Slight tax rate hike in Glen Cove budget

Glen Cove's proposed 2012 budget would reduce the number of city employees while slightly increasing spending and boosting the residential tax rate by three-quarters of 1 percent.

The City Council will hold a hearing Tuesday night on Mayor Ralph Suozzi's proposed $46.5 million spending plan. It represents an increase of 0.53 percent from this year's approved budget.

With the amount of taxes to be collected increasing to $28.7 million from $28.5 million, the residential tax rate will go from 63.1 cents per $100 of assessed valuation to 63.6 cents, a 0.75-percent increase. The commercial property tax rate will rise from $1.75 to $1.80, a 2.61-percent increase. The owner of an average home in the city, assessed at $467,000, will pay $2,968.90 in property taxes, an increase of $22.20.

Total city salary costs would increase by $224,832, to $14.1 million. Suozzi said employee health care costs are up 11 percent and pension costs under the state coverage plan increased 33 percent, for a total increase of more than $1.5 million.

But the current number of employees -- 180 -- will drop to 172 by the end of next year through attrition. Depending on the outcome of negotiations with the police union on reducing the department's costs by $250,000, Suozzi said the department might lose two employees.

"We're saving $750,000 in debt service next year because we've shrunk the outstanding debt by borrowing less," said Suozzi, a Democrat, who is seeking his fourth two-year term next month. Debt service will drop from 21 percent of the budget to 19 percent next year.

Suozzi's Republican opponent, Paul Meli, said, "If history is any indicator, we can expect the same damaging overestimating of revenues and underestimating of expenses as we have continually seen in Glen Cove. It appears at first glance that even based on the mayor's projections, there will be an operating deficit for 2011, meaning that we once again spent, at a minimum, hundreds of thousands more than we took in last year."

Suozzi said "we paid back $7.4 million in debt this year and the city borrowed $3.3 million, so we shrunk the debt by almost $4.5 million this year. We're borrowing less and we're spending less."

Because the city has been operating under deficit financing, it was required to submit the budget to the state comptroller's office last month. Suozzi said the agency is scheduled to give the city its comments this week.

The comptroller has criticized the city for not putting money into the budget to cover successful grievances on property assessments. This year the budget includes $100,000 for that purpose, Suozzi said.