From left, Lakewood Village Trustee Ben Troche, Mayor Randy Holcomb, Trustee Ellen Barnes, and Trustee Nancy Jones discuss business Monday. P-J photo by Michael Zabrodsky

LAKEWOOD – Village trustees heard an update Monday on the town of Busti property revaluation.

Given by Mayor Randy Holcomb, the update was to help dispel any confusion about the village’s portion of the new assessment.

The town of Busti, Holcomb noted, had been on regular 3-year reassessments, but the current one is the first full town reassessment since 2014.

“This is a town of Busti property revaluation,” Holcomb said. “The town provides the property values for the village, town, school and county taxes. Please note that the past reassessment notices all had projected taxes for the town tax, village tax, school tax and county tax. This revaluation had the projected tax for only the town tax, which is the smallest tax we all pay.”

Had the newest assessment impact notices sent to taxpayers included taxes for the Southwestern Central School District, village of Lakewood and Chautauqua County, Holcomb said, it would have shown that the village tax rate would have dropped from currently $8.17 to $4.33 per $1,000 of assessed valuation.

“Likewise, the most recent Southwestern (Central) School tax rate was $22.49 before this revaluation. With the new tentative assessments, the school tax rate would have been $10.82,” Holcomb said.

The mayor added that property owners can take the tentative tax rates and multiply by the new tentative tax assessments to find their tax estimates. Tentative county tax rates were unavailable. Holcomb noted that if residents want to contest their assessments, they would have to follow the directions on the yellow insert that was provided with the new assessment.

Residents have two options:

Option A: To request an informal hearing with the assessor, residents can call the assessor’s office at (716) 763-8561 option 6. If the assessor is unavailable, leave a voicemail. All appointments must be scheduled by Friday to be considered. All hearings will be held by phone , and in-person hearing are not available, Holcomb said,

Option B: To submit an assessment grievance for a review by the assessor, residents can mail it to the Assessor’s Office at 125 Chautauqua Ave., Lakewood, N.Y., 14750. It must be postmarked by April 15 to be considered, Holcomb said.

In other business:

– The board set a public hearing regarding the village’s tentative 2025-2026 budget. The hearing is scheduled for April 14 at 6:35 p.m. at the Village Hall. The budget is available to view at the village’s website, lakewoodny.com.

– The board set dates of May 30 and May 31 for the village-wide garage/yard sales.