Gatta Warns that Tax Cap Endangers Local Municipalities

This is the last year that longtime Scarsdale Village Manager Al Gatta will present the Village Budget to the Board of Trustees. Gatta, who will retire in June held a public briefing session on the proposed 2015-16 budget and echoed many of the concerns he has had in past years about the uncertain future of village government. He fears that the state imposed tax cap and pressures to consolidate services with other municipalities will force smaller villages to cut services to residents. Though Gatta will leave Village Hall, it's clear that these issues will continue to weigh on him in the future.

Gatta cited several forces that make it increasingly difficult to continue government as the way we know it in Scarsdale:

• The state is incentivizing smaller governments and school districts to share services and in some cases merge.
• State grants, that in the past we given to Scarsdale only go to larger communities
• The tax cap has been decreased to below 2% though unfunded mandates exceed that percentage.
• Unfunded mandates are being ignored by Albany
• The state is imposing greater mandates on infrastructure improvements for storm drainage and sanitary sewers – while offering the village no way to pay for these mandated costs.

Gatta believes that Governor Cuomo's goal in imposing the cap goes beyond saving taxpayers money. He contends that the governors has an ulterior motive: and that is to reduce disparities and inequalities among state residents by forcing consolidations of local governments and schools.

The proposed 2015-16 Village budget stays within the tax cap and maintains the current level of services. This year, the cap for Scarsdale is 1.68% plus a growth factor of 1%, due to the increased value of village real estate. Overall, there is a 2.68% cap on the property tax levy.

Gatta reviewed some highlights of the proposed $54.4 million dollar budget, which is an increase of $1.766 million from the 2014-15 adopted budget and a mere $1.4 million from the estimated actual budget for 2014-15.

Department expenses will grow by $824,731

The largest increases are for health benefits – 7%, general liability insurance – 40%, and workers compensation insurance – 38%.

Pension contributions are not going up this year ending a five-year increase of 107%.

For the average home in Scarsdale, valued at $1,398,818, the proposed budget would mean an annual increase of $144.

Gatta then shared some facts about Scarsdale's water rates, which have risen dramatically. Scarsdale purchases water from New York City and from 1991 to 2015 the rates have gone up from $103.72 per million gallons to a projected $1705 per million gallons, a 1700% increase in 24 years. For 2015-16 the rate for homeowners sill be $2.05 per unit (749 gallons) for the first 50 units of water and $7.17 per unit for excess water about 749 gallons.

Gatta ended his presentation with the following thoughts:

'The 2015-16 proposed budget stays with the tax cap. This is the third year that the cap has been in effect and for the first two years the village only slightly exceeded the cap. Since the imposition of the cap, the smaller communities are showing the impact from service reductions and deteriorating infrastructure. The question that should be raised by all state residents is whether the incentives from Albany for mergers and consolidations by limiting the use of the property tax is an end in itself, or whether there is a grander goal in mind: one that moves the state in the direction of redistributing and equalizing the level of services in municipalities and school systems for all state residents."