The Corning city council adopted the city’s 2026 budget on Monday.
The $22.6 million budget comes with a nearly 5 percent tax levy, which exceeds the state tax cap. City council voted to override the tax levy limit with Local Law No. 2 of 2025.
It is the first time in the history of the city the tax levy exceeded the tax cap.
“We can tell our citizens that the city's being fiscally managed in a highly responsible way,” said Mayor Bill Boland. “We're going to retain the services that we know that they want and that we provide routinely as a matter of how we conduct the business in the city, and that we hope that they'll support this very modest tax increase.“
The tax rate is $10.77 per $1,000 assessed. That means the increase in the tax rate will be $40.80 per year—or $3.40 per month—over last year on homes assessed at $120,000.
Boland said the state’s unrestricted Aid and Incentives for Municipalities (AIM) funding has remained flat for nearly two decades, prompting the tax levy increase this year.
“Year after year, we're asking our city administration to do more with less, and that's exactly what they've done,” said Boland. “At some point, that path is not sustainable, and we're at that point this year. We simply must raise revenues in order to continue the level of services that our citizens want, need and demand.”
The AIM program delivers funding aid to every city, town and village in the state except for New York City.
State data shows that the city of Corning received $1.5 million in AIM funding in 2023, 2024 and 2025.
Last year, the state provided municipalities with both AIM and a one-time Temporary Municipal Assistance payment, according to the state comptroller’s office. The city of Corning received $1,673,687 in total for both funding programs combined.