Proposed $320M Oyster Bay budget boosts spending, salaries, but not taxes in 2023 

The Town of Oyster Bay has scheduled hearings for Tuesday on a proposed 2023 budget that would increase spending but keep taxes flat.

Spending would increase next year to $319.9 million, compared to $311.6 million in the adopted 2022 budget. The town would continue a trend of paying more to workers, with salary expenses rising to $97.2 million from the current $93.4 million in the amended 2022 budget.

“Despite the national economy experiencing the highest inflation rate in 40 years, this is the fifth consecutive tax freeze budget proposed by my administration,” Supervisor Joseph Saladino said at an Oct. 4 town board meeting. “Five years in a row, no increase in taxes.”

Town spending has increased under Saladino, rising from $284.1 million in the adopted 2017 budget that he inherited when he was appointed to the office to replace then-Supervisor John Venditto. If the 2023 budget is adopted, spending on salaries will have risen by 26.2% compared to the $77 million in the 2017 budget.

The trend of increasing spending while keeping flat the tax levy subject to the state tax cap has been possible in part because of an 11.5% tax hike adopted in 2016 under Venditto. It was intended to eliminate an accumulated deficit that, according to the town’s 2020 audited financial statements, was $23.4 million in 2016.

The town’s overall tax levy, which consists of more than two dozen individual levies and does not include levies for special districts with semi-autonomous governance structures, rose from $210.1 million in 2016 to $234.4 million in 2017 and has stayed around $233 million in subsequent years, according to an August bond prospectus.

That increase was sufficient to eliminate the deficit in two years, but taxes have generally remained at the same level, creating budget surpluses.

To balance the budget even when revenues could be expected to exceed spending, the town has adopted spending plans that underestimate certain revenues, such as state aid, that then become surpluses in those funds.

“We want to underestimate our revenues and possibly overestimate our expenses,” town finance director Robert Darienzo said at an Oct. 20, 2020, budget hearing, describing Oyster Bay’s approach to generating surpluses, according to a transcript.

For example, the adopted 2020 budget estimated the town would receive $2.1 million in mortgage tax revenue from the state, but the actual revenue came in at $15.4 million, according to town budget documents.

“We do collect on average on a typical year ... $10 [million] to $12 million in mortgage tax,” Darienzo said at the Oct. 20, 2020, hearing.

The actual taxes property owners pay depends on where the property is and which tax levies apply to it. One levy that has increased in recent years and would continue to increase in the 2023 budget proposal is parking district taxes. The budget proposal would increase the levy to $9.8 million from $8.5 million in the current budget.