The Ways & Means committee of the Cayuga County Legislature spent its Nov. 13 meeting conducting a department-by-department review of the county's tentative 2026 budget, with legislators pressing the budget director on service cuts, revenue assumptions and tax-rate messaging.

Budget Director Lynn laid out line-item changes across public health, mental health, social services and other offices, telling the committee "The local share cost has increased $1,700,000 for foster care," and noting several positions were added, moved to grant-funded status, or eliminated to balance the draft budget. Committee members asked for more detail about where specific savings would come from before they could vote on any changes.

Why it matters: Foster care, health-insurance and retirement-cost increases are major drivers of the budget gap the legislature must close before final adoption. Legislators said those rising costs, combined with limited revenue options beyond property tax and fund balance, make line-level choices consequential for county services.

Among contested items was a reduction in a professional-services line that prompted a safety discussion. A legislator who represents affected staff warned, "We've lost the armed guards because of the location," and urged the committee to consider restoring the funding; the chair said any restoration would need an offset and must be brought back with a funding source identified.

DMV operations drew lengthy questioning after staff said the office will be reduced to six budgeted employees and a vacant cashier is being held for replacement. The clerk's office warned that cutting staff while projecting high transaction revenue (driven partly by a recent real-ID deadline) risks service disruptions. Legislators discussed modernization options such as kiosks but were told the state kiosk program has ended and there is a cost to mobile units.

The committee also examined IT and infrastructure requests, including a $50,000 hardware purchase approved in the meeting to keep the county on its five-year replacement schedule and a planned migration of servers to a data center. A planned 911 relocation remains tentatively scheduled for April, pending further coordination.

Tax-rate messaging: Several legislators challenged the presentation of the "effective tax rate" in the budget summary. "The effective tax rate increase is 1.96%... I think that's very, very misleading," one legislator said, arguing the figure understates the budget's fiscal pressure. Budget staff said the materials include multiple factual columns (effective rate, levy increase, tax-cap impact) and offered to arrange further explanation.

Next steps: The committee held the hearing-style review so members could craft recommendations to the full legislature; any proposed changes must identify offsetting savings or revenue. A public hearing on the budget is scheduled Dec. 9; the budget must be passed by Dec. 20.