County Executive Jen Metzger announced last week that she will present her proposed 2027 budget to the legislature on Oct. 1 in legislative chambers at 7 p.m.

Kingston Mayor Steve Noble is expected to present his budget to the Common Council shortly thereafter. Town budgets will follow through the month of October to offer taxpayers some pre-election idea of how their taxes are being spent.

Budgets, which reflect the priorities of elected officials, are more than dollars and cents, tax rates, surplus and debt. They reflect the priorities of elected officials. They should also address the wants and needs and constituents’ ability to pay. Sometimes those priorities actually line up.

It is of some note that almost nothing clandestine governments do in deepest secret is more closely guarded than budget preparation. In effect, we will know what we will be getting when budgets are formally proposed.

What with federal and state cutbacks on long-standing programs, this year could be something of a scramble for bean counters, especially on the county level.

Metzger will almost certainly present the first half-billion county budget when she addresses the legislature on the 1st. By law, she has to present a balanced budget, something that really hasn’t happened in practice for many years.

In a truly balanced budget, income and revenues match up, maybe even with a small surplus. When the county had to draw down over $30 million from the fund balance to “balance” this year’s budget, for example, that budget was in fact in deficit.

According to County Comptroller March Gallagher, the actual fund balance coming into 2027 will be on the order of $18 million.

The real safety net, however, isn’t the fund balance, depleted as it seems now, but the sales tax. We have had for a few years now what amounts to a national sales tax. Buy a car in Connecticut and register it in Ulster County and the sales tax comes home to county coffers. It’s one reason why sales tax increases have been booming in recent years.

But it seems our county government is perfectly capable of spending almost all the revenue it takes in. Even with current inflation as a guideline – about 3.2 percent according to the feds – Ulster’s next budget could be more than $15 million higher than the current edition.

Here, we approach a line in the sand never breached by county government: the 2 percent (or thereabouts) state property tax cap. Kingston crossed that Rubicon several budgets ago. Taxpayers accepted these increases over cap with barely a whimper. Likewise, some towns and school districts. This year could be different. With “affordability” being a top priority for many, those who choose to tap that spigot will do so at their political peril.

One For the Domestic Partners

With the county facing what might be choppy financial waters, the legislature has unanimously approved including “domestic partners” of county workers in its health coverage.

There are about 1,300 county workers, though the total varies from month to month. How many are under the county’s family plan, with or without children, and how many are of the domestic partner category was not detailed.

Family plans for county workers now approach $40,000 a year and will almost certainly be higher in next year’s budget. Single-person households would pay less. How much hasn’t been detailed, either.

It is assumed that financial experts in the executive and legislative branches cost all this out before presenting this bill to the legislature which has forwarded same to the executive for her expected signature. I am reminded of what one of my early editors dictated to all of us on the first day on the job.

“You people are journalists. You assume nothing. Remember, assume has a word before ‘U’ and after ‘me.’’

There are not a lot of dumbasses in county government, but their bottom lines all too often is about election-year politics.

Demographic trends over the last 50 years or so point clearly to the rise in domestic partnerships. It might be, if it isn’t already, that half our households are of the domestic partner type. With that assumption – there I go again – the legislature’s decision is an easy one, perhaps, for its members, beneficial at the polls.

But couldn’t they just tell us how much it’s gonna cost?