Mayor Carmella's tax increase is on your water bill
Mayor Carmella Mantello announced a small property tax increase. Most of her new money comes from your water and sewer bills instead, about $1.6 million more. That charge falls the same on every family, whatever their home is worth.
Mayor Carmella Mantello is raising your taxes through your water and sewer bills. She announced a small property tax increase. But most of the new money in her budget comes from water and sewer bills, and she did not announce all of it.
That matters because a water bill is not like a property tax. Property tax is based on what your home is worth, so a bigger house pays more. Water and sewer are charged by the gallon, so every family pays the same rate. A renter in a small apartment pays what the owner of the biggest house on the block pays for the same water.
More from your water and sewer bills
$1.6M
Into the city's main account in 2027
More from property tax
$855K
In 2027
Water rate
+10.1%
Sewer rate +7.6%
Most of her new money comes from your water and sewer bills
The city’s main account is called the General Fund. It pays for police, fire, parks, and city offices. Your water and sewer bills go into separate accounts, and the General Fund takes money out of them.
Her budget has the General Fund take about $1.6 million more from water and sewer. It takes about $855,000 more from property tax. So the water and sewer bills bring in almost twice as much new money as property tax.
To pay for this, she raises the water rate 10.1% and the sewer rate 7.6%. Troy households and businesses will pay about $1.2 million more for water and sewer.
Her deputy mayor said this money takes the place of a tax increase:
Their taxes would ultimately go up on the other end if that wasn’t part of it. You’d have a 2.4 million dollar gap that you’d have to obviously make up if that did not happen, which would result in an increase of taxes or a 2.4 million dollar reduction in services.
A council member asked if the water increase is what keeps the city under the state tax cap. The answer was that it is “a mechanism that’s allowed.”
She told you about the property tax, not the sewer increase
Her budget message names the property tax increase and what it costs you:
The proposed 2027 budget includes a modest 3.4% property tax increase, and if adopted would represent an increase of approximately $7.12 per month for a homeowner with a property valued at $150,000.
The message does not mention the sewer increase. A council member had to ask for the new sewer rate at the hearing. It is $4.27 for every thousand gallons, up from $3.97. Sewer is up 32% since 2025.
The message does mention the water increase, and says it costs “the average family of four” about $5.43 every three months. That is true only if a family uses about 120 gallons a day. The US Environmental Protection Agency says the average American family uses more than 300 gallons a day at home. At that use, the water and sewer increases together cost about $88 a year.
Your water bill charges every family the same
Her property tax increase costs more on a home worth more. The water and sewer increase costs the same for the same water, whatever the home is worth. So on a home assessed at $150,000 or less, the water and sewer increase costs an average family more than her property tax increase.
A council member said this at the hearing:
That is the point at which it ceases to behave like a business and begins to behave like property taxes… And not only is it a property tax, but it’s a very regressive version of a property tax, because property taxes, at least in principle, are based on the value of the property… Whereas we all poop and drink water.
The same budget leaves 16 water and sewer jobs with no one in them. See Mayor Carmella saves money by leaving city jobs empty.
What the record shows
Mayor Mantello is raising your taxes through your water and sewer bills. Her budget takes about $1.6 million more from those bills and about $855,000 more from property tax. She announced the property tax increase and left the sewer increase out of her message. Her deputy mayor said that without the water money, the city would have to raise taxes or cut services. For a family in a modest home, the water and sewer increase costs more than the property tax increase she announced.