Proposed Pleasantville Budget an Increase, Within Cap

Heading into the 2013-14 fiscal year, Pleasantville Village Administrator Patricia Dwyer said, "We are in a pretty good place. To the extent that we could manage our affairs, things are fairly stable here."

Dwyer said the village's staff went into the budget planning season with the intention of staying beneath the state-mandated "tax cap."

"Unless directed otherwise, that's the law," she stated. "I felt the staff and I were obligated to present a budget that stays within the cap."

The village is proposing a $13,493,241 general fund in the coming fiscal year, of which $500,000 would come from the village's fund balance.

An additional $9,662,342 of the total would come from taxes—representing a 2.72 percent tax rate increase over the current year's budgeted amount or a 2.14 actual tax levy increase "when factoring in exclusions allowed for growth and pension escalations," according to Dwyer.

View the .pdf to the right to see the village's tax rate calculations.

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"We are still constrained by extraordinary pension obligations and we are still contained by escalations in other types of fringes such as workers' compensation insurance," she shared. "Those costs have escalated over the past few years."

But the village, she said, is "lucky" that it will still have about $1,208,616 in its reserves if the budget is adopted as is.

"That's substantial considering what this tax cap has done in other communities," Dwyer said.

Yet the increasing costs and mandates have made it all but impossible for the board to fulfill its fiscal goals, including financing capital projects with cash versus creating debt.

"Our objective is to manage the village in such a way that we don't diminish the capacity that provides good services," Dwyer asserted. "We have to be as efficient as we need to be and sensitive to the economics behind that."

Sorting out the public's priorities is an ongoing conversation for the village, she added.

"We have a very active and engaged and interested community," she said.

And the community will have another opportunity to weigh in on the budget and tax cap during the board of trustee's Monday, April 8 meeting, which will include a budget presentation by Dwyer and a public hearing on the tax cap.

Coming up, the village anticipates needing to make upgrades to the water plant and system; something that may require increasing water rates. And the village plans to increase the refuse tax rate to $416.36/year from $408/year for single-family units.

The preliminary budget does accommodate the addition of one more police officer, Dwyer said.

"That's the only change in the work force that we anticipate other than people retiring and moving on," she said. "We have had some opportunities to affect some changes and scales and pay structures," including through the new Civil Service Employees Union (CSEA) and Police Benevolent Association (PBA) contracts negotiated in the past year.

The village is optimistic about its financial future, Dwyer said.

"That's due to the things that come up as a consequence of development," she pointed out, citing Zwilling J.A. Henckel's major investment on Marble Avenue as a positive indicator of the street's commercial base.

"We have a high degree of confidence that we are on sound fiscal footing for the next several years," she stated.