Capital Region › Towns › Overlapping entities
Town of Bethlehem
Population 35,684 (Census estimate 2025; 2020 base 35,061) popest-2025 ⓘ · Meeting coverage: documents
No indicator flags.
Compared with Capital Region towns
| Indicator | Town of Bethlehem | Peer median | Percentile | Peers | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Operating spending per capita | $1,479 | $913 | 80th | 101 | AFR 2025, operating funds (our calc) |
| Property tax per capita | $488 | $409 | 70th | 101 | AFR 2025 real property taxes (our calc) |
| Debt per capita | $1,068 | $316 | 84th | 73 | AFR 2025 debt detail, year-end outstanding |
| Debt service % of operating spending | 5.6% | 2.4% | 73rd | 101 | AFR 2025 (our calc) |
| State aid % of operating revenue | 3.8% | 12.6% | 5th | 101 | AFR 2025 (our calc) |
| Sales tax % of operating revenue | 29.1% | 22.6% | 60th | 101 | AFR 2025 (our calc) |
| Fund balance ratio (OSC FSMS) | 27.8% | 48.1% | 24th | 96 | OSC FSMS FY2025 |
| Operating spending growth over 5 AFR years | 24.5% | 26.7% | 46th | 100 | AFR 2021–2025 (our calc) |
| Levy growth | 16% | 13.2% | 64th | 101 | 2021–2026 OSC tax tables |
| FSMS fiscal stress score (higher = more stress) | 0 | 3.3 | 14th | 88 | OSC FSMS FY2025 |
Percentile = share of same-class peers in the region with a lower value. A high or low percentile is context, not a judgment. Sales tax for towns and villages is county distribution revenue.
Five-year picture
Our calculation from OSC AFR account data: all funds except custodial (T*), capital projects (H), fixed-asset (K) and long-term debt (W) groups, excluding interfund transfers and debt proceeds.
OSC AFR, fund A, revenues and other sources minus expenditures and other uses (our calculation). Planned use of fund balance appears as a deficit.
Year-end debt outstanding (OSC AFR debt detail) and debt service expenditures (OSC AFR).
Levy as reported in OSC's annual tax tables for the year shown.
Assigned + unassigned general fund balance ÷ gross expenditures, as computed by OSC.
OSC's own scores and designations. 'Not filed' rows mean the AFR was not filed in time to be scored.
Annual Financial Report series
| Year | Operating revenue | Operating spending | GF revenue (incl. transfers) | GF spending (incl. transfers) | Property tax | Sales tax | State aid | Debt service | Debt outstanding | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 (FYE 2019-12-31) | $44,771,867 | $41,030,066 | $21,665,348 | $21,253,711 | $14,473,263 | $12,600,632 | $2,066,576 | $2,418,106 | $42,602,100 | afr-2019 ⓘ · debt-2019 ⓘ OSC snapshot 2026-09-30 |
| 2020 (FYE 2020-12-31) | $43,948,129 | $41,393,969 | $19,899,685 | $19,960,146 | $15,002,390 | $11,727,684 | $1,816,598 | $3,271,346 | $40,765,000 | afr-2020 ⓘ · debt-2020 ⓘ OSC snapshot 2026-09-30 |
| 2021 (FYE 2021-12-31) | $48,087,770 | $42,392,296 | $23,371,900 | $21,535,037 | $15,460,754 | $14,130,649 | $2,301,625 | $3,279,675 | $38,620,000 | afr-2021 ⓘ · debt-2021 ⓘ OSC snapshot 2026-09-30 |
| 2022 (FYE 2022-12-31) | $53,415,993 | $45,488,807 | $27,137,167 | $24,182,290 | $15,947,603 | $15,840,039 | $2,514,109 | $3,285,477 | $36,395,000 | afr-2022 ⓘ · debt-2022 ⓘ OSC snapshot 2026-09-30 |
| 2023 (FYE 2023-12-31) | $54,223,950 | $48,662,748 | $29,146,965 | $26,791,559 | $16,373,459 | $15,981,081 | $2,300,700 | $2,554,191 | $41,020,000 | afr-2023 ⓘ · debt-2023 ⓘ OSC snapshot 2026-09-30 |
| 2024 (FYE 2024-12-31) | $57,342,832 | $49,062,179 | $30,145,209 | $27,309,521 | $16,984,394 | $16,483,822 | $2,498,298 | $3,900,787 | $38,535,000 | afr-2024 ⓘ · debt-2024 ⓘ OSC snapshot 2026-09-30 |
| 2025 (FYE 2025-12-31) | $57,644,368 | $52,790,789 | $28,692,041 | $28,583,918 | $17,404,232 | $16,788,722 | $2,193,788 | $2,973,447 | $38,125,000 | afr-2025 ⓘ · debt-2025 ⓘ OSC snapshot 2026-09-30 |
Operating and property-tax figures are our sums of OSC account-level data (independent calculation, not OSC's own totals); GF = general fund (A).
Tax cap filings (OSC)
| Fiscal year | Prior levy | Proposed levy | Levy limit | Limit minus proposed | Levy growth | Override planned |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | $13,725,617 | $14,132,174 | $14,169,706 | $37,532 | 3% | No |
| 2020 | $14,132,174 | $14,678,739 | $14,700,054 | $21,315 | 3.9% | No |
| 2021 | $14,678,739 | $15,109,740 | $15,126,324 | $16,584 | 2.9% | No |
| 2022 | $15,109,740 | $15,577,337 | $15,585,077 | $7,740 | 3.1% | No |
| 2023 | $15,577,337 | $15,999,390 | $16,015,225 | $15,835 | 2.7% | No |
| 2024 | $15,999,390 | $16,607,128 | $16,609,074 | $1,946 | 3.8% | No |
| 2025 | $16,607,128 | $16,936,756 | $16,972,442 | $23,366 | 2% | No |
| 2026 | $16,936,756 | $17,532,344 | $17,572,530 | $40,186 | 3.5% | No |
Source: taxcap ⓘ, snapshot 10/09/2026. Highlighted rows: proposed levy above the computed limit. Filings are as submitted to OSC before budget adoption; a later fiscal year that has not been filed yet does not appear.
OSC Fiscal Stress Monitoring System
| FY | Stress designation | Fiscal score | Environmental rating | Env. score | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | No Designation | 3.3 | No Designation | 20 | fsms-muni-2019 ⓘ |
| 2020 | No Designation | 3.3 | No Designation | 13.3 | fsms-muni-2020 ⓘ |
| 2021 | No Designation | 0 | No Designation | 13.3 | fsms-muni-2021 ⓘ |
| 2022 | No Designation | 0 | No Designation | 10 | fsms-muni-2022 ⓘ |
| 2023 | No Designation | 0 | No Designation | 3.3 | fsms-muni-2023 ⓘ |
| 2024 | No Designation | 0 | No Designation | 0 | fsms-muni-2024 ⓘ |
| 2025 | No Designation | 0 | No Designation | 0 | fsms-muni-2025 ⓘ |
FSMS fund balance (Indicator 1): FY2023 32.8% ($11,354,419 of $34,600,200) fsms-ind1-muni-2023 ⓘ · FY2024 38.9% ($13,544,419 of $34,812,518) fsms-ind1-muni-2024 ⓘ · FY2025 27.8% ($10,485,562 of $37,677,823) fsms-ind1-muni-2025 ⓘ
OSC audits (1)
- Town of Bethlehem – Information Technology (2025M-25) June 13, 2025 · Information Technology
Source: osc-audits ⓘ. Matched by entity name in the report title.
In meetings
Context only. These links point to meetings where budget, levy, fund balance, debt or audits came up; they are not used in any figure above.
- 2026-09-23 · Town Board · Town Board Regular Meeting – Agenda(PDF) agenda · budget terms on p. 1 · capital reserve, tentative budget
- 2026-09-23 · Town Board · Town Board Regular Meeting – Minutes minutes · budget terms on p. 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 25 · fund balance, tentative budget, tax cap, capital reserve
- 2026-08-26 · Town Board · Town Board Regular Meeting – Minutes minutes · budget terms on p. 7, 15, 16, 19, 20, 30, 40 · capital reserve, fund balance, budget modification
- 2026-08-12 · Town Board · Town Board Regular Meeting – Agenda(PDF) agenda · budget terms on p. 1, 2 · budget transfer, capital reserve
- 2026-08-12 · Town Board · Town Board Regular Meeting – Minutes minutes · budget terms on p. 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26 · capital reserve, budget transfer, fund balance
- 2026-09-23 · Town Board — Regular Meeting · watch at 64:34
- 2026-08-26 · Town Board — Regular Meeting · watch at 26:06
- 2026-06-24 · Town Board · watch at 29:03
- 2026-03-25 · Town Board — Regular Meeting · watch at 30:19
Machine transcripts; listen before citing. Meeting Insights library
Profile data as JSON: /api/entity/albany-county/bethlehem.json