It’s a conventional wisdom of North Country politics that folks are furious about high property taxes.<\/p>\n
But in recent weeks, voters and local leaders from Elizabethtown to Lake Luzerne to Port Henry have sent a very different message. <\/p>\n
In Port Henry this week, residents decided to keep their village government, despite assurances that dissolving a layer of bureaucracy would save them at least 24% on their property tax bills.<\/p>\n
Disbanding the village had strong backing from conservative activists, including a newly formed regional group called Unshackle Upstate.<\/p>\n
“Each of those [local governments] have an inherent cost to them,” said Unshackle director Brian Sampson.<\/p>\n
But local voters decided to maintain their two separate governments, by a decisive margin of 186-146.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, in Lake Luzerne, officials at the Hadley-Luzerne Central School District were considering deep budget cuts and planning lay-offs.<\/p>\n
Even with those proposed cuts, taxpayers in the area were facing a 17% property tax hike. <\/p>\n
But on Monday, local residents turned up at a meeting and demanded that the teachers be reinstated. <\/p>\n
“There were several people who said, \u2018Don’t change anything, and leave [the tax hike] at 30 percent, and we would support it,'” board president Lisa Moses told the Glens Falls Post-Star<\/a>.<\/p>\n Some elected officials tell me point-blank that they think North Country residents will agree to pay more local property and sales taxes, if that’s what it takes to maintain government jobs and services. <\/p>\n “I don’t think people will have a choice at that point,” says Cathy Moses, town supervisor in Schroon. <\/p>\n “I think if you want to be part of a community, if you’re going to be part of a county, I think that we’re all going to have to tighten the belts and work together.” <\/p>\n The next big test of this question — higher taxes vs. deep spending cuts — may come as Essex County residents decide the fate of the Horace Nye nursing home. <\/p>\n The facility, with a hundred elderly residents, loses around $4 million a year, even after state and Federal subsidies.<\/p>\n County leaders have formed a panel to review Horace Nye’s future.<\/p>\n “That’s one of those services that we’ve got to decide, either we stay in the nursing home business or we don’t,” said Essex County manager Dan Palmer, speaking in December.<\/p>\n “I’m not sure we can,” he added.<\/p>\n But last month, Essex County officials insisted that there was no chance the nursing home would close. <\/p>\n