White Plains Passes Budget, City Taxes to Rise 4.9%

White Plains residents will see their City tax bills rise an average of $124.35 per household, or 4.9 percent, to fund the 2011-12 budget—unanimously adopted by the White Plains Common Council at a special meeting Thursday.

“No one will ever say taxes are low in our area,” said White Plains Mayor Tom Roach. “We are relatively low [compared to other municipalities in the area].”

The property tax rate is $176.11 per thousand dollars of assessed value—setting the tax bill for the average home assessed at $15,000 at $2,641.65. This represents an additional $8.29 per thousand dollars of assessed value more last year's tax rate of $167.82.

The total budget is up 3.6 percent over last year’s budget at $160.5 million, largely due to mandated increases in pension and health insurance costs.

“I’m very proud to say we have not bonded for these costs in the current year, as has been done in the past,” said Councilman John Martin. “We can’t pass this onto our children as debt.”

Though the City faces a $1.3 million reduction in its assessment, and a $350,000 reduction in mortgage tax revenue—the City managed to reduce the originally proposed tax rate increase of 6.7 percent by making budget cuts and finding additional savings.

The youth bureau’s youth employment program will offer 20 to 25 less jobs due to cuts. Roach has been actively talking to local business to see if they can offer jobs to fill this gap. Click for that story, and to read about U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s efforts to boost youth employment.

The City also saved by realizing reduced interest rates; reduced garbage tipping fees, because of increased recycling; leaving unfilled positions vacant; electricity conservation; and not making certain purchases like a car for the mayor.

The 2011-12 spending plan will raise overtime parking fees to $10 in all of the City’s parking garages and increase parking permit fees up to 20 percent.

“Everyone hates parking,” said Councilman Benjamin Boykin. “Parking permit fees and tickets is the third largest revenue in the general fund budget. These fees have not been increased in years.”

Council members said the City will aim to make it easier to pay for parking and prevent getting a ticket by listing the directions to add time and pay for parking by cell phone on the back of parking receipts, as well as add a pay station at the library.

“It has been a hard last couple of years and we’ve made some extremely hard choices,” said Councilman Dennis Power. “Thank goodness we made some of those choices before to put ourselves on a fiscally prudent path."

Power was referring to initiatives the City has undertaken like creating the Contingency and Tax Stabilization Fund, which places sales tax into a fund to offset tax increases. The City used $407,377 of the fund to offset the tax rate.

Though the City’s four bargaining units have not agreed to new contracts—the budget does not have funds for employee raises. Along with the budget, council members also passed an ordinance that allows the mayor to “de-fund and/or re-allocate” $1.5 million in salaries and benefits.

“It’s [not having contracts negotiated before the budget is passed] certainly a concern,” said Finance Commissioner Michael Genito. “It’s not a problem until negotiations don’t work.”

Councilman Beth Smayda noted that even with a state mandated 2 percent tax cap (which was not in effect for the 2011-12 budget) the City’s budget would come in under the tax cap, since cap provisions allow pension costs to be omitted.

Though Roach said there was a lot of talk in Albany about the tax cap—he said there wasn’t enough talk about reducing unfunded mandates, like pension costs, which municipalities and school districts blame for the bulk of escalating taxes. He urged resident to contact their state legislators to advocate for the reduction of unfunded mandates.

“The council takes very seriously this important job of passing a budget that responsibly funds needed city services—and also pays attention to and understands the economical hardship that property tax increases place on the families of White Plains,” said Councilman David Buchwald. “We would very much like to have a property tax increase that is lower than 4.9 percent.”

Like Buchwald, Councilwoman Milagros Lecuona said that she supported the budget “because I don’t think, at the present time [considering economic restrictions], we could have done better.”

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