To avoid the risks of being denied funding on the town meeting floors each year, Dukes County is looking at a new way to fund its budget moving forward.
Toward this end, the county is looking to raise the allowable increase in the town assessments.
The issue was prompted this year by the continued rise in the budget. The county is looking at a fiscal year 2026 budget of $1.647 million, an anticipated $120,709.95 increase from fiscal year 2025.
The operational costs — a third of the total budget — are covered by the town assessments, and can only be raised by up to 2.5 percent, which is just a $14,256.19 increase for fiscal year 2025. However, this wouldn’t even cover the expected $18,522 increase to the county retirement system.
“That is not enough to cover our costs,” Martina Thornton, Dukes County manager, told The Times.
A loss of revenue and rising costs have forced the county to request funding through warrant articles at the annual town meetings to cover gaps in its budget.
But a failed vote on the town meeting floor can place large pressures on the county budget. Thornton said some towns have also had past language stipulating they would only fund the county’s budgetary gaps if the other towns did so.
“I don’t even want to think about cutting,” Thornton said. “We would have to find another way.”
To avoid the risk of a town denying funding to its budget and creating a shortfall, the county is instead looking to increase the amount it is allowed to collect through town assessments based on the actual increase of costs. The fiscal year 2026 assessment amount proposed by the county is $705,213.61, an increase of more than 20 percent from the fiscal year 2025 assessment of $570,247.48.
The county has received the green light from the state Department of Revenue, but it will still need approval from the county advisory board.
Thornton said while she doesn’t think the towns’ voters would deny the county the funding it needed, she said the county was feeling the pinch in rising costs, similar to Island municipalities, like pay raises and insurance premium increases. Still, raising the allowable assessment increase would provide a more stable budgeting process.
“The towns do recognize the value of the core county services,” she said, some of which are required, like the treasury office and veterans services.
A part of the hit to the budget is a loss of revenue in the past few years, Thornton said.
The biggest loss came from the fall of real estate sales after the COVID pandemic. Thornton said the county collected $212,000 in real estate excise taxes in fiscal year 2024, compared with $400,000 during fiscal year 2021.
The Dukes County commissioners have been going to the Island towns regarding the potential change.
“There’s a risk taking this to the towns as a warrant article year over year,” Doug Ruskin, West Tisbury commissioner, said to his town’s select board on Dec. 11 while presenting the “reasonable alternative.” “One town says no, and in some cases it might be more than one town, depending on what’s going on … we have an unbalanced budget.”
West Tisbury hadn’t finalized its stance on this proposal, but Edgartown opposed the new mechanism.
“While we understand the financial challenges faced by the county, the town of Edgartown must adhere to the stringent budgetary constraints established by Proposition 2½,” a letter from the Edgartown select board to Thornton reads. “Our primary responsibility is to prioritize organic local services that directly impact our residents. Increasing the assessment to address the county’s operational deficit, as outlined, places an undue financial burden on the town, and circumvents the established checks and balances inherent in our deliberate processes.”
The Edgartown board instead recommended the county find “additional revenue-generating strategies or [undertake] cost-saving measures across county operations,” calling the proposed town assessments strategy “not a sustainable long-term solution.”
The Dukes County Commissioners unanimously approved the new assessment model on Oct. 30, but it will also need to pass muster with the county advisory board. And on that board, Edgartown holds around 45 percent of the voting power, which is based on how much of the property values in the county stem from each town. The smallest is Gosnold, with less than 1 percent of the voting power.
Still, this likely won’t happen in 2025. Thornton said time was running out for the advisory board to meet by the end of the year, and she anticipates the county will continue working on getting it implemented for the 2026 budgetary cycle. A part of the late start was because the state Department of Revenue did not affirm this was even an option for the county until late November.
Thornton said getting the new funding model approved will take a lot of discussion with the towns’ finance committees and constituencies.
“This is the start of the conversation, and we are always willing to go to the voters,” she said.
