Huntington town board approves 2019 budget with 2.5% tax increase

The Huntington town board narrowly approved the 2019 operating budget, which raises taxes 2.53 percent.

At the Nov. 20 board meeting, town Supervisor Chad Lupinacci said his proposed $199.7 million budget stayed within the state-mandated tax cap. He also cited the town’s recent AAA bond rating as a reaffirmation of Huntington’s fiscal health.

Councilwoman Joan Cergol offered an amendment to the proposed budget that would have cut some appointed personnel positions to save more than $800,000. It also would have eliminated some new fees for applications, including moorings and recreational identification cards.

“The taxpayer gets a double whammy” with the tax hike and “imposition of user fees,” she said at the meeting.

Councilman Mark Cuthbertson also criticized Lupinacci's budget for the appointed personnel positions, which he said were patronage jobs created last summer to reward the Republican supervisor's political backers. Cuthbertson and Cergol are Democrats.

"I had concerns in August when many of these confidential positions, patronage positions, were added and they have to get paid for somehow," Cuthbertson said.

Cergol and Cuthbertson voted in favor of her amendment, while Lupinacci and council members Ed Smyth and Eugene Cook voted against the amendment. Smyth is a Republican and Cook an Independent.

Cergol then offered another amendment with less drastic cuts, but the new measure lacked a second backer and was not brought to a vote. Lupinacci, Smyth and Cook then voted in favor of Lupinacci's proposed budget. Cergol and Cuthbertson voted against it.

The new budget is 2.8 percent more than the current $194.2 million budget and raises taxes $49 a year for the average homeowner. Although the state-mandated tax cap is set at 2 percent for next year's budgets, the town was able to carry over $371,000 in savings from 2018, which combined with a tax base growth factor of $407,000, accounts for the additional 0.54 percent permissible levy growth over the tax cap, town officials have said.

“We believe we owe it to our residents to be fiscally responsible and hold down costs wherever we can,” Cergol said in a news release after the vote.

The board also voted unanimously, 5-0, in favor of the 2019 capital budget. The $15.7 million plan includes $1.6 million in funding to update plant facilities in the Dix Hills Water District, $650,000 for a new spray park at Manor Park, and $2.5 million for the new Conte Community Center in Huntington Station.