East Hampton Adopts $73 Mil Budget, Below Tax Cap

The East Hampton Town Board unanimously adopted its 2016 budget on Tuesday, approving a spending plan that will mean a 1.7 percent tax rate increase for most residents.

The budget totals $73,783,977, an increase of slightly more than 3-percent over the 2015 budget and about $240,000 higher than the budget originally proposed by Supervisor Larry Cantwell earlier this fall.

Despite the spending increase, the budget also forecasts a nearly 6 percent increase in non-tax revenues up by more than $1.3 million from 2015. Some of that will come from increased building department fees and fine schedules for violations of town ordinances, while forecasts of some state and county grant funding for the hamlet studies to begin this winter also is coming in higher than expected.

Thanks to the revenue increases, and tapping the town’s budget reserves for $1 million, the town is scheduling a 1.8 percent increase to the tax levy, $49.9 million in all. The increase is withing the tax cap mandated by New York State.

The tax rate for residents living outside of incorporated villages will go up by 1.69 percent, to .48 cents per $100 of assessed value. According to estimates by town budget officer Len Bernard, the new rates would mean a tax hike in 2016 of about $34 for the owner of a house with a market value of about $1 million, and $49 for the owner of a $1.5 million home. Residents of the incorporated villages will see tax bill hikes of between $5 and $7 for the year.

The budget includes more than $600,000 for salaries and benefits for three new police officers, a new ordinance enforcement officer, and a new full-time fire marshal, as well as for a town attorney and new building inspector who were hired mid-year in 2015.

Salaries for town employees, 313 in all, comprises some 57 percent of the budget, at $42.4 million. The town has not reached an agreement on a new contract for its 179 civil service employees, after the union rejected an offer by the town, saying it failed to meet the salary hike levels they had expected after taking no raises in their last contract while the town struggled to overcome an economic crisis.

The budget trims the raises that some elected officials will be getting in 2016, from the 2.5 percent Mr. Cantwell had originally proposed, to 2 percent.