The Board of Trustees had barely settled in for their first budget work session of the year when DPW Superintendent delivered a dramatic update: a water main had ruptured on Alcott Avenue just hours earlier, cutting water service across the village.

The break punctuated what was already shaping up to be an infrastructure-heavy evening. The board spent nearly an hour walking through the DPW budget line by line for fiscal year 2026-27, with the superintendent explaining changes in everything from …

Other DPW budget highlights included a decrease in building maintenance costs as the village defers a second-floor bathroom renovation to combine it with a larger engineering department revamp, and the completion of a five-year duct-cleaning cycle ac…

Good evening, and welcome to our first budget work session for the 02/2627 budget. Our first meeting will be this evening with the Department of Public Works. But before we get to that,

Very good. And with that, we return to the budget. So we get to kick off the budget season again, which is exciting. So, you know, as we've done in in years past, we have, I think, it's 16 line items in the budget itself that we go through. So I like…

So it's everything. Because it looks like it's being held flat from the '26 original budget, and I was just curious given the fluctuations we're seeing. I mean, it might be temporary. Hopefully, it's Hope hopefully, yes. Yeah. So that's You know, but…

Well, we have I mean, we have contingency funding, right, in the budget that we're slating to increase. Mhmm. So, you know, if these if the costs remain elevated Mhmm. We could potentially have to supplement what's budgeted with some of the funds fro…

Mhmm. As we go through, there there is a few items like that in our budget where we sort of we take the previous few years and try to estimate what we're gonna be doing next year. The fuel and diesel is is one of them. Mhmm.

you know Yes. Potentially. Yeah. And that that's in this current budget. Right? So Right. You know, I mean, we can always see, you know, before we adopt the budget on April 22, if there are signs that things won't settle down, we could always add a l…

Next one's thirty three ten traffic control. So this is, this funds for, traffic related items, obviously, such as the parking spot repair, painting, traffic signal repair, center line painting, etcetera. This increased by $1,500, and this is mainly …

So this budget would cover that. I mean, I hope we don't continue to see that. Yeah.

Or No. So well, so we've, recently promoted one of our skilled laborers to driver. We had a driver that retired. Mhmm. So that vacancy was was there. We promoted one of our skilled laborers to that position. So, technically, that position is open. It…

And that's across all 17 budgets? Because I I Correct. Yeah. Okay. Yep. They all connect. Yeah. I know. Sure. Through some sewage piping and okay.

So the next one is fifty one ten. So that's street maintenance. So the way, we budget salaries at DPW, they're all budgeted in the fifty one ten items. So all, you know, all the DPW staff is budgeted here. Through the year, depending on the, you know…

Yeah. That's and I I understand that. I appreciate that. I I found it hard to follow, like, to know whether there was an increase or not year to year because this is the way that this budget is, it's just the 27 number with everybody. You know, when …

Yeah. I mean, you really can just look at from street maintenance, right, from what's budgeted in the original budget, right, from the original budget of '26 to the tentative budget of '27 because that's that would show you what is, you know, what wh…

as zero because No. I'm saying in in street maintenance, that's where you have to look because that's where everybody's budgeted. Gotcha. Yeah. Okay. So because that yeah. If you look in the original budget for street maintenance, that would show yea…

to to budget. Yeah. That's the easiest way to keep track Right. For sure. Okay. So this got increased by $64,691, which, almost 60,000 of that is is the salary increases for all of the employees listed under that that line item. The other the other s…

Yeah. I mean, you know What can you do? It's You can't you you can't budget for extremes. You know, this, I think, by any stretch was an extreme year. Right? And so I was just actually, while you were speaking, Christine Akhtar, I was pulling up. We …

And how come there's a separate budget from the sewer fund? You know?

reflected in this in this in this budget here. They've they've they've gone up substantially. Yeah. I know. So, I mean, last year, we raised our commercial garbage fees that we charge the businesses, to try to recoup some of that increase, but it's s…

Know I talked about this last year. I'm so skeptical about recycling. I love the idea of recycling. I think it's fantastic, but I think that I don't I'm I'm cure you know, I just I'm I'm very curious about how we're are we sorting things correctly? A…

I try. I'm not sure it's out of hours. I feel like one of the It's a long time. It does take a while. The the most important thing in in terms of the budget, right, is that we don't get charged for what we bring as recycling.

So There's nowhere else to bring it. It has to go it has to go to the county facility. So yeah. It it's I I agree. It's that it was it was a very big increase last year. Yeah. And we should have budget we should have budgeted more last year, but we d…

And I I know we mentioned this the last time you spoke, but I would love to work with the right committee on some kind of mailer or, like, an education program because I don't I don't think most people in our village are not aware that if if they wer…

Yep. Right. So it was more of a reassignment. Yeah. Correct. So then the the the other two, there's 83 8320, 8340. So 8320 is source of supply. So that's basically everything that has to do with the well fields, the supply of the water. 8340 is distr…

The so the 1,200 line? Yes. That's the 60,000. Yep. Uh-huh. So we also added some funds in the 2,000 line, requesting to correlator system. Mhmm. So that's sort of a a a sort of up to date equipment to help when there is a water main break. A lot of …

So now we're out of water and into the sewer. Oh, let me just ask more water questions because and I don't know if they if it's more capital discussion which Sure. Is at another time. Yep. Right? But given the recent breaks, you know, and I I remembe…

So some of this equipment is is actually why it's in this budget this year is because we do sort of run a ramp up, replace, and upgrade some of our equipment that we do use for this leak detection and and, you know, for when there are leaks. In capit…

Yes. It is good news. Yeah. Yeah. Plus it's the sewers of Yeah. Reducing the funding for the cleaning of the pump station and and odor control, but that means we we have it under control. Yes. Exact yeah. We're not doing less of it. We're just doing …

I did go over this with superintendent, so he's aware of this. She her her questions were mainly about the park's budget. Yeah. She she had questioned why the contractual expenses were decreasing. So as we discussed, it was mainly because of the cost…

Scott, are you going back there? Yeah. John John, unfortunately, that's why he wasn't here tonight. John's over there Yeah. With all the guys. So we're gonna swing back around, and we're gonna go how that goes. How we're gonna sell in. Place. Use the…

I had voices similar concern. Didn't even chat with you about it, but to to the and it was more not it was it was totally supportive of this. It's just I had to get through reading all the budget materials, and I just didn't have the time to even rea…

The Board of Trustees opened its March 25 meeting with a public hearing on the proposed $20 million village budget for fiscal year 2026-27 — and not a single resident showed up to comment. The hearing was opened and closed in under a minute.

=== HEADLINE === Chicken coop rules draw fire as village eyes $7.2 million capital plan === SUMMARY === A Truesdale Drive resident urged the Board of Trustees to reconsider a zoning change that would reduce the minimum distance for fowl pens from 50…

=== EXECUTIVE BRIEF === • Vouchers totaling $1,147,816.42 across five funds approved • Public hearing opened and closed on proposed FY2026-27 budget ($13.79M tax levy, under cap) • Public hearing opened and closed on Local Law No. 3 of 2026 (zoning c…

3; adoption scheduled for next meeting • Planning Board memo to be addressed regarding Metro-North special permit status and parking requirements === ARTICLE === Nobody showed up to comment on a $7.2 million capital plan or a budget that determines …

King suggested 25 feet as a compromise. The board agreed to explore the change before adoption. The irony of the empty seats during the budget hearing was hard to miss. The proposed $13.79 million tax levy sits well under the state cap of $13.9 mill…

The capital plan doubles the road paving budget to $900,000, directs $3.5 million to infrastructure, and funds engineering design for a seawall at the train station — where the village just learned it may qualify for 50% county funding. Train station…

**What to watch for:** Budget work sessions are scheduled over the coming weeks — check the village calendar for department-specific dates. The board will consider final adoption of Local Law No. 3 at its next regular meeting, potentially with a revi…

Do I have a motion to approve? So moved. Second. Motion by trustee Simon, second by trustee Nicholson. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Alright. We proceed to the public hearing. The first public hearing will be on the proposed budget for 02/2627. Before we o…

I'll just ask the treasurer if she'd like to open up the the presentation, and then just we'll go slide by slide if you can, please. Okay. So this is our tentative budget for the fiscal year twenty twenty six, twenty twenty seven. As a reminder, the …

by the controller's office. So we're we're we're not making this up. Yeah. We don't the the state controller's office provides those numbers to us. Yeah. We don't have any any way to differ from what they give us. Thank you. Yep. So with that, so com…

Yes. So our our correct. Yes. So our fund balance policy, would like to have our unassigned fund balance between 1725%, and the use of this fund balance puts us right around 21%. Yep. So and, you know, the the hope every year is that we don't actuall…

then speaking of the train station revenues, our next chart you want you yeah. That's okay. There we go. So, you can see here, train station revenues, right, for both for both permits and daily have been increasing. So '23, 24, and '25 are the final …

So then on to the water fund. The water fund, there's no, budgeted increase in the rates for this year. This is the second year in a row that we've been able to hold the rates steady. Alright. That's that's what the next slide says too. Then onto the…

we do Yeah. Correct. The budget the budget doesn't, appropriate any additional staff in the police department. Right. Okay. Yep. Okay. And that is the end of the presentation.

Yep. Yep. And I think you reflected the residents' input from the budget survey Abs absolutely. You know, or earmarking more dollars toward infrastructure

Okay. Are there questions from the board? Alright. Do I have a motion to open the public hearing? Thank you. So moved. I have a second? Second. Second by trustee Simon, second by trustee Nicholson. All in favor? Aye. Aye. The public hearing is open. …

Alright. We proceed. I'll just say before we go on to the, the next public hearing, we do have, four budget work sessions. This is that we're not adopting. Yeah. Yeah. We're in one of the we're actually getting confused. We're not my budget tonight. …