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Fact-checking Niskayuna Politics
- Erin Cassady-Dorion
- Oct 26
- 9 min read
Updated: Oct 29
A little less Facebook and a whole lotta facts!
Facts are important. Especially in elections. That's why I took the time to debunk the dangerous lies and misinformation being spread by Republicans about our town. As a voter, you deserve the truth. So here it is.
I have created sections with drop downs to summarize. Let me know if I missed anything by sending an email to ECDforNiskayuna@gmail.com. Where appropriate, I have linked to or provided supporting evidence.
We have not had a reassessment.
Debunking "The Town Raised my Home Assessment by 48%! "
There are only two reasons to make comments like this: to maliciously attempt to scare residents in an election cycle, or a complete lack of understanding on how NYS property and school taxes works.
Individual assessed values change when there are documented changes to a home or parcel. For example, a structure fire ruins a building, or a homeowner adds an additional bedroom or bathroom. In some cases, exemptions on the assessed value of a home may come or go with legislation changes, exemption additions or expirations, etc.
The only role market values of properties play in taxes in NYS is to inform on the equalization rate, which enables the fair comparison of tax rates across taxing entities. Read more about that on the NYS Dept of Taxation and Finance sample calculation. I might also add that there were several posts by this resident about the Town "raising her school taxes." The Town has control over only about 15% of your total property tax bill, we don't control the budgets or levies of the school, county, fire, etc.
The only relevant discussion of the Town’s assessments this year in my opinion is the fact that I am going after the Public Service Commission to be sure Verizon is being assessed on the increase in their infrastructure value after installing FIOS over the last few years. We will fight to ensure they pay their fair share.
Again, we have NOT had a reassessment. And, there is no plan to do so.
We have a no frills budget proposed for 2026
"There's a 29% increase in the Town Attorney's personnel expenses!"
As mentioned in the notes sections of the posted preliminary budget, salary allocations do not reflect annual salaries for a whole particular person. They are an allocation of time spent on a particular set of tasks in order to track expenses as closely as possible. Here is a link to 2026's allocations by role.
In 2026, we have increases according to established salary schedules. Outside of those schedules, we have five part-timers, four at the senior center and one at Town Hall, who have not had significant increases in many years as they do not have a salary schedule. I proposed modest increases for their hourly rates. We also have one proposed promotion from a civil service Tech 1 to a Tech 2, which would come with an approximate increase of $5K annually. There are no other new positions or promotions proposed.
"The budget includes another hike in sewer and water rates"
We have not yet posted the rates for sewer and water, and the rate structure will be completely different than the previous one used, as explained in the public presentation in September. Right now, we have an intern inputting manual information in order to project the changes. Some bills will likely go down and some will go up. The proposed preliminary budgets for the funds driving rates are as follows:
Sewer District 1 customers will also NOT have any debt service on their property tax bills (decrease of $43 from this year).
"Reserve funds are being depleted to balance the budget"
We have not depleted any reserve funds, or even come close to doing so.
This year, we used the "Repair Reserve" fund, after a public hearing, to fix a critical component of our Wastewater Treatment Plant. This enabled us to increase our revenue at the plant from $19K to over $200K this year, with even more expected next year. The $88K used from the reserve for the repairs is replaced in the proposed 2026 budget, with an additional $12Kto the reserve as well.
We are utilizing our reserves for exactly their purpose.
Loose leaf/branch/yard waste pick up remains the same.
"She's getting rid of yard waste pick up!"
I am ?!? This is news to me!
I have never once stated that I intend to get rid of yard waste/brush/leaf pick up. In fact, I have been quite vocal in trying to find ways to make it less expensive for us, or to explore other ways in which we can continue to offer the service. I have held the fee steady for 2026. This statement is a complete fabrication.
Sadly, the folks who claim to be “fiscally responsible” are trying to distort my words to suit their political agenda, when I discussed potential ways of controlling costs in order to keep our services long term.
Niskayuna's Water is Safe
"Niskayuna has a Water Problem"
No, it doesn't. Our water tests within all relevant parameters when it leaves our water treatment facility.
5 homes were found to have elevated copper levels in June testing after one homeowner expressed concerns. These homes are in and around the water treatment plant and some have very long copper water lines into their homes.
These homes were were re-tested in October.
Of those 5 homes, 4 have been returned from the lab as of 10/24/2025:
3 out of 4 homes test UNDER the action level for copper
The 4th home was tested in two different faucets. One was under the limit, one was slightly over.
If you are interested in following the progress of the copper testing and corrosion control study, you can find information on the dedicated page on the Water and Sewer Website.
In addition, the Town is only required to take action on copper levels/corrosion control when more than 10% of homes in town-wide testing come up with elevated copper levels. Our last round of town-wide testing showed ZERO homes with elevated copper. We tested these homes earlier this year outside of the legal requirement to do so just to offer assistance. We then took steps preemptively toward a solution that would help those homes experiencing high copper. We went above and beyond long before this issue was given to my opponent's committee to be used as political gunfire.
Our Water department team works very hard, and this attack was damaging to morale and the Water district budget. We lost and continue to lose hours answering questions about the misinformation spread around. We are also thousands of dollars over budget in water testing, as we continue honoring requests to test homes in order to ease minds. This group that claims to be concerned with fiscal responsibility sure have encouraged the waste of a whole lot of taxpayer dollars.
Again, we do not have a water problem, but we will if we don’t invest in infrastructure. We are very, very far behind. We have SIX times the average amount of water main breaks per 100 miles of pipe. This is because we continue to use band-aids instead of replacing old mains. We also have three water towers in desperate need of restoration. These towers hold our drinking water. If the interior continues to fail, we WILL have water quality issues.
Impending Changes to Utility Rate Structure
"Remember Your Water Bills"
While I am grateful that they are helping to make sure no one is going to get a late fee, I am confused why they are using this as campaign rhetoric.
What should we remember? That the prior administration changed the rates and did a poor job of communicating the reasoning and impact? I agree, and I haven't been shy about saying so... so what is there to "remember"?
Improving communication on utility rate structuring doesn’t change the fact that we have not been investing in our systems and infrastructure, and that we are very far behind in much-needed updates. My opponent's rhetoric, stating they will “lower” everyone’s "water" bills, shows that they are ignoring important infrastructure needs; don't understand current grant funding models or long term planning; or are simply playing politics.
I do want to point out that there are two groups I feel were very unfairly treated with the rate structure change; small businesses/nonprofits and low/minimum users. The company we engaged for the study, Raftelis, is a national consulting firm used by many local governments for utility rate setting. They have provided a viable alternate rate structure that more fairly allocates costs. We expect that minimal users will see a decrease in their fees when the “ready to serve” rates replace the high minimum rates. We intend to place small businesses and nonprofits back in the same "ready to serve" rate as the residential accounts to ensure businesses and residences alike are paying their fair share and not taking the burden of the high usage of others.
Keep in mind that the Town's water and sewer bills have been artificially low for many years. Prior to the rate change that went into effect in 2024, we were woefully behind in keeping pace with inflation, and research shows that water and sewer system costs far exceed the rate of inflation.
Don’t be fooled by the promises of politicians. If they are reducing everyone's rates, they are neglecting our infrastructure. It’s as plain as that. The pick up trucks and equipment you may think we don't need are NOT the drivers of these increases, the past due and alarmingly high cost of overdue infrastructure repairs are the drivers.
The Town is in Excellent Fiscal Health
Debunking "92% DEBT!"
First of all … what does this mean? I've asked and asked and not one person has replied. The best I can tell is that a resident who stated she "put the numbers from the balance sheet into several AI programs" and came up with this figure, then decided to create lawn signs to scare our residents into thinking we have a financial crisis on our hands. We don't.
Government accounting is not the same as business/financial accounting. In fact, they have two completely different boards to govern standards; GASB and FASB. For this reason, the ratios used to describe fiscal health are different. To help residents make sense of these differences for evaluating fiscal strength, the State Comptroller created a fiscal stress monitoring system. The Town of Niskayuna doesn't even come close to even the "maybe" they have fiscal stress designation. Nevertheless, I added a link to the OSC website to our own Town website so that residents could see for themselves.
Some additional points:
Since I was appointed last year, we have only paid down debt. We do not have new debt. Why this is something they targeted as a campaign dig on me, I will never know.
Next year, the proposed preliminary budget includes paying the down the remainder of the Town's short term debt for all funds. This prevents us from incurring additional costs in rolling it into later years.
Most of our debt comes from old bonds that date back to 2017. Again, why is this a campaign topic?
"DEMAND an External Audit!"
Not one person "demanding" an audit has been able to explain what details they are looking for that our annual audit doesn't cover. I have asked directly without a reply. Instead, some have tried to find some distinction in stating the different between internal and external audits as though this would explain their demand.
Don't let this confuse you. It's all the same information!
The Town contracts for independent auditing services, an EXTERNAL entity audits our financials and creates our financial statements, they also have the purview to audit any of our INTERNAL processes as an independent entity reviewing us. Even though we are not legally required to do an audit, we do it annually for transparency purposes.
OPERATIONAL audits have also been mentioned. These are a complete evaluation of internal processes, systems, and procedures. They are hugely expensive, an unnecessary WASTE of taxpayer dollars, and repetitive of already-performed evaluations of departmental structures, processes and policies. Those internal evaluations have already informed immediate and planned changes in our processes for efficiency and effectiveness.
Might I also add that adding an operational audit to the campaign promises list along with "reduce consultant fees" is an interestingly hypocritical approach.
Our financial statements are posted to the Comptroller's webpage. Our 2024 statements are incomplete, but you can access unaudited information on the EMMA website (also linked on our website), which is a clearinghouse for BOND/BAN investment information.
"Our bond ratings haven’t been reviewed in more than five years!"
We rolled over a Bond Anticipation Note in February. At that time, the Town's financials and Bond rating were reviewed by Fiscal Advisors at that time. The Standard & Poors rating was reaffirmed in an email from Fiscal Advisors during the Police Accreditation Process in June 2025, "Standard & Poor’s rating: “AA+” Stable Outlook"
"Out of Control Spending!"
I disagree, but this is subjective. I will let you be the judge.
A budget is a financial representation of the Town goals for the year. I feel that we have done a great job with a lot less in the last year. We have scraped together a ton of grant funds to round out initiatives. We plan to do the same next year.
For 2026, we have a 19.7% increase in health insurance costs, and a large sidewalk project that requires matching funds for a grant we hope to be awarded. I have proposed a very modest increase in spending in the proposed budget even with those two LARGE increases and the contractually required increases in salaries, while setting aside reserve funds for infrastructure projects. We have not gone over the tax cap, and we are not cutting any services. I stand behind these choices. Here is a quick summary of the budget from last year to this year, then the proposed for 2026.