The Sands Point Board of Trustees convened on March 27 for their monthly meeting where a brief public hearing on the tentative budget for the fiscal year beginning June 1, 2018, and ending May 31, 2019, was held. While the meeting had been publicized in the village’s March newsletter, the hearing remained brief as there were no comments made by residents.
The detailed budget, which was enclosed in the newsletter, showed the village’s total preliminary 2019 revenues to be $11,859,040 and the village’s preliminary 2019 total general fund expense to be $11,859,040. The major capital items that are part of the preliminary 2019 budget include one police vehicle, one truck for the Sands Point Water Department, a back-up generator for the Village Hall and potentially a natural gas line to be installed from Tibbits Lane to Village Hall.
“We’ve been able to increase our fund balance, which is important for the fiscal standing of the village, and we have a virtually negligible stress score of 3.3 out of 100, so we’re in excellent fiscal shape,” said Adler. “I’m very proud of that and we’re going to continue to do our best to give a great deal of service for the taxpayer dollar.”
The village’s projected tax levy increase will be 2.5 percent, which is just under this year’s cap of 2.53 percent.
“We have now for seven years in a row since the state implemented the cap been successful at keeping our budget increase under the cap,” said Sands Point Mayor Edward Adler. “It is quite challenging to be able to do that because of the fact that municipal budgets at the village level include capital costs and servicing capital needs, plus the fact that we have our own police force and a large staff, we have a great deal of payroll expense. I’ve railed against the cap for many years—not because we don’t agree that we should keep the cap as low as possible, that’s always been our goal. However, the randomness of the application of the cap which has varied from seven or eight tenths of a percent to this year on the higher side of about two and a half percent. The cap each year bears no relation to our costs. It seems to be a kind of one-size-fits-all application by the state and so the concept of keeping taxes down, I couldn’t agree more with that, but the way it’s been applied through the cap is really difficult for a village like ours with such a large capital infrastructure and a large labor force to deal with. But we have.”
Also approved at the meeting were the certification of assessment roll and an emergency replacement of a transfer switch at Governors Lane. The date of the annual village election for two trustee positions was set for June 19.
The next Board of Trustees meeting will be held on April 24 at the Village Hall located at 26 Tibbits Lane, Sands Point.
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