Thursday, October 1, 2026
The Village of Freeport Board of Trustees voted for a 4 percent property tax hike, despite vehement objections from Mayor Robert Kennedy, whose streak of 12 consecutive years without an increase will come to an end. This streak has existed since Kennedy was first inaugurated in March 2013.
During a special meeting on Friday afternoon, the trustees decided to amend the mayor’s proposed fiscal 2026-2027 budget, which now features a 4.02 percent tax hike, while decreasing the operating budgets of several village departments. The budget was approved by a vote of 4 to 1 on Jan. 30, with all four trustees voting in favor and Kennedy the sole dissenter.
Mayor Kennedy, who has advocated for fiscal responsibility without excessively burdening village residents, strongly voiced disapproval of the amendments made to the tentative budget that he submitted in mid-January.
“I object and oppose the motion to the adoption (of) the Trustees' amended tentative budget that includes a 4.02 percent property tax increase and almost half a million total reduction in the operating budget of the police, Department of Public Works, and several other departments,” Kennedy said in a statement.
The mayor added that both the tentative budget that he submitted this year and the trustees’ amended budget have projected an increase in Freeport’s unrestricted reserves, with the trustees’ budget showing a hike from $6,895,211 to $18,895,211.
“I believe that this increase in the reserves should have offset any property tax increase and reduction to our hard-working department heads’ budgets,” Kennedy said.
According to village trustee Christopher Squeri, residents can expect to pay between $10 to $15 more on their property taxes a month. As someone who ones several properties in Freeport, Squeri stated that he will feel the effects of the tax rate increase significantly, but that this costs is out of necessity. While believing that the streak of having no tax rate increases was impressive, Squeri emphasized that continuing to maintain that trend was not feasible for the village.
“We have a structural deficit that we’ll have to make up in the future, so we wanted to make sure we minimize that as we move along and we didn’t want to have one big problem at the end.”
Squeri also explained that covering growing insurance expenses, including health coverage for village employees, is a major motivation for the tax increase.
“They’ve [insurance rates] gone up not just a couple of points, they’ve gone up double digit points over the last several years. So, we felt that we needed to start absorbing some of that [cost] in order to be financially responsible now and for the future.”
Although the specifics of departmental budget reductions have not been specified, Squeri stated that all cuts were to operational expenses, with no salaries of village employees being trimmed or cut. This also means that the 36 percent increase in officers at the Freeport Police Department will not be impacted.
