North Hempstead plans to use some revenue to fund raises for town's nonunion staff

North Hempstead Town officials have tweaked the proposed 2019 budget — including adding raises for nonunion employees — and now appear ready to approve the spending plan on Thursday.

During a budget hearing, Acting Comptroller Jessica Lamendola said the town recently sold two bonds. The sale is added to the budget as additional revenue, Lamendola said at the Friday hearing. 

Town spokeswoman Carole Trottere said the raises are being funded with revenue from a tax levy, sales tax and mortgage taxes. The raises total an extra $205,487. Nonunion employees, on average, will see a 1.8 percent increase to their salary, plus a one-time payment that's equal to 1.5 percent of the employee's salary. 

"We had agreed that our nonunion employees would be getting raises that would be consistent with the increases that were negotiated with the town's union employees last year," said Supervisor Judi Bosworth.

Bosworth is proposing a $133.3 million budget that is a 2.9 percent increase over the current spending plan. The proposed budget stays below the state-mandated tax cap and has no service cuts or layoffs, town officials said. The budget would allocate $68.6 million to the general fund, $37 million to the town outside-village fund and $27.7 million for the town's 20 special districts. The proposed budget would increase the general fund tax levy by 2.16 percent and boost the outside-of-village fund by 3.18 percent.

Aside from raises, town officials made adjustments regarding Harbor Links Golf Course, Michael J. Tully Park and Manorhaven Beach Park. 

The revenue projected for Harbor Links Golf Course next year has been reduced by $145,000, Bosworth said, because the town is eliminating extra fees at the facility. 

The town is also reducing its environmental facilities contractual services by $250,000. Bosworth said the town planned to spend $250,000 to create and mail information to residents about the best way to recycle waste. Town officials will instead depend on a grant for that effort. 

The budget allocates an additional $150,000 for the salaries of seasonal and part-time employees at Tully and Manorhaven.

"We believe these increases allow the budget to be more reasonable for the parks department," Lamendola said, adding that the comptroller's office doesn't anticipate any other material changes before Thursday. 

Due to incorrect information from North Hempstead Town officials and a production error, a previous version of this story misstated the revenue source for the nonunion staff raises.