Public Hearing on City Council's 2012 Budget Proposal Tonight

The Peekskill city council's $36 million budget proposal for 2012 was released this weekend. It would raise the tax levy by 2.4 percent, which is 1 percent less than the would have raised the levy.

The average Peekskill homeowner would pay about $77-$92 more under the council’s proposed $35,986,960 million budget. For exact numbers on how much your property tax would be increased see the chart at the end of this article.

(The city manager’s proposed budget reported that the average homeowner would pay $75-$90 more in taxes, even though that budget proposed a higher increase in taxes. Those numbers were inaccurate, as the comptroller made an error while calculating the decrease in assessed value of homes.)

The council's proposal would also fill three currently vacant positions and add two new positions. A Director of Public Works/City engineer position and a human resources position would be created. A parks foreman would be transferred from the Planning Department to the Parks Department. Two police officer positions and a mechanical equipment operator position, currently vacant, would be filled.

The city council made the following adjustments to the city manager’s proposal: the council lowered the property tax rate and moved $400,000 that the city manager budgeted for contingencies (money used for arbitrations or possible liabilities) to other areas: management (for the new Human Resources position), Police (to fill the vacant positions) and City Services (for the MEO and Director of Public Works).

While the budget raises taxes 2.4 percent, which is .4 percent above the state’s required 2 percent tax cap, pension costs are excluded from the cap requirement, which means the city stayed within the state’s limit.

The bulk of the increase in taxes is due to rising pension and health care costs that are estimated to cost the city $1.3 million. The budget proposes to take $1.5 million out of the city’s fund balance, which will leave the reserve with $8.8 million. If union contracts and lawsuits are settled and the city runs out of money budgeted for those contingencies, it would need to use its reserve to cover those expenses, according to the city's comptroller.

Increase in Property Taxes:

To read more about the council’s budget proposal, download the PDFs attached to this article. To read more about the city manager’s proposal, presented in October, click .

The public hearing on the council's budget is at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 21 in City Hall.