The Village of Manorhaven adopted its nearly $5.4 million budget for the 2024-2025 fiscal year Wednesday night, which includes a tax increase of about 2.32%.
While the budget is above 2% and the state has implemented a 2% tax cap, the village’s accountant Bob Kordic previously said it does not pierce the tax cap due to qualified exemptions.
The $5,361,078 budget marks an increase of $183,580 from the current 2023-2024 budget of $5,177,498.
Mayor John Popeleski said at a previous meeting where the budget was presented that he was pleased with it.
“I’m very happy with this budget that we’re going into,” Popeleski said. “I really crunched a lot of numbers with [Kordic] and I feel like this is a sound budget that the village can work with and be very comfortable.”
One of the biggest decreases in the budget’s revenues is in rental registrations, or permits to rent homes in the village, which is dropping by 65.06%.
In 2024-2025, the village’s budget projects revenues of $188,000 in rental registration fees in contrast to projected revenue of $538,000 at the end of the current fiscal year.
Kordic said at a previous meeting that this decline is due to it being an “off year” on rental registrations.
This waxing and waning trend is evident in the village’s budgets, which show drops in rental registration fee revenues every other fiscal year.
In 2021-2022, the village’s budget had rental registration fee revenue of $377,625, which then dropped to $118,375 in 2022-2023. This trend continued with a rise in 2023-2024 amounting in total to $538,000 and is projected to now fall again in the next fiscal year.
One of the biggest costs for the village in the upcoming budget is the contract with the Port Washington Sewer District which amounts to $1.24 million and represents a 16.38%, or $175,000 increase in the budget.
The total costs for sewage treatment and disposal in the budget add up to $1,386,822, or about 25.87% of the total budget.
Manorhaven’s state aid is projected to be $254,471 in the next fiscal year. This is a $6,000 drop from the current fiscal year, which is attributed to a decline in the state’s consolidated highway aid.
To balance the budget, $595,000 will be used from the village’s appropriated fund balance as a revenue source.
Also approved Wednesday night was a local law for a lot line adjustment for the properties of 134-138 Shore Road and 12 Manorhaven Blvd. The two properties share a boundary line in the rear of the Shore Road property.
Howard Avrutine, the attorney representing the two properties, said the Shore Road property is under contract to be sold. He said the purchaser received a new survey of the property which found that a “small portion” of the parking lot is technically within the property bounds of the Manorhaven Road lot.
The lot line adjustment approved by the board transferred the portion of the parking lot to the Shore Road property. This adjustment does not include any physical changes to the property lines.