When Port Washington North approved its 2018-19 budget last Wednesday, it trimmed almost $6 million from last year. But the village’s operating budget has remained almost the same.
The difference, Mayor Bob Weitzner said, was the removal of a $6.5 million real estate transaction from this year’s budget.
“For the past several years, we’ve been budgeting for a real estate transaction,” he said. “We kept expecting it to happen but it never did.”
He said that auditors who spoke with the village made it clear that there was nothing wrong about including this item in the budget year after year, but recommended that Port North should wait until the transaction was made to include it in the budget.
A report on the 2017-18 budget showed that the village was $6.1 million under the approved $8 million budget, almost entirely due to the fact that no property was exchanged.
“We made a conscious decision to eliminate those expenditures until we were sure it would occur, then we would allocate accordingly,” Weitzner said.
That $6.5 million real estate item is the purchase of five acres along Channel Drive to be used as a park. The move would be part of a land swap with a developer, who will receive seven acres on Valley Road in exchange for helping to purchase the land for the park.
The budget approval was part of the village’s annual meeting, which also included the swearing in and appointment of village employees. First to be sworn in were the two re-elected trustees: Michael Malatino and Steven Cohen.
“They won by a landslide,” Weitzner said of the two trustees, who ran unopposed.
Cohen was also reappointed as a member of the planning board for seven years. Richard Gallucci was reappointed as a member of the Board of Appeals for five years, and all trustees were appointed as the members of the Board of Assessment Review through April 2019.
All of the other appointments were for one year and all had held the position the year before. Among the notable reappointments were Superintendent of Buildings Robert Barbach, Planning Board Chair Alex Moschos, Emergency Manager Steven Kaplan and Superintendent of Public Works Ronald Novinski.
“I never get tired of these annual meetings,” Weitzner said after all the new positions had been appointed. “It’s like Opening Day.”
