SULLIVAN COUNTY, NY — The management and budget committee of the Sullivan County Legislature voted to approve two home rule requests asking the state to increase the county’s sales tax and mortgage tax rates. Another request to increase the motor vehicle use tax was defeated.

The resolutions would aim to offset the fiscal strain on the county with increases to taxes. According to the resolutions, mortgage tax would rise from 25 cents per $100 to 50 cents per $100, sales tax would increase an additional one-quarter percent and the motor vehicle use tax from $5 and $10 to $15 and $30. 

The resolution calling for an increase in the mortgage tax rate passed four to one, the resolution calling for an increase in the sales tax rate passed three to two and the resolution to increase the motor vehicle use tax failed by a two to three vote. 

The resolutions are home rule requests, meaning that if the full county legislature were to approve them, they would require both houses of the New York State legislature and the governor to approve legislation to actually put the increases into effect.

Sullivan County Treasurer Kathleen Lara said to the River Reporter that the move underscores how seriously the county is taking its financial situation.

“We have to look for ways to increase revenue that are reasonable,” Lara said. “Understanding that every increase hurts a little bit…I think the legislature’s trying to look at ones that maybe will be the least impactful on everybody day to day.”

Committee chair Brian McPhillips said that these measures were also tailored to lessen the burden on taxpayers, as the county has eyed a property tax increase. McPhillips said that “these types of measures, it will offset the property tax increase.”

‘We’re going to have to bite the bullet’

At this point, legislator Terry Blosser-Bernardo, who voted against both resolutions, said that the county should have focused on controlling spending instead of raising taxes. Blosser-Bernardo said that taxpayers would not stomach “a 25 percent tax increase,” and that the county should be more conservative when it comes to its projections for sales tax and base it on actual numbers.

“We’ve overspent our revenues by 11 million dollars this year, and we overestimated our sales tax grossly last year,” Blosser-Bernardo said.

Lara said that the projected sales tax number was based on actual numbers and trying to predict the trends of the coming year. She said that this year, the projection will be more conservative.

“We sat at a table again and [county manager Joshua Potosek] has presented something that’s absolutely more reasonable and you’ll deal with it,” Lara said. “You have to base it on something. You can’t just throw out a number.”

Legislator Joseph Perrello said that things are more expensive, and that tax increases are coming too late.

“We should have raised taxes last year. We had the problem last year,” Perrello said. “Going forward, we have to reset the county. We’re going to have to bite the bullet. Whatever it’s going to cost is going to cost.”

McPhillips laid out the county’s budget situation, saying the tentative budget has increasingly gotten more and more expensive. “That was not this legislative body’s fault. This is the cost of running government,” McPhillips said.

Perrello said that if the county didn’t raise taxes, it would have to cut services in order to balance its budget. “We don’t have to raise taxes,” Perrello said. “Guess what? We just have to cut services, lay off people, and if that’s what other people want to do, that’s OK with me too.”

McPhillips said that the county is actively trying to take steps to lessen the tax impact by taking a hard look at the county’s finances and see where money can be saved. 

“We are taking conservative approaches,” McPhillips said. “We are not bonding roads. We are looking to decrease the anticipated sales tax revenue to get into something that’s more achievable.”

The resolutions now move to be voted on by the full legislative body, which will meet Thursday, October 15, at the Sullivan County Government Center in Monticello.