With the town’s reassessment finishing earlier this year, Lewiston residents should see a noticeable change in their property tax payments next year.
The Lewiston 2027 tentative budget is currently set at $16.5 million. That amount would come from a similar rise in town revenues, at $15.6 million, with the amount coming from taxes roughly the same at $401,071, and the appropriated fund balance amount decreased by around $40,000, at $570,183.
The proposed town property tax rate would be 11 cents per $1,000 of assessed value, a 65% decrease from last year’s adopted value of 33 cents and continuing the town trend of decreasing the assessment rate over the past few years.
The listed salaries for town officials are:
• Highway Superintendent, $85,472
• Town Clerk, $74,480
• Supervisor, $35,000
• Town Justices, $32,397
• Council members, $16,383
The Town’s Highway/Drainage fund saw the biggest increase for its appropriations, with its $5.52 million appropriated including new items for its drainage division for cleaning the town’s drain infrastructure, increased machinery expenses, and employee benefit costs. That amount comes from $5.42 million in revenues and $100,824 in taxes.
The town General Fund, which includes Village of Lewiston expenses, has $3.6 million in appropriations, made up of $2.85 million in revenues, $339,433 in appropriated fund balance, and $411,394 raised by taxes.
The General Fund Outside of the Village has $4.9 million in appropriations, funded by $4.7 million in revenue and $230,750 from fund balance.
The Water Pollution Control Center has $2.65 million in appropriations, all funded by revenue.
Four of the town’s seven special districts, which all have a combined $7.49 million in appropriations, would see some form of tax levy decrease.
• The Fire Protection district would see its rate drop to $0.7844, a 64,42% decrease
• The Lewiston MSIA district would have its assessed rate drop to $0.0346, a 58.59% decrease
• The Lewiston South Sewer IA district’s rate would go down to $0.2698, a 58.18% decrease
• The Lewiston Water Improvement Area would drop to $0.4008, a 59.84% decrease
The town refuse district is the only special district seeing its rate go up, a 3.22% increase to $99.1523. The French Landing Drainage and Lewiston Heights Gas district rates will stay the same.
The full tentative 2027 budget can be viewed on the Town of Lewiston website, with a public hearing for it scheduled to happen at a future town board meeting. The town board has until Nov. 20 to approve the budget.