Monroe County Executive Adam Bello on Friday presented his 2025 budget proposal, which would again reduce the property tax rate.
At $1.5 billion, Bello's proposed budget is 5% larger than the adopted budget for the current year. But if the plan passes, the average county property tax rate would be $6.03 per $1,000 assessed value, a decrease of 62 cents, or 9%, from the 2024 rate.
"In preparing this budget, we considered the challenges and opportunities ahead," Bello said during a news conference Friday. "We balanced fiscal responsibility with our commitment to providing critical services, investing in public health and public safety and improving the quality of life for our residents."
Bello also said that during his five years in office, the tax rate has fallen 31%. In large part, that's due to new construction and rising home values.
Bello's $1.4 billion 2024 budget included a 91-cent decrease in the property tax rate to $6.65 per $1,000 assessed value. The Legislature passed it unanimously.
The county executive's budget proposal includes a new, major public safety initiative. It would provide funding for the launch of the Centralized Arraignment Court Part for local courts.
In simple terms, that means the local courts would centralize arraignments into one location.
Currently, officers book defendants in the town or village where the arrest occurred and then have to wait for a judge to arraign them, Bello explained. The officers have to supervise defendants until they are arraigned, which he said delays officers from getting back on the road.
Monroe County has 20 town courts, two village courts, and Rochester City Court, each of which conducts arraignments. That's taxing on court staff and law enforcement, Bello said.
With centralized arraignments, when police officers arrest someone and take them into custody, they would bring them to central booking at the county jail in downtown Rochester. There, they would be processed and arraigned during morning or evening sessions.
"The centralized arraignment court saves time, and it saves taxpayer resources," Bello said, "because it utilizes the Monroe County Jail and professionally trained jail deputies to handle that supervision, gets our law enforcement officers back on duty faster to patrol our neighborhoods and our streets."
Bello also highlighted other items in the budget, including:
- Allocating $280,000 for four additional probation officers for the county's Juvenile Enhanced Diversion Stabilization Program, better known as JEDS. Through the program, the county probation department supervises youths facing criminal charges and helps connect them and their families with support services.
- Providing $2 million for new agency contracts around re-entry programs, crisis transportation, financial assistance for substance use disorder medication, grief counseling, and the county's BIPOC Peer Advocate certification program. The money will come from county opioid settlement funds.
- Opening satellite offices of the county's Veterans Service Agency in Greece and Webster.
- Adding 77 new positions in the Department of Human Services, including 23 in the Division of Financial Assistance and 12 in Child and Family Services.
- Funding upgrades and renovations in several county parks, including work to improve drainage at some holes in the Durand-Eastman Park golf course.
