New Hyde Park Mayor Lawrence Montreuil and the Board of Trustees adopted the 2020–21 budget at a virtual public meeting on Thursday, factoring in anticipated revenue loss due to COVID-19.
The board also passed a motion to repeal the local law that allows the village to pierce the tax cap, which it determined was no longer necessary.
The tax rate will remain the same for the coming year.
“The bottom line hasn’t changed,” said Montreuil. “We were able to move around some expenses and some revenue.”
The board unanimously voted to repeal the tax cap law.
“We put this law in place as a stop gap if we had to pierce the tax cap,” Montreuil explained. “We were going to repeal it on April 16 at our regular board meeting when we planned to adopt the budget. However, in the week after the budget hearing, we took a hard look at the budget lines and noticed that there was going to be some revenue shortfalls on some of the nontax lines that we had to deal with. So we decided April 16 to give us a couple more weeks, until tonight, when we have to adopt the budget.”
The village made some changes to the budget in order to account for the effects and possible effects of COVID-19 on New Hyde Park’s finances.
“Basically we looked over the revenue and the expenses, and on the revenue side, we had to adjust a few lines because we knew we’re not going to bring in the anticipated revenue that we were expecting, in the areas of parking and court mainly,” explained Trustee Donna Squicciarino.
The board decreased the anticipated revenue from parking by about $70,000, and court revenue by about $80,000, Squicciarino said.
The trustees adjusted the Building Department costs to offset the anticipated losses in parking and court fees. The numbers are based on nine months rather than a full year of operations, since it has not yet been determined when the Building Department will fully open again.
“On the expense side, we decreased central garage equipment about $51,000 to offset what we’re going to lose,” said Squicciarino.
She added that they were also able to decrease expected incineration fees. The village was initially expecting a 30 to 40 percent increase in cost. However, incineration costs will likely only increase 15 to 20 percent, and they were therefore able to shave off about $80,000 from anticipated incineration fees.
“So that offsets the revenues and the expenses to kind of even them out so we can keep the tax rate where it is,” Squicciarino said.
The board will add funding to the equipment portion of the budget if the village gets federal assistance, she said.
“We have contacted Congresswoman Rice’s office with the revenue shortfalls that we expect to see from COVID and the economic result,” Montreuil said. “So we hope in the next round of funding from the federal government that included in that is support for local governments, in which case we will certainly apply that if we’re eligible.”
New Hyde Park residents will have the option to pay village taxes in two installments, Squicciarino said. Bills will go out on May 31.
“We at least want to give folks some flexibility,” she said.
The village is also waiving the fee for residents making a direct payment online.