Council, Noble aim to maintain tax pact

The Common Council is considering a resolution calling on Ulster County to renew the current sales tax revenue-sharing agreement with its municipalities for another five years, a move Mayor Steve Noble said he wholeheartedly supports.

Renewing the current agreement without change before it expires Feb. 29 would give the city time to look at consolidation and sharing of services with neighboring municipalities, the county and the state, Noble said during a press conference Friday at City Hall. He said the city is willing to lead the way on sharing services to save the municipalities money.

“But we need time,” Noble said. “We can’t pull the rug out immediately and think that we can still be able to have a stable government that delivers the services.”

At present, Ulster County keeps 85.5 percent of the revenue from the county’s 4 percent sales tax, projected to total $109,966,041 in 2016, and gives 11.5 percent to the city. The county’s 20 towns and two of its villages share the remaining 3 percent. The village of New Paltz does not get any sales tax revenue because it does not

have a tax-sharing agreement with the town of New Paltz.

With the contract coming to an end, the county is looking to negotiate an agreement that could slash the percentage of revenue shared with local governments.

Noble said even if the county reduced the city’s share to 10 percent, it would mean approximately $1.6 million of lost revenue for 2016. If that happens, the city must start making hard choices, he said. Noble said it would not be a matter of when the city cut its workforce, but how many employees would be lost.

The Finance and Audit Committee of the Common Council on Wednesday adopted a resolution supporting the renewal of the current agreement. Noble said he will ask the full council to meet before the end of this month to adopt the resolution, which he will sign. That would send a message to the county Legislature and Executive Michael Hein that the city needs to have a stable, functional government, he said.

A representative of Hein’s office could not be reached for comment Friday afternoon.

“I believe that the best course of action at this moment in time is to renew our current sales tax agreement for another five years at 11.5 percent,” Noble said. “And then give us the next few years to work together to do both shared services, to do the work that I think we all want to do to make sure that we’re not putting too much of a burden on our taxpayers.”

Noble said he already has asked city department heads to come up with ideas for sharing services with other municipalities, beyond what is done already. Those ideas will be investigated to see what could work for Kingston, he said.

Noble said even if the sales tax agreement expires prior to an agreement, the county cannot take more than 85.5 percent of the revenue for 2016. It could, however, change how the remaining 14.5 percent is distributed between the city and the other municipalities, he said.

Noble said the city has taken steps over the years to reduce its spending as costs have continued to rise. Since 2008, he said, the city’s workforce has been cut by 63 full-time employees, or 18 percent. Noble said that amounts to a savings of approximately $4 million based on projections by city Comptroller John Tuey. He said the city also has saved money by self-funding some employee benefit plans and by reducing its energy consumption.

Noble said the city expects to save another $300,000 annually for the next few years once its LED streetlights are installed later this year.