By ANTHONY BOTTAN
The spending plan includes a tax increase of 4.95 percent, which will mean an extra $160 for the average village homeowner.
The tax increase in preliminary versions of the budget was more than 8 percent, but Mayor Brian Curran said that he and the board scrutinized every line of spending in order to reduce it. Overall, the budget is about $360,000 smaller than the current spending plan. "We must stretch every dollar allocated to each department," Curran said.
The board decided to apply $2.7 million of the village's projected $5.8 million surplus to the budget, leaving just over $3 million in reserve. Curran noted that the economic crisis has cost the village over $1 million in revenue: $400,000 in mortgage taxes, $300,000 in property taxes, $60,000 in sales taxes and around $70,000 in interest, combined with losses this year. "We must decrease spending in every department, but still give residents the highest quality of services," he said.
To help keep the tax increase to a minimum, Curran said, the board had to make difficult decisions. It froze the salaries of elected officials for the third year in a row, cut overtime for all departments except the police and eliminated trips to seminars and conferences for trustees and department heads. If a trustee wants to attend a conference, Curran said, the trustee will have to foot the bill.
The board also decided not to fill some job openings in the building department, at Village Hall and in the police department, and delayed equipment purchases for some department heads.
Trustee Mike Hawxhurst will now head an energy conservation council that will examine village buildings and recommend ways to make them more energy-efficient. And Trustees Hilary Becker and Alan Beach will head a committee that will institute "multiple resident registration fees" for homeowners who rent out their homes but don't live in Lynbrook. Village Administrator John Giordano said he could not estimate how much revenue the fee might produce.
Curran added that the board is working with the Chamber of Commerce to attract more businesses to the village, which would also increase revenue.
Deputy Mayor Bill Hendrick said he thought the budget had been trimmed as tightly as it could be, and he did not want to compromise any services for residents. "We all live here, but the balance is, there is a certain level of service we can't go below," Hendrick said.
Becker said it would not have been financially prudent for the village to not raise taxes, but he acknowledged that the decision to do so was not an easy one. "We feel the pain of the residents," he said. "The big hit was the loss of revenue. It's not from careless spending."
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