Chemung County Executive Chris Moss has sent the County Legislature a proposal that would give municipalities a larger share of sales-tax revenue above a specified collection threshold. The proposal would cover 2027 and 2028, following expiration of the current two-year sharing agreement at the end of 2026.
Under the proposed formula, municipalities would continue to receive a combined 34.55 percent share until gross sales-tax collections reach $76.5 million. Their share would rise to 50 percent for each dollar collected above that level. Moss's October 21 announcement describes the threshold as approximately equal to the county's 2025 collections.
The change concerns how county sales-tax receipts would be distributed. It is a proposal for legislative approval, rather than an adopted change to the sharing agreement.
Individual municipal allocations would continue to be calculated on a proportional basis using population data from the 2020 census. The county's examples include the City of Elmira, the towns and villages of Horseheads and Elmira, Southport, Big Flats, Chemung, Elmira Heights, Veteran, Catlin, Erin, Van Etten, Ashland, Baldwin, Wellsburg and Millport.
For local communities, the central question is how much future revenue would become available through the portion of collections above the threshold. The proposed 50 percent share would apply to those additional dollars; it would not replace the existing percentage for the first $76.5 million collected.
The executive's announcement includes projections based on an estimated $83 million in gross collections. Those figures are estimates and should not be read as revenue already received. The next step is consideration of the revised formula by the County Legislature.
