Supervisor Gillen proposes budget compromise

Jed Hendrixson
Hempstead Town Supervisor Laura Gillen at a press conference prior to the budget hearing where she addressed less savings. (Photo by Jed Hendrixson)

Hempstead Town Supervisor Laura Gillen proposed a compromise 2019 town budget including tax cuts at a news conference on Tuesday.

Gillen’s proposal came a week after she ripped the Town Board for approving a tentative $432.5 million budget during a meeting on Oct. 15. Gillen’s largest concern stems from the council’s proposed savings of around $8 million through anticipating the retirement of 100 employees and failing to budget for vacancies that may occur as a result.

“What they’re saying they’re cutting is actually just guessing that 100 employees will retire at the beginning of the year,” Gillen said.

The practice of budgeting less money premised on the guess of retirement savings is not prudent nor fiscally sound, especially when those employees will require contractually obligated separation pay, Gillen said.

Gillen said her office reached out to the New York state retirement service, which said that 100 town employees were not in line to retire this year.

“It’s not actually savings,” Gillen said. “It’s just bringing the number down without having the actual deduction in spending.”

“I cannot fundamentally agree to it,” Gillen said. “We can not leverage our financial future on this unproven premise.”

“If the board can agree with me on this issue I think all the other items and changes can be addressed rationally and in cooperative fashion,”  Gillen said.

Both Gillen’s and the Town Board’s proposed budgets call for an additional $14 million in spending for contractual and legal obligations, Gillen said.

Gillen has also cut an additional $2 million in spending from the budget in her proposed amendments.

In a statement posted to Twitter following Gillen’s news conference, Councilwoman Erin King Sweeney, the board majority leader, said: “Today, Supervisor Gillen took an important step in the budget process, reversing the $2 million tax increase contained in her original budget proposal for 2019.

“Encouraged by this step, all the council members, Democrat and Republican, are eager to advance the budget dialogue with the Supervisor.”

Sweeney also said that she invited Gillen to a mutually convenient meeting, but has not heard back as of yet.

Gillen also asked the council to reconsider a proposal to cut public notices from local newspapers.

“Not only does it go against our town’s code, which clearly states that hearings need to be noticed in papers that are widely circulated,” Gillen said, it goes against the very spirit of transparency that we all claim to support.”

The council’s town budget proposes to cut $500,000 from the mailing budget and use the town’s website and the Long Island Business News to publish notices for hearings.

“Local residents deserve notice of upcoming hearings,” Gillen said.

A vote to finalize the town budget is scheduled for Oct. 30.

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