By Mike Schnitzel
Mayor Eugene Scarpato made the announcement regarding the proposed 2006-07 budget at Monday night's village board meeting.
Budget Officer John Giordano has recommended a $30.9 million budget for the upcoming fiscal year, a 3.8 percent increase over the current $29.7 million budget. The village plans to collect $24 million in property taxes - 1.5 percent less than the $24.3 million it collected this year. The tax rate will be $13.69 per $100 of assessed net valuation of property, the same as last year.
According to Giordano, a number of factors contributed to the no-tax-increase budget, including a directive from management to prioritize capital projects, tighter projections of expenses and revenues and the absence of increases in insurance and retirement benefits, programs that traditionally call for increased expenditures.
The village will also be eligible for an Aid and Incentives for Municipalities (AIM) grant as a result of the proposed budget, said Scarpato. According to Giordano, the intent of AIM is to provide financial incentive for municipalities to consolidate services, share them with other communities and reduce costs overall.
"The Village of Lynbrook is in a unique situation, because it has developed partnerships with other local governments in addition to holding the line on taxes this year, which made us eligible for this grant," said Giordano.
With the AIM grant, the village could receive anywhere from a 2.5 to 7.5 percent increase in state aid payments, based on performance indicators, such as the village's ability to demonstrate that it has shared or consolidated services, Giordano added.
He cited partnerships Lynbrook has with the Village of Rockville Centre and Nassau County as examples of the shared services that the AIM grant encourages. Lynbrook uses Rockville Centre's garbage transfer station to store its refuse to reduce transfer costs, Giordano said. He added that Nassau County agreed to pave Hendrickson Avenue and plant 500 trees in exchange for the village's taking ownership of the former county road, a move that Giordano said helped save the village money.
Scarpato said that in addition to mandated costs remaining stable, police overtime was reduced thanks to the Lynbrook Police Department's new 12-hour shifts, a change from the eight-hour shifts of previous years. In addition, various village departments were tight with expenditures, and village investments yielded an additional $200,000 in revenue. The village will also see new revenue this year from the Sterling Glen Assisted Living facility on Ocean Avenue, with a $130,300 payment under its Payment In Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) program agreement with the village.
Scarpato said that a capital plan was being instituted to organize and prioritize projects so that the village could reserve funds for future projects. Giordano said that a capital plan would "allow department heads to better manage their capital needs, and would afford the board the opportunity to earmark funds during those years to keep track of cash flow for the village." Giordano added that the capital plan would be ready for the budget hearing, and would follow a format recommended by state Comptroller Alan Hevesi's office for municipalities.
Over the next few weeks, the board and the village's budget committee, which consists of Deputy Mayor Tom Miccio, Michael Hawxhurst, Lois Rothenberg, Morrey Forman, Jeff Greenfield and Giordano, will be meeting to review the proposed fiscal plan, Scarpato said. A public budget hearing will be held on Monday, April 17, at 8 p.m., at Village Hall. Copies of the proposed budget are available in there.
Comments about this story? MSchnitzel@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 265.
