The 2025 Broome County budget was officially been approved by the legislature on Thursday evening and county residents will be seeing their taxes go down for the sixth straight year. 

The budget reduces the property tax rate by 0.3%, marking a 24% total tax reduction since 2018 despite inflation increasing over 25% in that period.  

Broome County Executive Jason Garnar also says 3.9 million dollars will be allocated to upgrade 271 positions for county employees. $5 million will be allocated for a new economic development and housing fund to support housing projects.

"We were in a situation in Broome County where we have more jobs that are available than we have people to work. And so we have to do a better job of attracting more people to Broome County. And that really comes with building out more housing," Garnar said. "We have a housing crisis here. You know, there's way too many homeless people that are out on the street and also people who are working are finding it hard to just buy a house."