Dysfunction at Riverhead Town Hall

This marks the third year in a row of what can only be described as a completely dysfunctional budget process for the Riverhead Town Board.

Though board members have taken plenty of swipes at the three budgets presented by the supervisor since he took office (beginning with FY 2011) they have not managed to implement a single substantive change to any of them.

In 2010, the board had hours and hours of discussions about Supervisor Sean Walter’s tentative budget — a controversial spending plan that called for 13 layoffs. Despite many hours of often contentious debate, the board didn’t make any changes to Walter’s proposal prior to the public hearing mandated by state law. The board’s discussions continued after the public hearing, too.

At the 11th hour, on Thursday, Nov. 18, 2010, board members called a special meeting to vote on a final budget for Friday, Nov. 19 — the day before the statutory deadline for the town board to adopt a budget.

Councilwoman Jodi Giglio told me that Thursday evening the details of it were still being hammered out. She told me there were three board members who had agreed on changes to Walter’s proposed budget, but declined to say what they were.

“You’ll find out tomorrow,” she told me. Score one for open government.

The next day, it became clear there was no accord on any significant changes. After much squabbling, the board moved a resolution to pass a preliminary budget that was just $22,000 less than Walter’s initial proposal. Yes, that’s right: $22,000 out of an overall spending plan of $88.6 million.

And then, all four council members voted no. I kid you not.

The failed budget resolution meant Walter’s original proposal, presented to the board on Sept. 30, became the final budget for 2011.

Fast forward a year: Sept. 30, 2011 and Walter unveils his tentative budget for 2012.

And what a difference a year makes, too. Unlike 2010, there was very little budget discussion in 2011, but there was some discussion — most notably, on the highway superintendent’s complaint about administrative charge backs.

Nevertheless in 2011, the town board didn’t propose or attempt to vote on any budget revisions. And again, the supervisor’s tentative budget became the final budget for the following year.

This year, the budget hasn’t been on the town board’s agenda since the day in September when Walter presented his tentative budget. Giglio and Councilman James Wooten attended the presentation and whispered between themselves while it was going on. They seemed like they were talking about the budget. But they didn’t do it publicly.

In fact, there hasn’t been a single public discussion of the budget since Walter presented it.

That apparently doesn’t mean board members haven’t been discussing it in private, though.

During the public hearing on the proposed budget Wednesday, Giglio, Wooten and Councilman George Gabrielsen said they have, in fact, been discussing the budget. They made sure to let us know it was done in pairs, and not as a threesome, because that would be an illegal private meeting — and we all know how diligent about open meetings this group is.

But they said they’ve come up with more than $200,000 worth of “savings.” They couldn’t let the public know just yet what those changes were, but Gabrielsen promised that the board members would be presenting their budget to the public “in about a week.”

This really got under my skin. So much so, that I took to the podium — something I’m not inclined to do, since I’m a reporter and I don’t like injecting myself into a meeting I’m covering.

But I’m also a resident and taxpayer and a former town council member who went through the budget process for four years in the late 80s and early 90s. I couldn’t keep quiet Wednesday and I can’t keep quiet now.

The subversion of the correct and legally mandated budget process by this town board is maddening.

What’s the point of holding a public hearing on a budget you don’t intend to adopt?

How could they sit there with a straight face and promise to deliver a budget after the fact — like they were doing something admirable?

When you hold a hearing on a budget you have no intention of adopting, I call that a sham. You don’t unveil a budget the week after the public hearing, when there will be little opportunity for public review and no opportunity for public comment before the deadline for adopting the budget — which by the way is coming right up. It’s Nov. 20.

That’s the thing, folks. New York State Law spells out the budget process — with deadlines — that town boards are supposed to follow.

What the law says

The supervisor is to present his tentative budget by Sept. 30. [Town Law Sect. 106(2)]

The town board must hold a public hearing on its preliminary budget (the supervisor’s tentative budget, as revised by the board) by the Thursday after the general election. The hearing date will be anywhere from Nov. 4 to Nov. 10, depending on how Election Day falls (It’s the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.) [Town Law Sect. 108]

In the five or six weeks between the supervisor’s tentative budget presentation (on or before Sept. 30) and the mandated public hearing on the board’s preliminary budget in early November, the town board is supposed to review and discuss his tentative budget and, and, if it so desires, change it by adopting a preliminary budget. If they dont’ adopt a preliminary budget, the supervisor’s tentative budget becomes the preliminary budget by operation of law. [Town Law Sect. 106(4)]

Then there’s a public hearing.

After the public hearing, the board is allowed by law to change the preliminary budget — hey, otherwise the public hearing would be a sham, if the board couldn’t consider the public’s comments and make changes to their proposal, right? So the law says they can change the preliminary and, if they do, they must vote on a final budget on or before Nov. 20. [Town Law Sect. 109(1) and (2)] If the board fails to adopt a final budget, the preliminary budget — the one on which the public hearing was held — becomes the final budget by operation of law, i.e. automatically. [Town Law Sect. 109(3)]

A quick review: For the past two years, the supervisor’s tentative budget, presented in September has become the town’s final budget on Nov. 20. The board has done nothing with the budget except talk — in 2010 for hours and hours during a series of very painful work sessions which made it crystal clear that some members of the board had absolutely no idea which end was up; and in 2012, apparently, amongst themselves, in private, out of the sight and hearing of the public and the press.

Now we learn there’s a plan to have a revised budget after all. Too bad if you want to know what’s in it, or maybe have a chance to say something about it — a right the law seems to try to guarantee to us citizens. The people who foot the bill.

I should also mention that two board members, Councilman John Dunleavy and the supervisor, have been completely shut out of this revised budget-making process.

Will the Gabrielsen-Giglio-Wooten trio come up with a revised budget “in about a week” as promised? We’ll see. I think there’s some incentive to come through with revisions this year, because I’ve heard there’s a movement afoot to restore the youth bureau director position. Not because the arguments made by the youth advisory committee hit home, but because there’s a council member’s relative lined up for the job.

We’ll see if that pans out but I wouldn’t be surprised.

This particular board is particularly adept at slinging mud at each other. And it seems like they all think they’d be a better supervisor than the current incumbent.

Yet for three years running they’ve shirked their most basic responsibility as a town board. The very first item listed in Section 64 of the NY State Town Law (“General Powers of Town Boards”) is “Control of Town Finances.”

For three years running, this board doesn’t even prepare a preliminary budget, officially revising the tentative budget submitted by the supervisor — a budget about which they have a whole lot of complaints and suspicions all year long, by the way.

For two years in a row, this board hasn’t even passed a resolution adopting a budget for the town. Indeed, last year they didn’t even try.

And this year, after they’ve once again shirked their budget-making duties over the past month, they say they’re going to come up with a revised budget and vote on it after the public hearing, without giving the public an opportunity to comment or even to learn much about what they’re doing.

Gabrielsen’s “about a week” puts the delivery of their “revised budget” on or about Wednesday Nov. 14. That means there’s one regularly scheduled public work session — and no print edition of the town’s official newspaper, by the way — before the Nov. 20 budget deadline.

So after six weeks of no public discussion, this board plans to shove a “revised budget” down the citizenry’s throat in less than a week’s time — with little or no public discussion and no public comment.

And that, in my opinion, is just plain shameful.

Denise Civiletti, is the editor and copublisher of RiverheadLocal.com. An award-winning community journalist, she is attorney and former Riverhead Town councilwoman (1988-1991); she lives in Riverhead with her husband and business partner, Peter Blasl and their two college-student daughters.

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