Council approves $84.6M budget
Spending plan includes 1.2% tax cut for homeowners
The City Council voted unanimously on Tuesday to approve an $84.6 million budget for fiscal 2014-15, which includes a slight reduction to the proposed 1 percent tax cut that was floated on May 6.
Last year’s $83.4 million budget raised taxes by 1.5 percent, but City Manager Jack Schnirman said earlier this month that the proposed spending plan would reduce taxes on the average home by $27, to $2,876.
On Tuesday, Schnirman said that officials went back to the drawing board to find additional cost-savings by further reducing discretionary spending to come up with a 1.2 percent reduction in taxes, and explained that the spending plan now reduces taxes on the average home by $34.48, and eases the burden on residents.
The budget amendments came after Council Vice President Fran Adelson and Councilman Anthony Eramo had asked Schnirman to also find ways to eliminate a number of increased fees in the proposed budget — especially for those residents who remain displaced by Hurricane Sandy — including a $100 increase in sanitation fees that had not been raised in four years.
Schnirman said that residents who remain displaced can request a waiver to avoid the increase in sanitation fees, and said that water and sewer fees will remain flat.
“In this budget, we see the water and sewer rate for those using the minimum, those will remain flat, and the only increases will be for folks who use a lot of water,” Schnirman said.
The city was able to achieve the tax cut, Schnirman said, mainly due to a $12 million borrowing measure signed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo in February to help Long Beach cover Hurricane Sandy costs and the remainder of a $14 million deficit — a figure recently certified by the State Comptroller’s office — left over from the previous administration that led officials to declare a fiscal crisis two years ago. The measure will allow the city to issue serial bonds to pay down the remainder of the 2011-12 deficit over 10 years.
The bill, Schnirman said, also allows the city to eliminate a three-year deficit surcharge that appeared on residents’ tax bills in 2012 a year early.
