Village Board Receives Feedback on Proposed $62.6 mm Budget

Village Trustees are in the process of receiving commentary on the proposed 2022-23 village budget.

The tentative operating budget is $62.6 million and would mean a 3.70% tax increase, translating to a $216 increase for the average homeowner. The increase is greater than last year as the trustees opted to reinvest in the Village’s aging infrastructure and address needs that have been deferred from year to year. The 3.7% increase falls below the NYS tax cap of 4.7%.

The budget letter from the Mayor explains, “This budget recognizes the deleterious effects of long-term deferral of investment needs in order to achieve an artificially low increase in the annual levy; it endeavors to refocus on achieving a state of good repair for our critical assets. Our expenditures must increasingly keep pace with the need to renovate, upgrade, or replace our equipment and infrastructure, as emergency repairs are extraordinarily expensive and service delivery interruptions are not acceptable. Furthermore, using deferral of expenses as a means to balance the budget merely shifts the burden to future budget cycles, fueling the increased likelihood of sharp tax increases once deferral is no longer an option. While staying within the tax cap, we must honor our fiscal stewardship responsibilities and appropriately fund our needs.”

Some of the items funded in the budget are outlined in the graphic below.

Namely, trustees agreed to hire four full time Village employees, including:

-A code enforcement officer to monitor construction noise, leaf blowers and other code violations.

-A full time naturalist at the Weinberg Nature Center to support additional programing.

-A maintenance mechanic for the Scarsdale Pool.

-Tree trimmer for Village wide tree maintenance.

Also in the budget is over $5mm to replace the Village’s fleet including vehicles for the Department of Public Works, anti-icing equipment and police cars.

For those concerned about our roadways, pathways, curbs, sanitary sewers and storm drainage, there is $3.7 million in the budget for road resurfacing, curbing, sewer improvements, storm drainage, culverts and catch basin cleaning.

Funds from the Village’s Parkland Trust will be used to construct eight pickleball courts ($410,000) in response to the growing popularity of the game as well for the replacement of the playground equipment in Greenacres ($40,000).

Part of the plan is to take advantage of current bond rates to issue more bonds to fund capital improvement projects. These include the pool renovations ($15 mm+), vehicle replacement ($1.79mm), transportation and mobility improvements in the Village center ($1 mm) and work at library pond ($235,000).

The Village has created a Citizen’s Budget Brief to explain what you’ll find in this year’s budget. Take a look at it here:

Village managers and trustees spent many hours crafting this budget and designed a new process to create it. According to the Mayor, the budget “strikes a reasonable and fiscally responsible balance between minimizing the tax burden and funding our most urgent priorities.”

However, the Fiscal Affairs Committee of the Scarsdale Forum, which is traditionally a conservative group, issued their report on the proposed budget on March 28, 2022 and was critical of several elements of the plan.

Specifically they objected to the hiring of new full time employees, the increase in capital spending, the use of fund balance to close the gap between expenses and revenues and expansion of debt. They chide Trustees for declining to accept the Forum’s recommendation to eliminate leaf collection, which they contend would have been a cost savings to the Village.

About the new employees, the Forum Committee reports argues that since the Village is unable to control the cost of employees and retirees they should only hire new employees if they eliminate other positions.

The Forum report also raises concerns about the extensive list of capital projects and the funding plan. The Village plans to issue $19.2mm in bonds to pay to rehabilitate the Scarsdale Pool ($15.2mm), improve pedestrian safety in the Village ($1 mm) purchase vehicles ($1.8mm), improve drainage on Catherine Road ($1 mm) and rehabilitate Library Pond ($235,000).

About the list of capital projects, the Forum report says, “The number of projects and the amount of capital spending in the Tentative Budget ($24.9 million) is unprecedented. It seems precipitous to spend so much cash (including the entire ARPA windfall and half the parkland reserve, as well as fund balance) and also plan to double Village debt in what is only the first year of transforming the Village government. Is staff looking for grants to fund some of these projects?”

They oppose increasing taxes to fund debt service “on projects that may or may not happen,”” such as the rehabilitation of the pool and the Placemaking Plan for the Village Center. Both of these projects have been studied but not yet approved. The Forum believes that the pool should continue to be funded by an Enterprise Fund and any work should be paid for by pool revenues. They state that it may not economically viable to rebuild the pool complex and the village should wait until community outreach and a marketing study is complete before borrowing the funds to renovate the pool complex.

Additional input on the budget is expected from the League of Women Voters of Scarsdale and a statutory public hearing on the budget will be held on Tuesday April 5 at 8 pm. Unlike the School Budget, the adoption of the Village Budget is not subject to a community wide vote, however trustees will vote on the adoption of the budget on April 26, 2022, prior to the deadline of May 1, 2022.