The Great Neck Park District Board of Commissioners last week discussed a series of fee increases for park services and facilities that could be instated as part of the district’s 2013 budget.
During a nearly two-hour work session last Thursday, commissioners proposed fee increases ranging from rises in tuition for various summer camp programs to additional charges for park cards and pool passes, which Great Neck Park District acting Superintendent Peter Renick said could create much needed revenue for the 2013 budget that is scheduled to be unveiled next month.
“The park board is looking to increase fees because there’s a 2-percent tax cap that the state has mandated on increasing the budgets,” Renick said. “They have to try and maintain that. They are doing their best to maintain the 2 percent. Right now that is still being worked on.”
Renick declined to release the proposed amount of the Great Neck Park District’s 2013 budget last Friday, citing the ongoing work by financial staff members. He said the proposed amount will be unveiled to the public at the park district’s special budget hearing on Thursday, Sept. 6 at 8 p.m. at Great Neck House.
“Under the law, our local hearing will be on Thursday, Sept. 6 and that’s a mandate from the state that special districts all have to have their local public hearing that night,” Great Neck Park District Commissioner Robert Lincoln Jr. said. “That means that we’re crunching numbers much earlier in the year. Where we normally would like to have these work sessions in September when people are back from vacation and such, we find ourselves doing it in August.”
Last year, the park district approved a budget for 2012 of $16.5 million, which represented a 7-percent increase from 2011 and resulted in a 5.5-percent increase to the tax levy.
Although commissioners also declined to release the proposed amount of the 2013 budget, Lincoln said the calculation of the park district’s finances for the upcoming year is moving in a positive direction.
“We have a healthy park district financially,” Lincoln said. “I think I speak for the board when I say it’s our intent to keep it that way.”
But with the rising cost of state mandates and the restrictions felt from the 2-percent property tax cap, Lincoln said keeping the park district’s “healthy” financial standing intact has been more difficult than ever this year.
“It’s probably fair to say that some of the fees are going to have to go up,” Lincoln said. “Some of the fees, we’ve held the line on for a number of years and we may not be able to do that as we have.”
When beginning the process to review the park district’s budget, Commissioner Ruth Tamarin said she was originally dismayed by one aspect of financial plan.
“At that time the proposal was put to us, a large sum of the fund balance was applied to the 2013 proposed budget,” Tamarin said. “I can safely say that the three (commissioners), when we went home and studied it and e-mailed each other back and forth, we were very, very concerned about that choice.”
Tamarin said that commissioners intend to maintain a $1 million fund balance for the park district.
“We have a healthy fund balance right now, but we are very concerned that if we take too much of that and apply that as income we can put ourselves into financial dire straits a couple years down the road,” Lincoln said. “This is exactly the type of thing that Nassau County has done.”
Until its release next month, Renick said the park district’s budget will remain a work in progress.
“We have our work cut out for us,” Lincoln said. “I know the acting superintendent and the financial staff have been working hard to go back and see where they can cut the proposed budget. We did go through a list of proposed special items last week and I think it’s fair to say that that entire list is back on the table.”
Lincoln said the goal of the budget process is to keep taxes “under control” while keeping the park district “financially stable” and properly maintaining its infrastructure.
“We worked very hard in the past 10 years or so to ensure that everything is in good shape,” he said.
If commissioners vote to exceed the state mandated 2-percent property tax cap, the park district budget will then need a 60-percent approval from the Town of North Hempstead Council for it to be passed, Lincoln said.
“We’re not specifically prohibited from exceeding that cap, but there is a political and perceptual problem, I think with the taxpayers, especially with all the hype that’s gone on over this cap,” Lincoln said.
Commissioners and park financial staff intend to stay within the 2-percent property tax cap with the 2012 budget, Lincoln said.
“It’s still something where we’re … trying as hard as we can to stay within that cap, as are most of the districts and the villages,” he said. “Whether or not that’s going to be possible on the long range that’s another story.”
But if a tax increase is passed this year, Lincoln said it will not have a lasting impact on park district residents.
“The park district being, in reality, on the lower end of the dollars, if we were to go above by an extra percent the impact on the taxpayer in dollars is a few dollars as opposed to other things like the schools where they’re paying thousands and thousands of dollars,” Lincoln said.
The Great Neck Park District park district is comprised of all Great Neck Villages and unincorporated areas with the exception of Great Neck Estates, Harbor Hills, Lake Success, Saddle Rock and University Gardens.
