Hempstead Town Passes 2019 Budget That Includes Tax Cut

After weeks of back-and-forth arguments, the Hempstead Town Board won its budget fight with Supervisor Laura Gillen, passing its spending plan over hers and reducing taxes by 3.5 percent.

The board claimed that Gillen's budget would increase taxes (a claim she disputes) and instead proposed its own budget, which the supervisor says will only produced its promised cuts if employee retirements happen as planned.

“All of the township’s council members, both Democrat and Republican, understand that our homeowners deserve and need tax relief,” said Councilwoman Erin King Sweeney. “That’s why we unanimously passed an honest tax cut budget in response to the tax boosting plan preferred by the supervisor. What’s more, our budget axes over $11 million in excessive spending offered by the supervisor, and our adopted budget restores $8 million to Hempstead’s budget reserves.”

The spending plan also included amendments from Gillen that she says contributed to the tax cut homeowners will be receiving.

Among the budget cuts included in the adopted spending plan is the elimination of “vacant positions” in the town budget. The town will no longer budget full-year funding for positions that are vacant at the start of the 2019 calendar year. And, positions which are anticipated to become vacant during the year will be reflected through pro-rated cost savings. This alone constitutes $9 million in cost savings, the board says.

The budget also calls on the Town Attorney's office to handle more legal cases in-house instead of hiring outside counsel, which will save $450,000. The town said it also plans to stop advertising its legal notices in weekly newspapers, instead publishing them in one newspaper and online, saving $500,000.

Joining with a private sector partner to manage, oversee and enforce Workers’ Compensation cases for town employees is anticipated to produce $1 million in savings.

Gillen, however, voted against the budget.

"I am not convinced ... that gambling tax cuts on the backs of potential employee retirements is fiscally prudent or sound. In fact, I think it’s reckless and irresponsible," Gillen said. "The council has not presented, in my opinion, any kind of realistic or structurally sound plan to replace essential town employees once they retire. This council has also not budgeted money for these potential retiring employee’s contractually obligated separation pay. So the only way to payout these individuals would be to borrow the money, and then count the borrowed money as revenue. Even worse they could take money from our surplus and potentially injure our bond rating."

The board disagreed with Gillen's reasoning, and said it was sound, sensible budgeting.

"The budgeting of savings associated with anticipated retirements is the responsible thing to do for our taxpayers,” said King Sweeney. “We should be returning monies to local taxpayers to the greatest extent possible. Not budgeting savings associated with retirements is as absurd as not budgeting for snow removal based on the notion that it may not snow.”

Photo: Town of Hempstead