Feiner’s Greenburgh budget plan features 6-plus% tax rate decrease

Proposing to move courthouse funding of more than $7 million from prior budgets into a designated fund balance account led to removal of that figure from the initial 2023 budget, according to an email Feiner sent to residents, which is why the tax savings went from less than a half percent to more than 6% after Feiner had an auditor look at his numbers prior to submitting them to the town board last week.

Feiner expects to schedule two public hearings on the budget, and town board members have until Dec. 20 to propose changes before voting on it.

“In the past in most instances the board has made minor changes in the budget and I would be surprised if the board would make major changes,” Feiner said. “I think people will be happy with the tax cut. There’s a lot of people who have been very stressed out during the past couple of years. People are living beyond their means, they’re having financial difficulties, and this budget can reduce some of the anxiety that people have.”

In an email to residents, Feiner touted the town’s AAA bond rating for “over a decade” and “extraordinary” services provided by “devoted town staff.”

Despite rising costs due to high inflation, along with salary increases, Feiner credited several key points for the town’s ability to make the cuts without negatively impacting services. Revenue from Regeneron has been crucial, including $6 million in building permits.

“The economic base of the town is expanding,” Feiner said. “Our building department is getting a lot of revenue.”

Feiner estimates collecting $4.5 million in revenue in 2023 from similar fees.

The town also saved on salaries from vacant positions that haven’t been filled.

Feiner said overall municipal services costs are within reason.

“I think the town is pretty well run,” he said. “Obviously there’s room for improvement and we’re going to keep looking to tighten up.”

With the housing market booming since the COVID-19 pandemic, the town collected $4.8 million in mortgage tax last year, but with interest rates rising Feiner said he is being “conservative” in estimating that number will be down to $3.5 million next year.

One of the ways Feiner hopes to achieve that goal is by hiring a director of finance, which he can do under state law.

“I’d like to have more accurate quarterly estimates of where our spending is, how much revenue we’ve taken in, how many expenses,” Feiner said. “We don’t want to overtax people. I want to have a fund balance that stays within the fund balance policy, but we don’t want to have extra money that we don’t need. I want to make sure our estimates are accurate.”

The finance director would also be charged with working on more shared services and labor negotiations.

“I feel very energized and very excited because I feel we’re really going to focus in the next year or so on ways of continuing to tighten up and have even more sharing of services,” Feiner said. “If people are concerned about taxes we have to figure out ways to have less government layers, not more, and more sharing rather than duplication. We definitely could save a lot of money. That’s something I’m definitely going to be working on next year.”

Another function of the job would be to help Feiner “do a better job” with accuracy in calculations. “I have a lot of different ideas for that person,” he said. “Maybe next year we’ll have a fifth year of no tax increase.”

Feiner also wants to focus on being “very aggressive” with collecting back taxes.

There are other additions proposed, including adding four EMTs to the police department for a “safer and more efficient” emergency medical services system, which Feiner believes will be largely or fully covered by insurance company reimbursement. In an email, Feiner said call volume is up and adding staff would “help reduce that demand, facilitating better response times and improved availability to answer emergency EMS calls,” in addition to enhancing mutual aid.

Feiner is also requesting $10,000 for an after-school program for young teens to create shows for the local cable station.

For unincorporated Greenburgh, 15% of total property tax dollars collected go to the town, while the village residents contribute 2% of their tax bill since most of their services are provided by their villages.

In an email to residents, Feiner also noted changes in the assessment role that were “designed to equitably equalize each property owner’s share of the Property Tax Levy.”

“Some residents might see increases in their tax bill, while others will remain the same or see decreases,” he wrote. “It is important to understand that the total amount to be collected will be similar in 2023, as it was in both 2022 and 2021.”

The proposed budget can be found at https://bit.ly/3haGmTm.

The Edgemont effect

In an email to residents, Feiner said the Edgemont Incorporation Committee announced its petition has more than 1,000 signatures, more than is required to submit the petition to incorporate. The email said a successful petition that “complies with NYS law” combined with a vote to incorporate would mean Greenburgh’s budget would be “heavily impacted” and lead to a “hard hit for the town, requiring many changes in fiscal and personnel operations.”

Though it won’t impact the upcoming budget, Feiner said he is looking ahead to the possibility of losing those tax dollars and the potential for working out deals for shared services should Edgemont vote to secede.

“I want to have a plan so if Edgemont decides to break away we have to make sure for unincorporated Greenburgh we have as smooth a transition as possible and we also want to make sure that the unincorporated residents of Greenburgh are being reimbursed for what is owed to us,” Feiner said.

The timeline would depend on when and if the petition is successful and when a referendum happens. If the voters favor incorporation, the 18 months that follow would allow for the town and the new village to transition, Feiner noted.

“If Edgemont voters decided to break away there is some time, not a lot of time, to do negotiations,” he said. “We don’t even know what the board would want to do and what the town would want to do or what the fees would be. I just know that if Edgemont were to break away we would have to put residents of unincorporated Greenburgh first. We would have to be advocates for the unincorporated residents of the town. I feel that if they do break away it’s going to be a lot of work. It’s going to require a lot of financial analysis and we’re going to have to make sure we do this correctly. We’ll have to make sure we’re getting every penny we’re owed [from Edgemont].”