Mayors from the five Roslyn-area villages and Old Westbury will meet for the second time next month to brainstorm ways of collaborating on service contracts in an effort to generate cost-savings and maintain eligibility for a state property tax rebate.
The meeting is set to take place March 30 at the Village of East Hills’ theater, located at 209 Harbor Hill Road, at 7 p.m. and consist of Village of East Hills Mayor Michael Koblenz, Village of Roslyn Mayor John Durkin, Village of Roslyn Estates Mayor Jeff Schwartzberg, Village of Roslyn Harbor Mayor David Mandell, Village of Flower Hill Mayor and Village of Old Westbury Mayor Fred Carillo.
In addition, several state and Town of North Hempstead officials, including state Sen. Jack Martins (R-Mineola), state Assemblyman Charles Lavine (D-Glen Cove), North Hempstead Town Supervisor Judi Bosworth (D-Great Neck), North Hempstead Town Councilman Peter Zuckerman (D-East Hills) and Rachel Brinn, the town’s director of administrative affairs, have been invited to attend, as are Department of State officials Mark Pattison and Carl Ublacker and engineer Ken Pritchard.
According to an advisory released Friday from the Village of East Hills, Bosworth is scheduled to detail various town-related shared services contracts and Koblenz will propose ways of saving money on road projects.
The mayors previously met in December to open discussion on how to take advantage of the state’s property tax freeze initiative, through which residents with a combined household income of less than $500,000 could become eligible for rebates if proposals submitted their local governments and approved by the state generate cost savings of 1 percent each year for three consecutive years, beginning in 2016.
Municipalities would also have to remain in compliance with the state-mandated tax cap and remove local laws permitting their governing legislatures from exceeding the tax cap in formulating annual budgets.
The Village of Roslyn last week approved such a law, but its Village Attorney John Gibbons told Blank Slate Media last week the board planned to host a public hearing in April to repeal the law and maintain eligibility.
Cost-saving proposals are due to the state by June 1. The state has a July 31 deadline to approve or reject the proposals.
During the first meeting, Koblenz suggested the mayors group together public works and infrastructure contracts and explore opportunities to collaborate with the Town of North Hempstead, while Mandell said villages should also align their accounting programs and the language used in their budgets so as not to confuse identifying terms and programs considered for consolidation.
