Croton-on-Hudson closed the fiscal year with the strongest verdict an auditor can issue — and with reserves healthy enough that the village is paying for capital projects with cash instead of borrowing. Alan Kassay of PKF O'Connor Davies, the firm that conducts the village's annual audit, delivered the results for the year ended May 31, 2025 at the Board of Trustees' Jan. 28 work session. "That's known as an unmodified opinion, also a clean opinion, and it's the best opinion you could receive" Read 0:41▶ Kassay said of the finding on the financial statements. Revenues came in at nearly $23 million, up about 4 percent from the prior year and $1.1 million above the final budget. Parking permits have rebounded to almost $3 million, and energy helps: "we're getting over 400,000 annually from hosting the solar facility at our train station parking lot, and that's for thirty years" Read 35:15▶ Deputy Mayor Len Simon said. State aid fell $287,000 short of budget on grants that may have slid into the current year. Spending rose about 5 percent, to $20.3 million, driven largely by employee benefits, which climbed from $5.4 million to just over $6 million on higher health and retirement costs. The $39 million asterisk The village's full-accrual balance sheet shows an unrestricted net position deficit of nearly $43 million — a figure driven almost entirely by a $39 million liability for retiree health benefits. Kassay told trustees the number is largely an accounting construct: New York State bars municipalities from pre-funding the benefit through an irrevocable trust, and "even if you wanted to set up a trust, I mean, to fund the $39,000,000 liability, would be rather difficult." Read 6:19▶ The actual annual cost of retiree health coverage was about $1.3 million; the rest is an actuarial projection of decades of future promises. Of the liability, Kassay said, "it doesn't affect your budget or your governmental funds or anything else" Read 6:19▶. Alan Kassay noted "the assumption is that everyone who is hypothetically entitled to the OPEB retired simultaneously" Read 7:57▶. Cash over borrowing The year's most consequential fiscal move was quiet: rather than issue debt, the village raised its budgeted transfer out of $2.6 million to nearly $4 million, with the increase all going to capital projects. "So you're saving the issuance cost. And if you issue a ten, fifteen, twenty year bond, you're saving interest for that period of time." Read 11:49▶ Kassay said. The general fund ended the year with $11.05 million — about $480,000 below where it began — including $5.7 million unassigned, about 25 percent of the adopted 2025-26 budget. Kassay also flagged a 2015 bond with about $3 million outstanding and a 2019 refunding bond of $2 million, both at 5 percent, as refinancing candidates if rates fall — though Village Manager Bryan Healy said the village's financial adviser recently found nothing currently eligible. The management letter contained only control deficiencies, the lowest level of auditor comment — housekeeping items Healy said staff are already working through. Kassay credited the manager's team for keeping the audit on schedule despite turnover in the treasurer's office. Trustee Stacey Nachtaler asked the auditor directly: "if you were sitting in our seats as trustees and mayor, what would be the top two or three things, financial risks, or priorities that we should focus on in the next two to three years?" Read 29:03▶ Keep doing what you're doing, Kassay advised — "the revenues are all budgeted fairly conservatively" Read 29:27▶ — and remember that "The expenditure side of the budget is the area that you can control." Read 29:27▶ The main outside risk is aid: if "the federal government cuts the state funding, it's gonna trickle down to the municipalities, and that could be something that may affect you" Read 29:27▶. Safer crossings for Old Post Road North The consulting firm AKRF presented a traffic study and preliminary "15 percent" design for Old Post Road North at the Lounsbury Road and Michaels Lane intersections. Roadway engineer Mike Borst summarized the findings plainly: "there is no speeding. There are no crashes" Read 47:59▶ — but pedestrians, including school children, are crossing where no facilities exist. At Lounsbury Road, the intersection opening sprawls 58 feet wide where the road itself is 22 feet; the design narrows it to about 30 feet with curb extensions, adds two crosswalks with ADA-compliant ramps, and improves sight lines — one village right-of-way tree would come down. At Michaels Lane, the plan adds rectangular rapid flashing beacons, the same treatment the village installed near its schools on Maple and Grant. Village Manager Bryan Healy said the study was commissioned after residents raised concerns about school children crossing Old Post Road North. Together with Superintendent of Public Works Frank Balbi and Police Chief John Nikitopoulos, "we really did not feel comfortable making a decision one way or another about, you know, potentially adding a crosswalk, because of the fact that it's a mid block crossing" Read 56:30▶ Healy said. Trustee Maria Slippen, who lives on Michaels Lane, noted the study counted just seven people crossing during its counting window — a figure that understates the school-year reality: "100% of the kids that live on that street have to walk to school because they do not get a bus" Read 59:18▶. "I live on Michael's Lane. I didn't request this project, but I was really excited when it came in" Read 59:18▶. The project is not yet funded or scheduled. It would enter the capital budget alongside the recently awarded Brook Street drainage project, with possible support from county Complete Streets or federal Safe Streets grants. If the village wants to trim costs, Borst said, "the ramps and the crosswalks will be the best bang for your buck" Read 70:06▶ — the beacons add expense. Balbi said much of the construction is work DPW has handled before: "these are things that DPW has done periodically. Things that we have done in house and we are comfortable doing" Read 72:40▶. Trustees asked for a public-input process before designs are finalized. Between presentations, Healy said cleanup from the weekend storm — about 14 inches of snow — was nearly complete: "DPW has worked more than forty five hours since, 7AM Sunday to clear the snow along our roads, sidewalks, crosswalks, and parks" Read 75:07▶, with Harmon's business district set for snow removal Friday and the salt shed 40 to 50 percent full after four new loads. Gouveia Park takes shape Balbi reported that a landscape architect, a Croton resident, has walked the property bequeathed to the village in 2015 and proposed a site plan for the entire park. Trustee Nora Nicholson said last year's architecture study covered the house; now the grounds get the same professional treatment, and the plan can anchor fundraising: "We could use this in grant applications going forward" Read 80:05▶. About $530,000 of the roughly $775,000 endowment is already committed: $430,000 for Department of Public Works improvements scheduled to begin once the snow melts, and $100,000 for professional services. A companion proposal would spend $5,415 to test for asbestos behind the walls and ceilings of the house before structural work begins on an addition. "we haven't really gotten any estimates yet on the house, real estimates" Read 96:50▶ Nicholson said, calling the testing money well spent; Balbi noted the results will shape the cost of the roof replacement the house needs regardless. Both items go to the board next week, and Nicholson said a public meeting on the park is being planned. A busy police year Chief John Nikitopoulos delivered an annual report spanning policy manuals to pistols. A contract with Lexipol is overhauling the department's policy manual — 169 policies, finished months ahead of schedule, with an eight-month sign-off underway. After reported uncommanded-discharge concerns with the department's SIG Sauer sidearms, trustees funded replacements: the Glock 45 — "Some people think it's a 45 caliber, but it's a nine millimeter pistol" Read 103:51▶ the chief explained — with red-dot optics, expected in service around April. Traffic enforcement produced a ten-year high: "we issued 1,368 traffic summonses, which I went back the last ten years and it's the highest number we've had in the past ten years" Read 107:10▶ Nikitopoulos reported — roughly 800 of them from patrol. The department is also trialing body cameras — two Axon units now on the street for a month, with Motorola Solutions to follow — a purchase Healy said could draw on the state law-enforcement technology grant that brought the village $250,000 last year. And the cadet program returns, the chief said: "We have 21 cadets that have signed up, and we're gonna be starting the program February 9" Read 116:39▶ — the first cohort since before COVID. Zoning code cleanup Healy previewed a local law, assembled with the village engineer, the planning consultant and the village attorney, that tidies dozens of provisions at once. It would scale the number of chickens and other fowl allowed on a property to lot size rather than the current flat 25, and repeal the cap on dog ownership: "removing the prohibition on more than three dogs on any one property" Read 123:58▶ — a rule that mostly persuades owners to stop licensing their fourth dog: "they're not getting rid of one of their dogs. They're just not licensing the dog that they that they have" Read 123:58▶. Noncommercial swimming pools and accessory buildings larger than 300 square feet would require minor site plan review: "if somebody wants to put a shed in their yard, they shouldn't have to go to the planning board" Read 127:13▶ — though a four-car garage would. Legal notices would shift from ten days to the state-minimum five, a savings that matters when publication runs $50 in the local Gazette and $300 in The Journal News — where, Healy said, "there's not a soul in the village that's looking at that" Read 136:39▶. The law also formalizes how special-permit applications move from the Planning Board to trustees, with a 30-day response window replacing looser language that Village Attorney Joshua Subin described as a softer sell than a formal referral. Simon closed the review by crediting the planning consultant and the village attorney's office. "I think she emailed this to me at, like, 10:00 on Friday night" Read 130:04▶ Simon said, singling out Lori Lee Dickson of the attorney's office for getting the law over the finish line. Next week's board meeting is a full one: formal acceptance of the justice court audit, votes on the Gouveia Park proposals, and the first steps of the zoning referral to the Planning Board and Westchester County. The capital budget that will decide the Old Post Road safety project's fate takes shape over the coming month.