The Kingston Common Council’s Finance Committee has approved Mayor Steve Noble’s 2025 budget with no substantial changes. The full council is expected to vote on the spending plan, which includes the largest tax hike since at least the 2008 financial crisis, when it convenes on Dec. 3.

The budget, approved by the Finance Committee after a series of meetings with department heads to seek out cost savings, totals $56,932,142 and includes $4 million in new spending and a property tax levy hike of 8.9 percent. The budget includes $4 million in new spending and calls for no layoffs among the city’s 300-member workforce.

Noble, who has not sought a substantial increase in the tax levy since taking office in 2016, said the city’s decision this year to take over emergency medical transport in the city rather than contract with a private company was the primary driver of the new spending. Investment in the new service incudes the purchase of four ambulances and the hiring of new firefighters to run them.

Noble cited sharp increases in the city’s liability insurance costs, the $21 million renovation of Dietz Stadium and higher prices for virtually everything as driving the property tax increase. The rise in the property tax levy required the city, for the first time since it was imposed in 2012, to break New York’s “2 percent” property tax cap which puts limit on municipal tax increases. The Finance Committee began the process of passing a local law to break the tax cap earlier this month. The full council is expected to pass the measure by the required six-vote supermajority on Dec. 3.

One element of Noble’s budget tossed out by the council was a 2.5 percent cost of living adjustment for elected officials in the city, including himself. In 2019, Noble put forth a plan to raise the mayor’s salary from $75,000 to $100,000 by 2024. The plan stalled in 2020 because of uncertainty over the pandemic. Currently the mayor’s salary stands at $82,000 and he did not request an increase in the new budget. Noble’s plan also called for annual cost of living adjustments for the Office of the Mayor and the Common Council similar to the ones received by city employees. Common Council members are paid $10,050 a year.

During discussion on the issue several lawmakers said that the proposed 2.5 percent adjustment would help keep up with costs associated with their service to the city, like hosting neighborhood events and communicating with constituents. Michele Hirsch (D-Ward 9) said that the adjustment would also reflect the additional duties lawmakers have faced as the city’s workforce and grant portfolio have expanded in recent years.

“We’re not just aldermen who go home at night, check our voicemail and call back a couple of constituents,” said Hirsch. “There’s a lot going on.”

But Hirsch conceded that while the raise might be justified, it would be bad optics to vote for it in a year when taxpayers were being asked to sacrifice. Other aldermen expressed similar sentiments and the raises for bother the mayor and the council were dropped by consensus.

“The salary doesn’t really cover the cost of being an alderman,” said Michael Tierney (D-Ward 2). “But we’re about to pass the largest tax increase in the city’s history and it wouldn’t be appropriate.”