From left Lakewood Trustee John Shedd, Trustee Ellen Barnes, Mayor Randy Holcomb, and Trustee Scott Cooper look over village documents Monday. P-J photo by Michael Zabrodsky

LAKEWOOD – Lakewood’s 2026-27 tentative budget has been released, and trustees learned of a tax rate decrease.

The proposed $5,822,633 spending plan is considered an “all-in” budget, Mayor Randy Holcomb.

“We take all of the requests from each department and their department heads, … and we combine them into one budget,” Holcomb said.

He said a good issue for the proposed budget is that it comes in with an increase of less than 1 percent from the 2025-2026 budget.

“That is extremely wonderful because we have not done that since I’ve been on the board,” Holcomb added.

Now, the mayor said, trustees will go through the tentative budget line by line to see what they think, and if any other things that can be done – positive or negative.

The mayor noted that estimated revenues are $3,021,838 and the tax levy (amount to be raised by taxes) is $2,900,795. The estimated tax rate is $6.46 which decreased $3.46 from the 2025-2026 tax rate of $9.93.

Village Clerk/Treasurer Apryl Troutman noted that the proposed tax rate is the lowest it has been since the late 1990s and early 2000s. She said the low tax rate eliminates the village’s heavy reliance on the use of its fund balance.

“And since I started in 2019, every budget has relied on use of the fund balance to offset the appropriations,” Troutman said “In this budget, we’ve taken that number down to zero – zero reliance on the fund balance.

A budget session is scheduled for April 13, at 5:45 p.m. A public hearing for the budget is set for April 13, at 6:40 p.m.

The tentative budget also can be viewed at lakewoodny.gov.

In other business:

Trustees approved May 29 and May 30 as the dates for the village wide garage/yard sales.

Trustees approved Troutman to advertise for invitations to bid for the annual village-wide junk pickup with a proposed date within the first week of June.

Trustees authorized the rehire of James Fye, a seasonal Parks Department employee, with a tentative start date of May 6, and start pay rate of $18.40 per hour.

Trustees also approved the clerk’s office to advertise for summer lifeguard positions for the 2026 season.