Each Year the Gallatin Town Board likes to provide a summary of Town issues and invites you to participate in your local political process.  First, we encourage all residents to come to the annual budget hearing on Thursday October 13th. At 6pm we have a final workshop with the Town CPA and at 6:30pm a public hearing for your questions. At that Meeting on the 13th we will also have a presentation on domestic sprinkler systems, get public opinion on solar farms and talk maps, culverts and road repairs. We will have snacks and coffee as always.

NEW WEBSITE: We ask you to visit gallatin.yourtownhub.com and register to get updates and post opinions on this all new Gallatin interactive website. There you will see Town maps allowing you to see many aspects of Town parcels and roads. The new maps will show wetlands, water sources, tax information and many other overlay features. You can also take the Town broadband survey, post news and review progress on the Town park area. The Gallatin Resident’s Association is growing membership and recently had a summer barbecue attend by nearly 150 residents from all over Town. They plan future events- all listed on the website, including Town Hall political events with our two Congressional candidates in October.

2017 Budget. Gallatin will again stay in the Tax Cap and our residents will receive any rebates the State provides. With an increase of only some .68% in the Cap and an increase in the property assessments in Gallatin (we had some new houses built) your Town tax bill should actually drop a bit again in 2017. Overall Gallatin has one of the lowest overall tax burdens in the County. We were down to $1.10 per $1,000 in value in 2016 and that will drop again in 2017. For comparison, Ancram on one side was $2.53 last year and Taghkanic on the other side was $2.43. Translated, Gallatin raises about $300,000 in annual taxes while Taghkanic raises about $700,000 and Ancram about $800,000. We are budgeted this year to pay all our bills and try to add at least $32,000 to our savings for future highway equipment. Currently we have set aside $100,000 for future Town Building repairs/upgrades, $225,000 for future highway equipment, and $50,000 for storm emergencies. We also have reserves for employee retirement contributions and $25,000 dedicated to improving our new Town Conservancy Area on the Roe Jan. The Town also has between $250-300,000 in cash on hand in case we run into revenue shortfalls. The Town is in good financial shape. We have absolutely excellent and dedicated Town employees at the Town Garage, Town Hall and Courthouse and we enacted a private retirement program this year to show our appreciation -say hello or shake a hand if you see them at work.

Roads: The Town Board gets a lot of questions and letters on road repairs, so lets clarify this Board’s plan. We strive every year to budget resurfacing of 4+ miles of road. Gallatin has about 40 miles of roads so we hope you see a new road top every ten years. The highway staff now puts new sides to each road and the road takes 2-3 seasons to fully re-top. So roads are not being done twice before yours- they just take multiple years to complete re-topping. The roads are picked out by state of disrepair, age since last re-top, culvert funding and pricing on special paving for steep grades. There is no preference given to location and we work with our highway Super on ranking the roads for repair. The Town will get to yours in the cycle- No road is left behind in this plan. We hope our Town maps will soon show all road repair years, signs and culvert ages.

Year in Review: This year we completed an expansion of the Highway building using mainly proceeds from the sale of the old garage on Route 11. We now have a well-built building capable of housing all Town equipment on the inside and providing a Command Center with full building generator in case of a storm. We are repaving the Court House parking areas, as they were not replaced when the building was rebuilt about 6 years ago. That will give us two important Town assets in excellent shape. We have put a new gate and parking area in at the old landfill and are currently working on nature trails, a kayak launch and fishing spots – come volunteer to trail blaze or plan some flower and plant areas.

We hope to see you at a future Town Board Meeting!

John Reilly – Your Gallatin Supervisor

Donald Coons, Jeff Galm, Eric Mortenson and Fraser Paterson – Your Gallatin Councilmen