The noise law has been in force since August 18. The town just posted the proof, plus two laws you never heard about.

For seven weeks the honest answer to “is the noise law in effect yet?” was “adopted, filing unconfirmed.” The town answered it this weekend by posting the filed copies of its 2026 local laws on the Local Laws page of its website, each with the Department of State’s acknowledgment attached. Here is what they show.

Local Law 3: Chapter 92, Noise. Filed August 18.

The Town Clerk certified the noise law’s filing form on August 12, the night the Board adopted it. The Department of State’s records bureau received it on August 18, 2026 and said so in a letter dated September 1 to the town’s attorneys, Young/Sommer in Troy, who stamped it in on September 4. Section 7 of the law makes it effective on filing. So the hamlet quiet hours, no amplified noise in Speigletown, Pleasantdale, Hemstreet Park and Melrose between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m., have been enforceable since August 18.

Why it looked unfiled for so long: the town’s website had not been updated, the online town code on ecode360 still has no 2026 laws of any kind, and the state’s local-law database cannot be searched by machine. None of that changed the law’s status. Our Chapter 92 page now says in force, with the filing date, and the local-laws index links the filed copy.

Local Law 1: dog-license fees leave the code

Adopted April 8 after a public hearing and filed May 4, this one rewrites Sections 57-15, 57-16 and 57-17 of the dog-control chapter. The Board’s stated reason was changes in state law on licensing fees. The practical effect is that the license fee, the state surcharge, the replacement-tag fee, the enumeration surcharge and any purebred-license fee are now “set by resolution of the Town Board from time to time” instead of written into the code, so the Board can adjust them without another local law and public hearing.

The part dog owners will notice is new: the license application must now include a clearly marked, voluntary contribution line for the animal shelter the town uses, with the money kept in a dedicated fund and passed to the shelter once a year. If the box is on your renewal form next year, that is where it came from. The current fee schedule itself lives in Board resolutions; the Clerk’s office has it.

Local Law 2: the Highway Superintendent no longer has to live in town

Also adopted April 8 and filed May 4. Until this spring, state law required anyone running for or holding the elected office of Highway Superintendent to be a registered voter of the town. The Board used its home-rule power to supersede that rule for Schaghticoke: new Section 30-3A says the Highway Superintendent “need not be an elector of the Town of Schaghticoke” as long as they are an elector of Rensselaer County. The stated purpose was “to increase the number of eligible electors for the office.”

A resident asked several questions about the position at the April hearing, according to the Town Board minutes. It is a quiet change with a long tail: the next time the superintendent’s seat is on the ballot, candidates from Pittstown, Brunswick or Troy are eligible.

The three documents

All three filed copies are linked from the town’s Local Laws page and mirrored on our local-laws index, where they join the two December 2025 tax-exemption amendments we added last week. The town’s posting is also a small milestone of its own: it is the first time since 2022 that the Local Laws page has carried a current year.

Sources: the filed copies of Local Laws No. 1, 2 and 3 of 2026 as posted on the Town of Schaghticoke website, each including the Town Clerk’s certification and the Department of State’s acknowledgment letter (May 13, 2026 for Laws 1 and 2; September 1, 2026 for Law 3); the April 8 and August 12, 2026 Town Board minutes. Quotations are from the laws’ own text.