The Village of Great Neck Estates’ Board of Trustees unanimously adopted a $10.36 million budget that contains a 5 percent increase based on the crosswinds from the coronavirus.
The budget is $494,514 higher than the current $9.86 million budget f or the 2020-21 fiscal year that begins June 1. The tax levy is increasing from $7.9 million to $8.13 million, a difference just shy of 3 percent, or $236,043.
“We had a lot of revenues go down and a lot of costs go up that were unanticipated,” Great Neck Estates Mayor William Warner said. “We have managed to come up with a budget that is not necessary to pierce the cap.”
Warner also said that ever since New York implemented a 2 percent property tax cap, the village has never pierced it.
Expenditures for the village’s police department are one of the main reasons for the budget’s increase. According to the budget, police department expenditures will increase from $3.18 million to $3.31 million. That is a 4.05 percent, or $128,796, increase from last year.
Warner said those increases reflect a lack of revenue from parking tickets and meter payment as a result of the coronavirus as well as allocating overtime pay for officers.
“Revenues are suffering since people have been advised to stay inside and they have fallen off as a result of the coronavirus,” Warner said. “We also wanted to budget more for overtime pay as a result of recent burglaries that have occurred throughout the North Shore.”
While the overall assessed value decreased by more than $2.3 million in the village from $1.387 billion to $1.385 billion, the assessment rate increased from 0.5694 per $100 in assessed value to 0.5874 per $100 assessed value.
The village anticipates a $216,530 decrease from $1.64 million to $1.42 million in revenue from other sources overall and plans to appropriate $800,000 in fund balance, a $475,000 increase from the current budget.
According to the budget, the village will see a $189,500, or 44.6 percent, increase in the refuse and garbage allocations. The jump from $425,500 last year to $614,500 this year, Warner said, was the result of a new contract for the village’s trash removal service.
The village will be paying $350,485 toward debt. This is $3,513 less than the $353,998 in the current budget, or a difference of just under 1 percent.
Warner touted the work of Trustee Ira Ganzfried and Village Administrator Kathleen Santelli for their efforts in putting together a budget in a year in which revenues will be hurt.
“I thank Kathy for her work, I thank Ira for his work, and all the department heads tightening the belts a little bit so we can get through this,” Warner said.
