Bayville vote planned to allow exceeding tax cap

The Bayville Village Board will hold a hearing Monday night on a local law that will allow it to exceed the state’s 2 percent cap on property tax levy increases, if necessary, in its 2012 budget.

“It’s a tool,” Mayor Doug Watson said. “It doesn’t mean you have to use it or that we’re looking to exceed 2 percent.” Watson added that “when the two houses of the legislature and the governor passed this law, they gave us this tool that we can vote to override it. So we have to adopt it by resolution.”

He said the New York Conference of Mayors has encouraged municipalities to pass the exemption “just to have it at the ready. The State Legislature’s not going to come down and help us out of a jam.”

The village is just starting to put together its budget and will present a preliminary document before a public hearing and then adopt the final budget in April. The hearing is at 7:45 p.m. at Village Hall, 34 School St.