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Dryden trustee urges county to rethink fixed cap on pass‑through fees
Summary
Mike Murphy, a trustee from the Village of Dryden, told the Tompkins County Legislature that a proposed small fixed cap on fees municipalities can pass to the county would harm villages that add water and sewer fees to tax bills; he asked that the county consider a percentage cap tied to property value rather than a single dollar limit.
Mike Murphy, a trustee from the Village of Dryden, asked the legislature to reconsider a proposed limit on the dollar amount municipalities can pass to the county as unpaid fees. "This year, at this point in time, we have $59,000 worth of tax bills... and of the $59,000 almost $17,000 is water and sewer," Murphy said, explaining that smaller villages rely on adding utility fees to tax rolls to facilitate collection.
Murphy told legislators a $500 or $1,000 cap would pose a hardship for villages that sometimes carry substantial unpaid utility balances; he proposed instead a percentage‑of‑property‑value approach (for example 20–25%) to avoid unfairly penalizing small properties. Government Operations Committee chair Dan Klein said he planned to pull the proposal from the agenda and send it back to committee for further review.
