Southampton Town officials ready proposed budget for next year

Town officials were working around the clock this week to meet a Wednesday deadline for assembling a 2010 budget that will raise taxes while cutting spending on staff, materials and consultants in hopes of covering multimillion-dollar deficits.

Supervisor Linda Kabot and aides were holed up in Town Hall over the weekend searching for at least $4.5 million in cuts. The supervisor was due to submit a tentative budget to the town clerk sometime on Wednesday—the deadline is 11:59 p.m.—that will likely include a tax increase and layoffs. The 2009 budget totalled $82.5 million.

Ms. Kabot said that next year’s budget will be the toughest since 1992, when town revenues were severely cramped by a nationwide economic recession.

The tentative budget will call for a tax hike of at least 5 percent—the maximum allowed under the town’s tax cap law—which would raise the tax rate by 6 cents, from $1.32 to $1.38 per $1,000 of assessed valuation. That will mark the second year in a row that the town has raised taxes to the cap limit. With the increase, owners of property assessed at $500,000 would see their annual town tax bill increase by $30, up from $660 to $690.

“There will be tax rate increases,” Ms. Kabot said. “It will be within the cap.”

Still, Ms. Kabot said she will continue to call for an amendment to the town’s tax cap law to pay off old debt in the capital budget, which is estimated to be $10 million in the hole. If the Town Board approves altering the tax cap law, taxpayers would see a separate line on their property tax bills for paying down the capital fund debt.

“I’m still asking for it because we have debts to pay back,” Ms. Kabot said.

In addition to payroll cuts, youth programs and community grants will also be axed to save money.

“There are going to be cutbacks in programs, there are going to be cutbacks to how much we give in grants,” the supervisor said. “These are tough times, and difficult decisions have to be made.”

Some town services including the animal shelter may also be privatized. “It is likely that the town will move forward with privatization of the animal shelter,” Ms. Kabot said. “What’s mandated you have to have ... but you don’t have to have an animal shelter.”

The Town Board is expected to review the tentative budget at a special meeting on Friday, October 2. It must consider any budget amendment resolutions and adopt the 2010 budget and capital plan by November 20.

A major bone of contention in next year’s budget has been spending on employees, which will decrease next year, Ms. Kabot said.

Department heads have requested $53.4 million in employee payroll spending for next year, compared to $57.5 million for this year, Ms. Kabot said. Payroll spending includes health insurance, dental, longevity pay, workers compensation, among other things. If Ms. Kabot upholds the payroll requests, total payroll spending would be slightly below 2008 levels of $53.8 million.

As of Tuesday, Ms. Kabot confirmed that layoffs are likely, but she declined to discuss the extent of them.

This year there was funding for 563 full-time employees, compared to 559 full-time employees in 2008. In addition, at least 31 full-time vacancies created this year due to a hiring freeze will probably go unfilled next year.

To help avoid layoffs, Ms. Kabot is pursuing a plan to offer early retirement incentives to at least 40 town employees. The incentives would offer employees, who are eligible for retirement, payments of $500 for each year they were employed by Southampton Town, Ms. Kabot said.

“This is not a list from Santa Claus,” Ms. Kabot said, referring to a list of employees eligible for the early retirement incentives.

To help reduce spending, Ms. Kabot said salaries will be frozen for elected officials and department heads. The salary freeze may even extend to rank-and-file employees, Ms. Kabot said. Town spending on health insurance premiums is expected to increase by at least 6 percent next year. Under this year’s budget, Civil Service Employee Association workers received a 2-percent pay raise after the union initially requested a 2.5-percent increase. The union represents about 300 full-time employees.

“That’s really like your salary went up,” Ms. Kabot said. “The 6-percent increase in health insurance premiums, I’m going to argue, is sufficient compromise.”

Ms. Kabot met with CSEA leaders on Thursday, September 24, to discuss spending options that will affect employees. CSEA President Pete Collins did not immediately return a call for comment, and Director of Human Resources and Personnel Dawn Tuttle deferred all questions to the supervisor.