GREAT VALLEY — After two years of town taxes seeing major differences, residents of Great Valley should see their town taxes return to the relative normalcy they last saw in 2017.

During a public hearing Monday concerning the 2020 budget, Town Supervisor Dan Brown said 2019 is the end of the transition of the town collecting 100 percent of its owed sales tax from Cattaraugus County.

“The increase that people saw in their tax bills in 2018 was due to the county budget that we can’t control,” he said.

In 2018, Great Valley residents paid nearly double the amount of town taxes they did the year before. For the current budget, town residents did not have to pay any town taxes, Brown said. For next year, the taxes will have balanced out to near where they were in 2017.

Taxes expected to be collected in 2020 are about $408,000, or $2.22 per every $1,000 of assessed value. In 2018, the tax rate was $4.60 per every $1,000 to raise about $834,000.

“That’s why people will see on their taxes in 2020 in January that $2.22 per $1,000,” Brown said.

For expenditures in 2020, the combined general and highway funds are expected to increase by about $32,000 from the current year.

“Due to the cost of living increases, the spending may have gone up a little bit,” said town clerk Toni Evans.

The combined funds for 2019 are about $1,130,000 and the expected budget for next year is $1,162,000.

Because no one from the public was in attendance for the public hearing, the town board will continue the hearing at its regular Nov. 11 meeting, at which it is expected to pass the 2020 budget.

(Contact managing editor Kellen Quigley at kquigleysp@gmail.com)