RANDOLPH – Randolph Town Board members recently approved a final budget for the 2026 fiscal year.

While there is the expected slight increase in rates for the next year, the increase remains smaller than increases from past years. Despite ongoing projects within the town, it seems there was a focus on minimizing tax increases for residents to the greatest extent possible.

The adopted 2026 budget for the town stated that the total amount of funding to go toward appropriation and provisions for the town is $3,153,115, of which $1,180,416 is expected to be collected through taxes. This does show a slight increase from the adopted 2025 budget. The 2025 budget reported that $3,017,728 of funding would be required for appropriation and provisions, with $1,153,361 of that to be collected through taxation. With this slight increase, the town’s tax rate for 2026 is listed at 11.1063. This represents a 1.88% increase from the 2025 rate of 10.9012. While a slight increase, this is still significantly less than the increase from 2024 to 2025. The rate in 2024 was about 10.4189, which would total a 4.63% increase going into the 2025 budget.

This year is seeing a slight increase on the tax levy for the town as well, but this year’s levy does not exceed the tax cap for the town. The tax levy for the town this year is $1,014,188, with the cap being at the same amount. This an improvement over the 2024 budget, which had a levy amount of $990,933 and a cap of $975,684. This means that the town was $15,249 over the cap in the previous year. This may be a possible reason as to the levy improvements this year, as reserved funds may have been used to help offset the 2026 levy.

One area where costs were changed was in the area of snow removal. The total amount in appropriated funds for snow removal has actually remained the same as in the 2025 approved budget, both being $6,537. The difference is that in the 2025 budget $4,037 of funding was to be collected through taxes, compared to only $2,370 for 2026 – roughly a 41.46% decrease.

One area that did see some significant increase in tax funds is the light district. From 2024 to 2025, the light district had seen a 1.52% decrease. For the 2026 budget, residents will see a 20.29% increase, with spending to increase to $24,000. This is also due to the increase in the amount to be collected by taxes, which went from $17,000 in 2025 to $20,500 for the 2026 final budget.