Oceanside, Island Park Libraries face small tax increases in new budgets

Both the Oceanside and Island Park Libraries have record low tax increases in their budgets for the 16-17 year due to the state tax levy.

In Oceanside, the tax levy is going to be $4.65 million. This is a $30,714 increase — or .70 percent — within the $4.65 million budget. That’s about $5 per household.

Since 2012, the state tax cap has limited municipal tax increases to approximately 2 percent or the rate of inflation, whichever is lower. Factors such as existing debt and Payments in Lieu of Taxes also help determine the cap. This year, the rate of inflation is .12 percent, the lowest since the law took effect. 

“There’s no way to do this unless you get funding from the government, aid or a private funding source,” said Karen Porcella, director of the Oceanside Library. “So it’s very hard this year. I stayed within the limit, and just barely under the limit.”

Porcella said the library has increasing personnel costs, in part due to state mandated benefit increases, the state-mandated increase in the minimum wage and increased staffing overall due to more people using the library, especially when it comes to community programs.

“We have added this year,” said Porcella. “We will be increasing community oriented programming. We added a second Long Island Children’s Museum pass. We had to get a second pass because we were turning people away — it’s so popular.”

Oceanside is spending less on media and physical books, since circulation is down in both categories. E-books are very popular though. The library has added a Sesame Street e-book and a job search database.

Island Park has a very small tax levy of $1.28 million — an increase $1,540 or .12 percent in its almost $1.32 million budget. That comes out to 50 cents per household.

“In the tax cap environment, basically what you do is kind of hold the line,” said Jessica Koenig, director of the Island Park Library. “We have wonderful programs… and will be continuing with all of that.”

Koenig said that the line for library staff salaries has gone down because when people have left, they have been replaced with people who work fewer hours. Nevertheless, health insurance costs increase, which has driven that line up.

She said the library has restored the sixth session to its popular exercise programs, and added Chilton, an online database for car repair.

The biggest increase within the budget is maintenance and repair — from $34,000 to $53,000 this year. Koenig said that based on past experience, the current year’s budget was overly optimistic and did not allow for the unexpected, such as difficult snow removal.

You can view the full budgets at the libraries respective websites: oceansidelibrary.com and islandparklibrary.org. Residents will vote on the library budgets on May 17, along with their school district budgets.