Cornwall Supervisor Josh Wojehowski’s tentative budget for the 2027 fiscal year is $18.37 million – that’s up 6.4 percent from 2026.

That figure, however, was the ‘first look’ at the spending plan. At two meetings last week (October 6 and 8) and one already this week (October 13) the whole Town Board has been looking at if and where any reductions can be made.

In the four main operating funds, the total spending would be $13,729,255, up 6.3 percent. That’s made up of the General (A) fund at $5,323,335 (up 8.7 percent), the Part-Town (B) fund at $4,274,140 (up 6.3 percent); the Highway Townwide (DA) fund at $495,530 (minus 2.2 percent); and the Highway Outside Village (DB) fund at $3,636,250 (up 3.9 percent). Medical insurance, retirements systems, salaries and highway/MS4 operations make up most of the increases.

The tentative budget calls for using $1.1 million in fund balance, which is down $200,000 from 2026.

For a Cornwall home with a market value of $550,000 and an assessed value of $300,000, taxes would go up about $17 a month. That would be less in Cornwall-on-Hudson; that early increase looks like about $7.23 a month.

At the first presentation, Wojehowski explained that the town’s The Strategic Budget Advisory Committee has reviewed the major areas of the budget an found that the largest of savings would require staffing reductions or elimination of services “that residents use and expect,” the supervisor said. Police (“reducing patrol staffing or coverage would directly affect public safety”), Highway (“lower staffing or materials budgets would reduce road, drainage, snow, and MS4 capacity”), EMS / Ambulance (“the Town funds 24/7 ambulance coverage and must meet the cost of the service contract”) and Recreation (“large reductions would mean fewer programs, hours, seasonal staff, or facilities”) were those areas.

At the October 8 work session, Deputy Supervisor Tim McCarty said his deep review of the budget he found that one way to save $60,000 was to eliminate four summer hire positions – one in Buildings & Grounds, two in Highway and one in Sanitation. McCarty called doing something like that making “hard decisions”.

He was met with immediate pushback, namely from Highway Superintendent Tom Gschwind, who was not at the meeting when McCarty floated the idea, but arrived soon after. Gschwind called the summer hire program “vital” saying that their work allows for other employees to schedule summer vacations; for things like set-up for the town’s Independence Day celebration to take place; to save money in hiring contractors to serve as flaggers at paving products; and to trim and mow public properties like sidewalks and along guiderails.

Also on October 8, McCarty brought up one other thing that no one in the room wanted to hear – eliminating the town’s Sanitation Department and leaving residents and business owners to contract privately with contractors. On October 6, Wojehowski had said that while it would save about $2 million, that move would likely cost residents more – “we’ve looked at it and it’s more expensive than doing it in-house,” he said.

Wojehowski added that another downside of using private contractors for garbage and recycling collection is that different companies collect on different days, meaning the “uniformity” of the current collection and garbage cans at curbside, would be gone.

The supervisor did make some suggestions – cutting $10,000 for a grant writer, $10,000 from the Economic Development Advisory Committee, and cutting a Youth line from $10,000 to $5000 (although he said he was hesitant to cut much there because the both the town and village have provided a subsidy for local summer day campers for the past few years to make up for not having a day camp).

The town’s kiddy pool also came up both days, with board members wondering if it was worth it to keep it open if staffing issues continue at it as they have over the past two summers. The board also wanted to get some more information about how Sands Ring Trust funds can be used by the town for maintenance and upgrades at that historic facility before this week’s meetings.

And as for EMS costs ($560,000 annually, up $45,000 in the year ahead), Councilwoman Mary Heed asked if there was any way to get help with those from, say, Orange County. That, the supervisor said, is a topic that comes up frequently, but hasn’t been acted on by the county legislature.

In a bit of good news, Wojehowski said that the town’s debt has dropped from $30.1 million at the start of the year to $28.35 million at that point.

All of the figures are available to look at on the town website cornwallny.gov.