What the overflow crowd of roughly 60 got was a promise from reelected board chairman Donald Lindberg that the board was working to do what they could to reduce the tax levy to the expected 2.5 percent rate.

"It was our mistake and we’re going to take care of it," said Lindberg after about 16 people had commented on the situation. "We’re not going to forget you."

The 2007 county budget was approved in December by a board which expected the tax levy would increase by 2.5 percent. However when tax bills went out in late December, the board discovered they were mistaken and had approved a budget with a 22 percent increase.

Taxpayers were decidedly unhappy with the situation, as many expressed at the board’s first meeting of the year.

"There’s egg on our face in this county for sure," said a man who identified himself as Willy Green of Middlefield, where taxes rose 15.6 percent. "There was a gross error made across the board." He called the mistake a matter of "simple division" and said it was not the fault of individuals but the responsibility of the entire board.

Brenda Berstler of Cooperstown agreed that the county’s math just didn’t add up.

"I hope this was one big grievous mathematical error," she said. "This is a heck of a way to start the year. Nobody can absorb this increase."

Berstler, a resident of the town of Otsego where taxes increased 32.8 percent, said the board needed to find a way to get the problem fixed. She also said voters thought they had elected competent people to represent them.

"You didn’t know what you were voting for. Apparently neither did we," she said.

Diane Koffer of Hartwick told the board she didn’t understand how her taxes were going up at all, let alone an increase of 37.8 percent, the highest in the county. With three hotels and motels, the Cooperstown Dreams Park and various profitable merchants in the town, Koffer questioned how her town could have been hit so hard.

She said a lot of older folks on fixed incomes live in Hartwick and were terrified they could lose their houses because of the tax increase. Additionally, people move to Hartwick because they can’t afford to live in Cooperstown, Pierstown or Fly Creek.

"We’re just being pushed so far out," Koffer said.

After the meeting Koffer said she would not be paying her taxes until the situation had been sorted out, a sentiment expressed by others at the meeting.

"If everybody didn’t pay their taxes, they’d have to do something," she said.

Town of Otsego resident John Phillips reminded the board that the area was facing a reval soon and that taxes could rise as much as 60 percent in one shot. He asked the board members if they would be willing to forfeit their salaries and health benefits until the problem had been resolved.

Some residents questioned why the budget resolution couldn’t simply be rescinded and new tax bills be sent out.

County Attorney Rodney Klafehn said he had made four calls Tuesday to the state comptroller’s office in hopes of finding out if the board had the authority to rescind the budget and approve a new one.

He said it would present a "logistical challenge," as some 20,000 tax bills go out, but that the board’s goal work until the tax levy was reduced to an increase of 2.5 percent.