Village of Flower Hill board of trustees on Monday presented a tentative $3.6 million budget for 2016 -2017 that would increase spending over the current year by 1.08 budget increase but see a decrease in the village tax rate.
“The budget is basically flat from last year,” Village of Flower Hill Mayor Elaine Phillips said.
The tentative budget calls for $3,566,00 in spending and a reduction in the tax rate by 1.05 percent.
The budget includes $547,429 for fire safety services, which is up 6 percent from the previous year.
“We take out fire expenses because we pass through the Port Washington and Roslyn fire department expense,” Phillips said.
At a previous meeting, Phillips said the village was able to increase spending while reducing the tax rate as a result of an increase in revenue from village fees.
Non-building permits brought an additional $38,502, up 2.43 percent from last year. Non-building permits include fencing, public toilets, trees, and dumpsters.
Phillips said the budget is similar to this year’s with the exception of road work. She said the board decided not to do a road project for the year and to save that money for next year.
“Every year we’ve always allocated $300,000 versus other villages who don’t do road projects on an annualized basis and then they have to go to bond because they needed $2 million dollars to do a road project,” Phillips said. “This village has been very careful and diligent about putting a certain amount of money every year aside. We are still putting $50,000 into the road expense line because you always have pot holes or something comes up.”
Phillips also discussed the village property rolls, which decreased by $108,696 or 1.98 percent. This was a result of residents successfully challenging their taxes.
“Grievances if you ask me are backwards looking,” Phillips said. “So by 2018 I believe Nassau County is going to reassess the whole thing. I think we’ll see assess values go up just from how the real estate market is.”
The budget calls for spending for sanitation to increase by $108,6400, up 17.15 percent, which Phillips said is due to the terms of a three-year contract.
Philips said village trustees will review the budget in more detail at the next Board of Trustees meeting at 7:30 p.m. on April 4 at Village Hall.
“We invite the community, or anyone who’s interested, to once again call the village office and speak to Kathy Wade or myself to discuss the budget,” Phillips said.
Also at the meeting, the trustees discussed bids for a website developer to design a new website for the village.
Board officials said they a choosing to go with Logic Web Media, a Long Island Web Design company specializing in custom web design, SEO, and e-Commerce.
The total for the bid is $9,000, which Phillips said is within the budget.
For more information on Logic Web Media, please visit https://www.logicwebmedia.com
