The Village of Williston Park accepted its tentative 2015-16 budget with a 3-1 vote on Monday. April 13, which overrides their 1.68 percent tax cap with a 3.13 percent increase in the tax levy from the prior year, and a proposed tentative levy of $4,793,693.
Trustee Teresa Thomann voted against the budget’s acceptation, and trustee Michael Uttaro was unable to attend the village board meeting.
According to Village Clerk-Treasurer Julie Kain, the village’s general fund appropriations increased by 2.34 percent, $134,387, and the village’s debt service increased 12.85 percent, $45,154.
Among the significant line items in the tentative budget was a total government support increase of 11.9 percent, representing $96,680; an 8.09 percent increase for the fire department, $28,886; a 5.63 percent increase in total public safety, $32,386; a 2.92 percent increase in total transportation, $30,804; and a total transfer to the village library to decrease by 13.06 percent, $62,055.
The village’s total employee benefits have a decrease of 0.60 percent, representing $62,055.
Thomann expressed her opposition to overriding the tax cap, insisting that the village is “fiscally healthy.”
“Our budget practices have been prudent and appropriate for the past few years, allowing us to address infrastructure needs without burdening our residents,” Thomann said. “It is my position that we can continue on that path within the tax cap allowance.”
Deputy Mayor Kevin Rynne explained the village’s decision to override the cap as an effort to maintain the village’s services to its residents, such as sanitation pickups, tree trimming and sidewalk treatment.
“Every year, we look at the budget line by line, and see what we can and cannot cut,” Rynne said. “We were fortunate this year to have a decrease in our pension costs, and most of the board members felt the thing to do this time was to unfortunately go over the cap.”
Trustee William Carr echoed Rynne’s words, and added that had the village not issued $2 million in bonds for road repair projects in 2013, falling under the tax cap “would have been no problem.”
“The interest rates were at a historic low, and we took advantage of it,” Carr said. “I don’t regret it, but I do regret telling our residents that we are over the cap, but the village is a better place because of it.”
Village Mayor Paul Ehrbar said he understands trustee Thomann’s position, and while the village has “a prudent budget —we are very tight with our monies.”
“We’ve had to utilize our fund balance to help cover our expenses during the course of the year, and that can continue at a large pace, where we’ll run out of fund balance and bring things to a very serious situation,” Ehrbar said. “I’m disappointed we had to go over the cap.”
Ehrbar then explained that their 1.68 percent cap gave the village roughly $70,000 that the budget could be raised, which he said “doesn’t go a long way – I believe we did the best we could without having to cut services.”
Questioning the village’s decrease in library transfers was Mary Cross, a trustee with the Williston Park Public Library, who said the $62,055 decrease is a “significant drop” from what was requested, and how it will affect the library going forward.
Ehrbar said the decrease should not have an effect on the library, as the library builds a fund balance of their own, and has secondary money market funds, which both total to an estimated $125,000.
Thomann explained that the library transfer funds the village’s budget, however the library’s budget is getting funded jointly between that transfer and the library’s other revenue from the libraries fund balance.
