Changes to New York state's pension budgets led to increases in local town taxes.

That's what many local leaders and budget analysts say about the increase in taxes across several Long Island towns.

"Talk to any town supervisor, and talk to the two town supervisors that didn't pierce the cap, they were right there, the pension costs from New York State," Brookhaven Town Supervisor Dan Panico said on News 12's Power and Politics show earlier this year.

Eleven of Long Island's 13 towns passed tax hikes for 2025. Nine of the 13 pierced the tax cap. Only North Hempstead Town cut taxes this year.

Patrick Orecki, the director of state studies for the nonpartisan, nonprofit Citizens Budget Commission, says changes in state pension budgets approved by lawmakers in Albany are driving the increases.

"We've seen that pension enhancements, or sweeteners as we call them, are becoming more and more common coming from the state legislature and government," Orecki said.

Orecki says the decision by state lawmakers to rollback previous reforms designed to reign in pension costs are costing local taxpayers.

"So rolling back those reforms, things like changing the calculation of final average salary, are seemingly incremental or small changes but they add up to hundreds of million dollars to state and local government pension plans across the state."

The Tier 6 pension plan changes were supported by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

The New York State Comptroller's Office released a report last September outlining what the Tier 6 change and others will mean for pension costs moving forward.

"In addition to investment performance, other factors that impacted rates included inflation, higher salaries, recent legislative changes (including reforms to tier 6) and member retirement rates," New York State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli said.