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Mostly Cloudy Village offers $53.4M spending plan for fiscal year 2024
Budget to pierce tax cap, increase taxes $26 more a month
The Village of Rockville Centre is considering a $53.4 million budget for the 2024 fiscal year. At a public hearing on April 3, village Comptroller Dennis Morgan shared a brief overview of the proposed spending plan for the coming year, detailing some of the major assumptions driving up costs.
“The budget for fiscal 2024 was a challenging one to prepare due to the cost increases that are being felt nationwide,” Morgan said. “We have labored to find a balance between tax increases and the use of fund balance reserves to mitigate the tax burden on our residents.”
As a result of the rising costs of state health insurance, contractual salary increases for unionized employees, worker’s compensation insurance increases, and inflation, Morgan said, it would be “financially responsible” for the village to pierce the 2 percent tax cap mandated by the state by an additional 2.9 percent. “All of these factors have placed significant financial pressure on the village,” he added.
In total, the tax levy proposed for the 2024 fiscal year is just over $36 million, a 4.9 percent increase over the current year. The increase was calculated using the formula required by the state and includes tax base growth factor and the change in payments in lieu of taxes.
Morgan said that taxes are expected to increase for the average taxpayer by roughly $320 for the year — about $26 more per month.
Revenues are also expected to increase in the next fiscal year, based on real property taxes, departmental income, use of money and property, licenses, permits, fines, forfeitures, state and federal aid, intergovernmental charges, and the sale of property.
“We’re very happy that they’re back to pre-Covid levels,” Morgan told the Herald after the meeting, referring to the various categories of revenue.
Due to the anticipated substantial increase in health insurance costs, worker’s compensation, and interest from borrowing, however, expenses are expected to produce a net deficit of almost $1.7 million in the coming fiscal year.
In order to help mitigate a potentially larger tax increase for residents, the village plans to offset the deficit by allocating $1.7 million from the village fund balance.
“We will continue to look for ways to reduce costs and bring in additional revenue to the village,” Mayor Francis Murray said in a statement, “including being aggressive in pursuing grant money, private/public partnerships, and gifts to make improvements at little expense to our residents.”
The public hearing was scheduled to continue at the mid-monthly meeting on Thursday, at 6 p.m., at Village Hall. Those interested in viewing the proposed spending plan can access it online at RVCNY.gov.
