Following through on promises made six months ago, supervisors have agreed to share a little more of sales tax revenues with Schoharie County towns and villages.
Under an agreement reached in May, starting January 1, five percent of sales tax revenues will be divided between the 16 towns and five villages based on real property values.
That’s an agreement that’s been in place since 1996.
But now, an additional three percent of sales tax revenues will be shared with towns and villages based on 2020’s census figures.
Distributions are made on a quarterly basis.
The updated agreement will be reviewed in two years.
Also in May discussions, supervisors agreed to create a reserve fund to support economic development based on .5 percent of what’s budgeted annually for the sales tax.
Last January, Supervisors’ chair Bill Federice identified revisiting the decades-old sales tax distribution formula as something he wanted to see done in 2022 and named Phil Skowfoe of Fulton, Harold Vroman of Summit, Werner Hampel of Cobleskill and Jeff Haslun of Richmondville to a committee to tackle it.
Their first proposal, in May, would have shared an additional 2.5 percent of sales tax revenues and put .5 percent toward economic development.
That proposal failed.
2022 sales tax revenues through October totaled $1.6 million.
Year-to-date totals are $18 million, $2.3 million or 14.65 percent over 2021.