Boards approve spending plans for 2025
COLONIE – The Colonie Town Board unanimously voted this month to approve the town’s 2025 budget after residents raised concerns about a range of spending decisions, including an increase in the town supervisor’s salary and cost saving measures relating to the town’s yard waste collection program.
The approved $124.7 million budget, a 4.49% increase in overall spending, would raise property taxes by 1.88%, largely driven by increases in salaries and benefits for town employees and additional investment in infrastructure.
The 2025 budget would allocate over $2 million for salary and wage increases across the town’s workforce, including a jump in the town supervisor’s salary by 6.2%, or $8,733.
At the Town Board’s Nov. 7 public hearing, several residents raised concerns about the salary hike, which would increase Supervisor Peter Crummey’s yearly pay from $140,669 to $149,402 – one of the largest increases for town employees in the 2025 budget.
Acting Comptroller Chris Kelsey said the supervisor’s salary is on a five-year scheduled step-increase because Crummey’s predecessor, former Supervisor Paula Mahan, chose to freeze her salary for most of her term, making the positon’s pay “artificially low” when Crummey took office in 2022. Instead of requesting his highest pay grade upon entering office, Kesley said Crummey opted for the step-increase plan, which is set to end in 2026.
“The supervisor had nothing to do with the budget number for his salary,” Kelsey said, noting that Crummey also received the same 2.75% base pay increase that the town’s collective bargaining units will receive next year, which the board adopted in 2021.
During their hour-long presentation of the budget, Crummey and Kelsey noted that the increased utility fees would fund needed improvements to the town’s water and sewer infrastructure, including upgrades to the town’s 440 miles of aging underground pipes, which pump an average of 10 million gallons of water daily to homes and businesses.
