Babylon's tentative $176M budget hikes taxes 4%, pierces state cap

The Town of Babylon is raising taxes by 4% and piercing the state tax cap with its preliminary budget for 2023.

The $175.9 million proposed budget increases by 3.9% over last year’s amended budget of $169.3 million. Those with an average assessed property valuation of $3,486 living in areas outside of the three villages would see an annual increase in property taxes of $73.63. Those living in the villages would have a $25 increase.

Tax rates remain flat for all of the funds with the exception of the residential garbage fund, which increases by $25 and the part-town fund, which would increase by $46.81. The part-town fund includes the departments of public safety, building and planning and development.

Babylon officials attributed the tax hike to inflation, contractual salary obligations and an increased push by the town to beef up its public safety and planning departments.

“It’s going to be money well spent,” said Town Supervisor Rich Schaffer. “It’s going toward public safety, quality of life, and increasing development and redevelopment opportunities for job creation and expanding our tax base.”

A public hearing on the budget will be held Thursday.

The town is adding three full-time park rangers to its staff and six positions to its planning department.

Schaffer said the park rangers, of which the town now has five, have been “dealing with the quality-of-life issues that Suffolk police aren’t necessarily able to get to but that hurt our community,” such as obtaining search warrants for nuisance homes where illegal activity has occurred.

The planning department is seeing projects once-stalled by the COVID-19 pandemic now beginning to take shape, officials said. Growing these two departments to meet need has been the “only real challenge” this budget season, said town Comptroller Victoria Marotta.

“The challenge was trying to balance it and seeing what we could cut, but ultimately only being able to cut so much and not being able to apply fund balance to keep it at a fiscally sound level,” she said.

The only other “hiccup” was health insurance costs, for which double-digit rate increases are estimated, Marotta said. Revenues hurt by the pandemic have largely rebounded, she said, and the town is using $4.6 million in surplus monies to help offset all budget increases.

“We’re very targeted and specific in why we’re doing the increase and we believe the town will benefit from the increase because of what it’s going to accomplish in those areas,” Schaffer said.  

The hearing is at 3:30 p.m. at Town Hall in Lindenhurst.

By Denise M. Bonilla

denise.bonilla@newsday.comdenisebonilla

Denise Bonilla has worked at Newsday since 2003 and covers the Town of Babylon, including the villages of Lindenhurst and Amityville.