tentative budget projects that the total revenue needed to cover town costs next year is rising by 8% and that, even after using $2.3 million from fund balances, property taxes will need to increase by 9.2%. As Finance Director Maria Angelico has previously pointed out, the reliance on fund balances to reduce the impact of rising operating costs is running out of steam.
During her first ten months as town supervisor, Jolicoeur has emphasized the need to update the town's 2007 Comprehensive Plan with the help of a soon-to-be-appointed steering committee. The town and Planning Board are supposed to use that document to guide future planning decisions. She is also applying for a grant to create an Open Space Inventory that would help illuminate those assets. Steps like these could help the town navigate these choppy waters and devise a realistic path forward that builds consensus for how Putnam Valley's unique qualities can be sustained.
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