Pelham Manor Officials Ready to Vote on $13.3M Budget

There were no fireworks during Monday’s budget hearing inside Pelham Manor Village Hall.

A total of seven people attended the hearing, including three reporters and fire Chief Joseph Ruggiero, and no objections were raised to the village’s $13,377,693 budget proposal for 2012-2013, which is scheduled to be approved on April 23.

Still, Mayor James O’Connor made it a point to say that this budget process wasn’t easy and it’s bound to become more difficult in the future.

“I’m pleased that the village manager was able to present a proposed, or tentative, budget that came within the tax cap,” O’Connor said. “I freely admit that I’m nervous about future years and how we will be able to stay within the tax cap as the years go by and as state mandates are left unaddressed.”

The village’s tentative spending plan represents an increase of $446,161, or 3.45 percent, more than this year’s budget. The tax levy for the proposal, which is $11,242,408, is about 4.04 more than this year’s levy.

The homestead, or residential, tax levy would increase by 2.33 percent to $9,010,318 and the non-homestead, or commercial, tax levy would increase by 11.55 percent to $2,232,090.

Residential properties would make up about 80.15 percent of the tax burden while commercial properties will make up 19.85 percent in the proposal. The tax rate per thousand for homeowners would be about $6.65, an increase of about 6.72 percent from this year, and about $9.57 for commercial property owners, which represents an 11.61 percent increase.

O’Connor said he is pleased with the way levy is being split between tax bases and that the residential growth rate is the reason why the village’s property tax cap threshold is calculated at 4.05 percent as opposed to 2 percent. He said this was the village’s goal when officials worked to increase the commercial tax base years ago.

“The idea, certainly, was to shift the tax burden as much as possible from our homeowners to the commercial district by revitalizing it,” O’Connor said.

Cuts in the village tentative budget include a police officer and department of public works position. Both positions are currently vacant.

The village will compensate for the police officer's position by reallocating daytime shifts in the department.

O’Connor said the loss of the public works position will give the village less flexibility in dealing with storms and other emergency situations. But he said it was a move that had to be made due to the budgetary constraints that are in place.

Officials also did not restore funding for sidewalk replacement and street maintenance that was cut out of this year’s budget.

The board would appropriate $390,000 of budget surplus from this year’s budget to lower the tax levy in the tentative budget. Doing this will decrease the village’s budget reserves to a little more $340,000 and leave the village in the position of trying to make up $390,000 in revenues for the 2013-2014 budget.

“That’s a balancing item that we’re going to have figure out how to come up with,” said John T. Pierpont, the village manager.

Gianni Magnani, who attended the meeting, said he was disappointed by the low turnout for Monday’s public hearing.

“This room should be filled,” Magnani said. “There should be a good percentage of the community listening to what you’re saying and if there are things that maybe need to be brought the attention of various politicians...we can write, we can call.”

The board has until May 1 to adopt next year’s budget.

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