Town Board Doesn't Vote on Budget, Prelim Budget Likely to Be Adopted

With less than a week until the deadline to adopt a town budget, the Riverhead Town Board did not discuss adopting one at their bi-weekly meeting on Tuesday night, setting up Town Supervisor Sean Walter's after Nov. 20 if the board doesn't take action on the budget before then.

Board members met with financial administrator Bill Rothaar after Walter released his preliminary budget in late September to discuss the plan, a change from last year, when the five members of the Town Board met as a group in a series of budget meetings before the Nov. 20 deadline and cut $22,000 from the budget.

"When you have four board members having a conversation with department heads and the financial administrator, there are too many competing interests," Walter said in a September interview. "It's conducive in no way to a constructive conversation."

Walter's tentative budget, if made official, will increase the town tax rate by 2.36 percent next year and will not require any town employees to be laid off.

While the tax rate exceeds the two percent tax cap state mandate that passed this year, the town is still allowed to have some taxing districts exceed two percent due to certain costs such as pension costs, which are expected to rise by 4.2 percent.

The tentative $51.6 million budget increases spending by 3.3 percent over last year's $49.5 million budget. Last year, the supervisor  as six full-time employees and seven part-timers were cut due to projected revenue shortfalls.

"From 2010 through 2012, if the Town Board adopts my budget — which I think they will do, again — spending will have only gone up 1.2 percent," Walter said in a September interview. "That's very minimal and at the same time, pension and health care costs have risen in excess of $3 million. We will have raised the budget by $600,000 from 2010 to 2012."