The Peconic Bay Community Preservation Fund raked in $7.68 million in September, continuing what has been a steady monthly flow in the $7 million-to-$10 million range this year. By comparison, CPF revenues for September 2013 totaled $6.16 million for the five East End towns.
In fact, revenues for the first nine months of the year now total $71.82 million, an 11-percent leap above the $64.7 million raised in the first nine months of 2013. Notably, 2013 was the second-highest revenue producer since the preservation fund’s founding in 1999, bested only by 2007.
“At the three-quarter-year mark, CPF revenues are on track to produce more than $95 million, the highest annual total since 2007, before the Great Recession,” State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. said in a press release.
Since its inception, the CPF has generated a total of $956.56 million in the five towns, $102.57 million of that in the last 12 months.
Southampton Town continues to have the highest revenue total of the five East End towns, pulling in $42.24 million during the first nine months of 2014, compared to $37.41 million in the same period last year—an increase of almost 13 percent. East Hampton Town holds steady at second, with $21.36 million, a 2.1-percent increase over the $20.92 million collected in the first nine months of 2013.
Next comes Southold Town, with $4.05 million—an almost 36-percent increase over its tally of $2.98 million from January through September of last year.
Riverhead Town ranks fourth in the five-town tally, but has seen the highest increase—a 49.7-percent rise, from $1.77 million to $2.65 million, in the two nine-month periods. Shelter Island Town tallied $1.52 million over the same time period, which is a 5.5-percent decrease from revenues of $1.61 million in the first nine months of 2013.