East Hampton proposes double-digit tax cut

Debt-ridden East Hampton has proposed a 2011 town budget that calls for a tax cut of 17.7 percent, by far the highest of any town on Long Island.

The proposed budget of $63,671,719 is more than 11 percent lower than the current figure of $71,719,439.

The reductions, supervisor Bill Wilkinson said, were achieved by cutting 34 workers - nearly 10 percent of the town's workforce - reorganizing departments to eliminate some high-paying administrative positions, and switching to a zero-based budget system that required every department head to justify spending based on current needs.

The payroll savings alone, he said, amounted to $4 million.

The tax cut proposed by East Hampton - which has been forced to borrow $30 million to deal with debt created by mismanagement of officials no longer in office - is more than three times larger percentagewise than the 5.02 percent proposed in Babylon.

In Southampton, Supervisor Anna Throne Holst on Friday proposed a $79,790,644 budget - more than $2 million less than the current $82,077,702. The proposed budget calls for a tax increase of about 2.5 percent. The money from that tax increase, about $2 million, will be earmarked to retire about $2 million of the town's $5-million debt.

Like East Hampton, Southampton Town has frozen new hirings and is consolidating several departments. It has cut about 20 people from its workforce and also plans service reductions such as closing the town's recycling center one additional day a week and cutting back on operating a satellite office for the town clerk in Hampton Bays from five to three days a week.