The Village of Plandome Manor announced and approved a tentative budget for the upcoming fiscal year of $812,875 during its board of trustees meeting Tuesday night.
The board also approved a law that would allow the village to exceed the 2 percent state-mandated tax cap if necessary even though the budget total would keep the village within the 2 percent cap.
“We have absolutely no intention of going over the tax cap,” Village of Plandome Mayor Barbara Donno said.
The village will hold a public hearing at its next board of trustees meeting April 16, where it will vote on the 2013-14 budget.
To maintain the 2 percent tax cap increase, the village would have to raise a total of $588,350 in property taxes, according to the village’s working budget document.
The village would use $224,525 in total revenue to maintain the 2 percent increase.
Village Treasurer Valerie Giacinto said that based on the village’s cash on hand at the beginning of the current fiscal year, its current year-to-date usage of funds as well as the anticipated cash flow in the final few months of the year, the board anticipates a budget surplus of $345,000 by year’s end and has appropriated $50,000 of it toward next year’s budget.
Giacinto said the increase in the tentative budget deals primarily with prospective building fees and permits for housing projects in the coming year.
“We’re trying to keep the budget down, we have every intention of keeping the budget down,” Donno said. “Our trustees have gone line by line on that [drafted] budget and we have cut where we have had to cut, but we have services to provide for all our residents and we want to maintain and improve our infrastructure.”
The village has budgeted $70,000 toward road reconstruction projects for the upcoming year, in an effort to continue work on the village’s infrastructure now that work on Plandome Road, Stony Town Road and The Triangle has been completed.
Donno said the board has reviewed an engineering report that prioritized the needs of “secondary roads” throughout the village, the most pressing being Luquer Road, Elm Sea Lane, and Circle Drive.
“I don’t know whether we can do it all in one year, but we’re going to start addressing this infrastructure, we have to,” Donno said. “It’s aging, it’s deteriorating, and it’s time that these roads be addressed.”
One of the largest increases in the tentative budget is in the $130,000 set aside for the village’s garbage program, $34,000 more than the $96,000 budgeted for the 2012-13 fiscal year.
The village’s current garbage contract with Meadow Carting expires at the end of May, and Donno said the board has already begun hearing bids for the next contract.
“We re addressing our garbage situation,” Donno said. “It shouldn’t be that high, and we don’t expect the final number to be that high.”
