Riverhead projected to lose $1M in revenue because of pandemic

Riverhead officials are considering not filling vacant positions and holding off on equipment purchases for town departments after early projections show that the town may lose an estimated $1 million in building-related revenues this year due to the coronavirus pandemic.

William Rothaar, the town’s financial administrator, told the town board at its Thursday work session that his office is anticipating a shortfall in building and planning revenues because of the state halting construction projects.

Most of the expected lost revenue is from building, planning and zoning, and town officials are also expecting mortgage tax, fines and forfeited bail to be down from their budgeted amounts, Rothaar said Friday.

“As you can imagine, it is hard to predict how long this will continue and how fast we can recover, so we will be continually updating our projections,” he said. 

To help the town make up that deficit, Rothaar suggested officials could save up to $400,000 by not filling 10 vacant positions for the time being. While the town has not yet determined which positions are essential, none of the vacancies are for police or public safety dispatchers, Rothaar said.

He added that the town could save another $400,000 by holding off on spending on equipment for town departments this year.

Regarding the remaining $200,000, Rothaar recommended that the town put discretionary spending or spending on consultants on hold “until we know where we are.”

“I’m hoping that that, at least at this point, will fill that gap,” he said. “But once again, we have to go through this on a weekly basis to see where we are because things are going to change as we go along. Hopefully, the sooner we come out of this and everyone else starts working, there won’t be too many delinquent taxes and the county will be able to make us whole on that, but we won’t know that for several weeks or until time goes on.”

Riverhead Supervisor Yvette Aguiar said those recommendations were in line with what other Long Island municipalities have been doing since the outbreak of COVID-19.

“We need to take action, and collectively with the board, we will make some adjustments to the budget and from now on, we need to move forward with this,” Aguiar said.