Utica Mayor Michael Galime says the city is in deficit territory and in order to try to come out of it, he’s proposed a 16.5% property tax increase for the 2024-2025 fiscal year.

“Taxes truly have been flat. They have not gone up in six years while inflation over those six years has been over 20%. So, it’s truly a matter of our expenses have grown and we just didn’t account for it,” Mayor Galime said.

What You Need To Know

  • An average home that's assessed at $55,00 would see their taxes go up about 20% a month

  • The city has about $10.9 million in reserve fund

  • The budget is due March 31

Galime’s proposed budget is $87.5 million. In order to balance the budget, he says he needs the tax increase and $2.5 million from the city’s reserve fund balance.

“That means at the end of this year, just to break even, we have to have over $2 million of a surplus,” Mayor Galime said.

“Revenues are being underprojected and our expenses are being overprojected.” said Utica Common Councilmember Katie Aiello.

Aiello said increasing taxes to 16.5% is too high and she said she and the Democrats will present amendments to help get that number down.

“What we have on the floor right now is about an 8% savings for taxpayers and we could see that reduce below double digits. I don’t know what the council’s all going to agree to and I don’t know what the mayor’s going to veto,” Aiello said.

“If they have ideas I haven’t thought of, I want to hear that,” Galime said.

The Utica Common Council will be voting on the amendments and the budget on March 20.