Schoharie County supervisors may soon adjust the method of distributing sales-tax revenue to villages and towns.
The change, which could come as soon as this Friday’s Board of Supervisors meeting, would shift money from some towns and villages to others.
County government keeps 95 percent of the county sales-revenue, and the 22 towns and villages share the remaining five percent.
Officials divide that five percent according to assessed property values in the towns and villages. Using assessed value has been in place since the system started in the 1990s.
In 2009––the latest complete year––towns and villages divided $620,000.
Because the split is based on assessed value, however, several smaller towns reap larger sums than those with larger populations.
For instance, in 2011, Gilboa would receive about $70,000, while Cobleskill would get about $30,000 and Schoharie and Middleburgh would receive about $35,000 and $32,000, respectively, according to projections from the county Treasurer’s Office.
“We’re just looking to share it more fairly,” said Schoharie Supervisor Martin Shrederis.
The system supervisors are considering would divide 2.5 percent of the revenue according to assessed value and 2.5 percent by population. Larger towns and villages would get a little more money than they’ve received, and smaller ones would get a bit less.
Dividing the five percent entirely based on population would be too drastic, according to Middleburgh Supervisor Dennis Richards, because the smaller towns would lose too much money.
“Considering our past history, I think this is the fairest way to do it,” he said, referring to the 2.5-percent system.
Mr. Richards said supervisors may consider the change at their meeting Friday. If not, they’ll probably take it up at their October meeting.
“We’ll see where the numbers come in,” said Mr. Shrederis. “We want to do this the fairest way.”