Westchester County Faces Budget Deficit For 2018

WHITE PLAINS, NY — The report on Westchester County’s financial performance for the first quarter of 2018 shows that the county has a deficit. The report, presented by Budget Director Lawrence Soule to the Board of Legislator’s Budget and Appropriations Committee, showed a projected 2018 deficit of $28.7 million.

That number could get larger depending on the outcome of ongoing contract negotiations with the Civil Service Employees Association.

Legislator Catherine Borgia, D-District 9, said the years of one-shot budget gimmicks and over-estimation of revenues, as well as neglect of important contracts, have caught up with the county.

“This simple fact is the chickens have come home to roost,” she said. “There will be some difficult choices to make going forward, but this is a problem the county can address and one that we will.”

Borgia is chairwoman of the Budget and Appropriations Committee.

One bright spot in the review, according to a spokesman, was that the county sales tax revenue in the first quarter of 2018 was up 6.4 percent compared to the first quarter of 2017. That exceeded budget growth estimates.

Soule said the first-quarter increase, combined with April numbers that showed an accelerating increase, means the county’s sales tax revenue should meet or exceed the budgeted growth rate of 3.7 percent.

The increase in sales tax revenue is largely due to higher fuel prices on which the county collects taxes.

Also discussed at the committee meeting was the decision made in 2017 to not transfer assets from the county’s airport fund to its general fund. It would have had no impact on the ongoing structural deficit, a spokesman said.

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