Budget hearing proposes 3.78 percent tax hike for village residents

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During a public hearing to discuss next year’s tentative village budget, Malverne mayor Patti Ann McDonald announced a proposed tax increase of 3.78 percent to the dismay of several attendees who have often voiced the village is not doing enough to save tax payers money.

“It is not realistic for this village to be within the two percent tax cap,” said McDonald. “We are not a Freeport, a Rockville Centre, or a Valley Stream. There should be some type of formula for villages like us.” The 2015-16 tax cap for villages with a fiscal year ending May 31 is 1.68 percent.

Going above the cap in the future may ultimately affect many residents from receiving a tax rebate via Cuomo’s property tax circuit breaker proposal, which is currently sitting with the legislature. The proposal aims to provide tax rebates for those with a household income of $250,000 or less who pay more than six percent of their income in real estate taxes.

According to the mayor, to keep village taxes under Cuomo’s cap would require village employee layoffs, and doing away with village services like its police department and Department of Public Works.

If that were done, village officials say, taxes may still stay the same. According to comments made by Trustee John O’Brien, “Take Massapequa and Wantagh – neither are villages and their taxes are the same as here,” said O’Brien. “They don’ t have their own police and DPW. They have county police, and if you call county police you can wait 25-30 minutes — let’s hope it’s not an emergency — yet their taxes are exactly the same.”

Several residents suggested that village officials should “think outside the box” by forming consortiums with other villages, for example, which can jointly bid on services and goods needed by all. Village Clerk Theresa Emmel said the concept had been tried in the past by other villages and was unsuccessful because the consortium couldn’t get a competitive enough bid to cover the variety of needs of all the villages. Other resident-proposed ideas included online payment of resident’s taxes and parking tickets, outsourcing accounting functions, raising village employee insurance deductibles, and soliciting bids on village services

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