Final Larchmont Budget Passes 4-1 With 7.7% Tax Rate Hike

Board Members Call for Further Consideration of Staffing, Revaluation

by Judy Silberstein

(April 27, 2005) By a vote of 4 to 1, the Village of Larchmont Board of Trustees passed its final budget for 2005-2006 at a special meeting on April 25. The overall budget of $13,241,278 comes with a total tax levy of $9,679.378 (up 7.7% from last year’s $8,988,600) and a tax rate increase of 7.71%. The tax rate is $248.93 per thousand dollar of property valuation (up from last year's $231.10).

The bottom line for tax payers: On an average property assessed at $20,000, the Larchmont tax bill will be $4979 this year, or $357 more than last year.

The final tax rate increase was lower than the previous three provisional rates (16.4% in March; 11.6% on April 5, and 8.1 on April 18; ), and lower than last year’s final rate increase of 8.5%. Mayor Ken Bialo reported that it appears to be about average in Westchester for this year.

However, Larchmont's rate is higher than this year’s increase in the Town of Mamaroneck (up 6.6% for 2005), the Mamaroneck School District (subject to passage by electorate on May 18; up 7.52%), the Village of Mamaroneck (up 4.5%) and Westchester County (0%).

The final budget cuts in half the amount of funds allocated from the surplus ($250K vs $513K), but makes up the difference with funds to be borrowed through a New York State program designed to help municipalities smooth out the impact of dramatic increases in the amounts they are required to pay into the retirement system for their employees. The board came up with another $45K, which Village Treasurer Denis Brucciani characterized as being from “a number of miscellaneous revenue sources.”

No one on the board voted happily. And each board member spoke of the need to look towards long-term solutions to rein in rising costs.

“I wish it was a good deal lower,” said Mayor Bialo, who had been hoping to get the tax rate increase below 6%. He acknowledged the long hours and hard work of the board, the Larchmont Budget Committee, Treasurer Brucianni (in his rookie season) and Deputy Treasurer Joanne Lanza, who have been grappling with the budget since early February.

Stressing that the budget “does not contemplate cuts in services,” he attributed the budget increases to rising costs of pensions, workers compensation insurance, wages and benefits, and debt service. He pointed out the debt is helping pay for the streetscape renovation and improvements at Flint Park. He would like to see further state-level relief from rising pension costs and other unfunded mandates, but as a near-term measure he supported using state-borrowing to smooth out the impact of spikes in the pension costs. He and Trustees Anne McAndrews and Mike Wiener cited reasons for the borrowing, including: favorable interest rates and terms and the ability to repay the debt at any time without penalties.

Trustee McAndrews said she was voting for the budget “with a heavy heart.” She was particularly concerned with tax fairness and raised the possibility of property revaluation, last studied in the 1990’s. "By itself, revaluation would not bring in more revenue, but the assessment of the tax would be more fair,” she said. Trustee Mike Wiener said, “this is a tough budget,” and “it was hard for me to reconcile not cutting services,” however it is those services that contribute to making Larchmont “a unique place,” he concluded. Trustee Marlene Kolbert commented on having lived in the Village for close to 40 years in which “I’ve watched taxes increase and the services remain static.”

No one was more unhappy than Trustee Liz Feld, who voted against the budget out of concern for the lack of an in-house engineer and in opposition to borrowing some of the money needed to pay pension costs.

“This year we don’t have to borrow and I don’t think we should,” she said and suggested there was some breathing room due to this year’s lower county taxes. Further, she did not think the borrowing would make that much of a difference on a resident’s actual tax bill. The board had the same borrowing option for fiscal year 2004-2005, but decided to pay the bill in December 2004.

She and Mayor Bialo continued a debate from earlier board meetings over the need for an in-house engineer, a position vacant since September 2004. Mayor Bialo argued that consulting engineers are being used because they have not been able to find a replacement and that “so far, so good.” Ms. Feld disagreed that conditions were acceptable. “No pun intended, people are under water,” she said, referring to the continuing water problems throughout the village.

Later she explained that she fears overloading the rest of the staff and losing valued employees as a result. Unlike neighboring municipalities, Larchmont operates without a chief administrator, and previous engineers have filled some management functions.

The Long-Term Look

Trustee Feld's greatest concern, however, is that “the Board has not evaluated how we are going to make the changes necessary to keep the village affordable.” In a later email, she added, “These changes/improvements include looking at staffing levels, sharing municipal services, potential sources of new revenue, revaluation.” She indicated that she is unhappy that Mayor Bialo has been unsupportive of recent attempts by her and others to address these larger, long-term issues.

The other trustees were willing to vote for the budget but also raised the need to look at the larger picture. Ms. Kolbert shared concerns over the borrowing and the engineer’s position, but the larger issue is maintaining the very high level of services “we’ve grown to expect” in a “village of 6400 people with a police department that has to be covered 24/7 and a fire department that has to be covered 24/7.” She has not heard from residents who want things any different.

On a similar theme, Ms. McAndrews read a message from a resident that included this comment: “Isn't it time to seriously and aggressively look at sharing of municipal services again. If police and fire are still the 3rd rail issue for villagers what about other areas like DPW, equipment sharing, accounting for starters?" The resident also suggested the possibility of trying staff reduction by attrition –maybe starting with one position to see if money can be saved and how residents react.

Staffing level was an issue Mr. Wiener stressed throughout the budget talks, he reported, and going forward he would like further consideration. “We need to keep our eye on the ball all year long,” he said.

Asked later for comment, Mayor Bialo responded, "Anybody who is serious about bringing these [long-term] topics forward is free to discuss them." However, he noted that issues such as revaluation and consolidation of services have been studied many times without yielding potential savings or finding support from neighboring municipalties. "People are interested in receiving more services for their tax dollars, not less, and that is the single core issue," he stressed. His long-term concern is focused on the impact of the "drive towards increasing development that we see in surrounding communities" that are searching for a way to stabilize property taxes.

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