The lowest town property tax rate in the county is going to be dropping even further.

Chautauqua Town Supervisor Don Emhardt has released his proposed budget for 2023. It calls for a tax rate of $0.63 per $1,000 assessed value tax rate for town residents and $1.51 for residents who live in Mayville.

Chautauqua town’s current tax rate is $0.76 for town-only residents and $1.55 for residents who live in the village.

Excluding fire protections, his overall budget for 2023 is $950,000.

“We were able to reduce the budget by $50,000,” he said.

They were mainly able to do so because of the change in the way the county charges for workers compensation.

In May, the county legislature announced it would amend the county’s self-insurance plan for workers compensation. The county had been charging 40% of the workers comp plan costs based on property valuation. The new law amends that to be based on the wages of employees. The town of Chautauqua benefited the most with the change. The cities of Jamestown, Dunkirk and the village of Westfield had their costs go up the most.

The town of Chautauqua and village of Mayville are currently in the process of creating a joint comprehensive plan. They have applied for a grant to cover 90% of the costs, however they won’t know until December if they are successful or not. Emhardt said he’s earmarked $50,000 in next year’s budget for the comprehensive plan, in case they do not get the grant. He doesn’t know if Mayville would want to go forward if the grant money falls through.

Should that happen, town leaders would need to decide if they want to move forward with the Should that happen, town leaders would need to decide if they want to move forward with the comprehensive plan without the village, wait until Mayville’s next fiscal year to see if they fund it, or wait until late 2023 to again apply for a grant. Mayville’s budget runs June 1 to May 31.

In 2023, Emhardt said there are two water districts and one sewer district they hope to begin. One water district is for Chautauqua Lake Estates and the other one runs from Mayville to Chautauqua Institution. The sewer district would add about 100 homes in the Hartfield area, beginning on Galloway Road.

A public hearing on the proposed budget is set for Oct. 25 at 4 p.m. The town board may adopt the budget afterward.

According to Chautauqua County’s website, in 2022 the town of Chautauqua had the lowest town tax rate of $0.766838. The next lowest was the town of Dunkirk at $0.830429. All other tax rates were over $1. The highest tax rate in the county, by comparison, was the town of Villenova, with a tax rate of about $13.40 per $1,000 assessed valuation, followed by the city of Dunkirk at $11.11 and the town of Arkwright at $10.18.