Full Transcript

Good morning, everybody. We are here today for a special town board meeting. It is Monday, September 29, 2025. And if we could all please rise for the pledge. And Councilwoman Merrifield, would you mind leading us? Thank you, Supervisor. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay. We are here today for the town clerk presentation of the 2026 budget. We have completed the budget, and it's going to be presented to the town clerk at this point in time. And he will log it in. Thank you, sir. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Now, I've done a letter on the forefront of this budget, and I will read that letter, and it will give you a better idea of how we came about this budget and what we had to do, what we could do, and what we couldn't do. And I will say one thing about this budget. This process has been so much better having the whole town board participate in the process. So each board member is a liaison to a different department, and when we did the budget meetings and we had the discussions, each board member was there present for those discussions. So the board has a better understanding of the budget itself overall, and they also are able to participate in it because in the end game, the board adopts or doesn't choose to adopt the budget. So everybody should have been made part of it. It should have been done that way years ago. It never was. Thank you. So I'm very proud that the board participated along with this. All right. I'll read the opening letter. Dear town clerk and fellow town board members, in accordance with Section 106 of the New York State town law and as supervisor and chief financial officer of the town of Riverhead, I am pleased to present for your consideration the town of Riverhead 2026 tentative budget. I will reiterate that I believe my single biggest responsibility to the residents of Riverhead is the formulation of the annual budget. The process of developing the budget is deliberate, calculated and meticulous and any suggestion to the contrary is simply incorrect. The fact is, we as a town must absorb certain annual costs for things over which we have zero fiscal control. Those include contractual raises for the police department and the CSEA, health insurance premium increases. Ms.

some 300 plus employees and the ever increasing New York State retirement rates. Together, these three line items pierced the cap. There's absolutely nothing we can do about those three items. Those three items alone pierced the tax cap. And there are discussions going on. I know with the Suffolk County Supervisors Association, when we have meetings, we discuss that the tax cap is way out of whack. New York State doesn't even adhere to their own tax cap. So we've asked as supervisors, we've written our legislators on the state level and asked them to please, you know, look at this again, reevaluate it because it's antiquated and it's something that needs to be updated. Okay. I collaborated with the town board, department heads, our financial administrators. They even talked to my financial advisor, members of my senior staff to review every single line of this budget. And together, we made the excruciatingly difficult decision to deny all requests for merit raises and not to budget for any new positions. And I will add to that, that we have some marvelous workers for the town of Riverhead, truly dedicated, go above and beyond on a daily basis. And in the past, they've been rewarded. with merit raises, small merit raises, to help them out for the extra that they do. A lot of them, 430 Town Hall closes, they're still here working in the building. Some of them come in early to get a jump on things. And we truly appreciate that. I apologize that we were not able to hand out merit raises this year, but we also have to be fiscally responsible to the taxpayers of this town. So I apologize, but this is a choice. It was a difficult choice, but we had to make it.

The only increases included in this budget are those commensurate with civil service promotions and a 3.25% increase for elected officials, excluding the town board and the supervisor, which mirrors the contractual increase received by all CSEA employees into the total number of members. The total number of members is 2,026. The town of Riverhead, along with most other municipalities in Suffolk County, must pierce the tax cap this year. The 2,026 town-wide budget is 4.63% over the tax cap. To provide context, the most practical financial method to avoid piercing the tax cap would be to lay off approximately 15 employees and with staffing at a minimum level. This simply was not an option. All taxing districts, with the exception of the general fund, are budgeted within the tax cap limit. This will lead to an increase of 75 cents per day for a house valued at $735,000. Residential waste cost is one penny per day, or 30 cents per month. Total appropriations for the town operations, and the total operating budget in 2026 is $112,722,754. This is an increase of $3,219,038 over last year. The appropriations for the Riverhead taxing districts are 54.63% for the school and library, and only 26.53% for the school and library. and the total operating budget for the town operations, is $112,722,754. Local office fixed fixed fixed the entire tax bill that you receive. Once again, no new positions were added for 2026. Staffing in the police department remains at a historic high of 100 sworn officers. As stated last year, I will not cut back on public safety. There is no FAD in this budget. In fact, it reflects a reduction of $319,000 in equipment and $216,000 in vehicle expenditures. I hope the residents acknowledge the work and effort that was devoted to this proposed budget. Specifically, I want to thank our financial administrator, the town budget officer, and the budget assistant for the many hours of hard work invested in creating this budget. I also want to thank the City of New York City Council for the support and guidance of the City Council. Thank you. I also want to thank my department heads for requesting fair budgets and working within what is needed for day-to-day operations. Lastly, I want to thank our employees who work tirelessly every day to serve the residents of the Town of Riverhead. I present to you the 2026 budget. I will open this for comments on resolutions. The only one resolution we have, and I will read it, is Town Board Resolution 2025-806, Schedules of Public Hearing by the Town of Riverhead as Legislative Body for the Town of Riverhead and Governing Body for the Community Development Agency. The resolution is to consider the designation of the Jazz Loft Incorporated as a qualified and eligible sponsor for the purchase and redevelopment of town-owned property described as Suffolk County Tax Map Number 0600-128.00-6.00-080.00, located at 18 Peconic Avenue, Riverhead, New York. Local Local Local Local Local Local Local Local Local 6. Schedules of public hearing by the Town of Riverhead as legislated body for the Town of Riverhead and governing body of the Community Development Agency to consider the designation of the Jasloff, Inc. as a qualified and eligible sponsor for the purchase and redevelopment of the Town-owned property described as Suffolk County Tax Map No. 600-128-6-0.80 located at 18 Peconic Avenue, Riverhead, NY 11901. So moved. Second. Vote please. Waski. Yes. Denise Merrifield. Yes. Kern. No, and I'll explain why I do not think Chaz is going to bring the volume of people that we need for downtown and so for that reason I'm going to vote no. Rothwell. I would like a review of the finances. I vote yes. Hubbard. Yes. Resolution is adopted. That concludes our resolutions. Okay, that's our resolution for this meeting. Now we will open comments from the public on any matter. Comments from the public on any matter. Having seen nobody online and nobody forward coming forward here, I will make a motion that we adjourn the Town Board special meeting and can I have a motion for that? So moved. Seconded. Okay, vote please. Waski. Yes. Merrifield. Yes. Kern. Yes. Rothwell. Yes. Hubbard. Yes. Meeting is adjourned. Okay, Town Board special meeting is adjourned and we will be back at 9.30 this morning, which is in about 14 minutes and we will be having a Town Board work session agenda that we will discuss starting at 9.30 this morning. Thank you all for tuning in and we'll see you shortly. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. in the future that's going to be required always or the zoning board will not review the application we were able to pull the building department file and I know that you submitted updated plans I also want to confirm because again there are no setback dimensions set forth it says shed to be removed is that going to be removed