ELMIRA, N.Y. (WETM) – Chemung County Executive Chris Moss proposed a budget in a presentation Monday morning for the 2024 year. The budget will be taken to the legislature Monday night to be passed.

The proposed budget was looking at a 2.8% tax increase for next year. Moss said that with the decrease from last year, it still isn’t back to where it was.

“I mean, at the end of the day, I guess the message is we’re gonna have a slight increase in taxes, approximately 2.8%. We need to do that to be able to make sure that our fund balance remains adequate, and I think it’s an overall pretty good budget. So we’re hoping that the legislature will agree.”

In addition to the budget proposal, people had the chance to voice their issues during the presentation.

Town of Chemung Supervisor George Richter said “If you indicated or projected modest increase in sales tax revenue, that increase that you’re projecting is so modest. I’m not convinced it’s going to keep up with inflation or you can have any increase in sales tax, in my humble opinion, because the prices of everything have gone up.”

Chemung County Secretary Steven Hoover responded to this, saying “The rate of inflation is going down so we’re gonna benefit less from the rate of inflation. Price increases are there, I mean, they’re staying put. The prices are not going down, but the rate of the increase is going down.”

You can find the budget on the ClearGov website.