Consolidation at a Glance

A house built on a weak foundation will not stand.

The Joint Consolidation Agreement contains no financial data demonstrating why keeping all the village employees doing all the same jobs under a new government will save money.
There has been no clear explanation of which specific redundancies consolidation will cure.

Increasing complexity while decreasing representative government competence and shared community experience.

Last year as Mayor of the village, Tim Rogers proposed hiring a Village Manager. Should consolidation take place, the new Town Board will have twice as much work to do as they take on the work of the village and, should a Town Manager be hired, any savings gained by eliminating the salaries of the Village Board members would be wiped out.

This is not the first time dissolution/consolidation has been considered.

A visit to the Elting Memorial Library Haviland-Heidgerd Historical Collection will quickly reveal that this is not the first time that joint meetings have taken place to discuss dissolution of the Village of New Paltz. In fact, since 1949 there have been at least 10 such studies, with some of them covering three and five-year periods.

Conflicting cost projections cloud the consolidation predictions.

A study conducted in 2013 showed that the tax increase for properties outside the village could be as much as 12%. [New Paltz Government Efficiency and Effectiveness Project, September 13, 2013] The same study estimated that village taxpayers would receive a tax decrease ranging from 11% to 26%.

The incredibly shrinking tax credit called the CETC

One of the reasons cited for consolidating the village with the town is the New York State Citizen Empowerment Tax Credit, commonly referred to as the CETC. This $1 million credit was established as an incentive in 2010.

With an 18% increase in village population, we need a dedicated village government more than ever.

In 2020 the U.S. Census reported that the Village of New Paltz had a population of 7,324. In 2025 the U.S. Census Bureau estimate of the Village’s population was 8,689.[1] That is a population increase of 18.3% in just 5 years.

[1] U.S. Census Bureau [https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/newpaltzvillagenewyork/PST045224.]

Forget trust, verify!

Voters are being told by the Town Supervisor to trust him when the flawed Joint Consolidation Agreement contains no clear path forward; no specific examples of any financial benefits to residents; reliance on a tax incentive that has already lost 1/3 of its initial value since first offered, and a ‘kick the can down the road’ methodology for the next two years.

Amidst threats of election takeovers and uncertain federal funding, particularly for blue states, this is no time to bet that the Village and Town will be able to achieve what is proposed in the Joint Consolidation Agreement.

An agreement to agree is no agreement at all.
Starting a project without a plan is a plan destined to fail.

What is right about consolidation for New Paltz?

The answer, as it stands, is not much since there is nothing in the Joint Consolidation Agreement that answers this question definitively or convincingly.