Riverhead Town budget

The Riverhead Town Board on Tuesday set public hearings on both the 2023 preliminary budget and on a local law to allow the town to override the 2% tax levy cap, which is required to adopt a budget that will pierce the cap.

Riverhead Supervisor Yvette Aguiar is proposing a nearly $3 million spending increase, or 4.9%, in the three town-wide funds in 2023, requiring the town to pierce the 2% tax levy cap imposed by state law.

There was no public comment during yesterday's public hearing on the proposed 2022 budget, but Supervisor Yvette Aguiar took the opportunity to respond to questions and criticism about funding for police and ambulance services.

Supervisor Yvette Aguiar said she was able to “offset inevitable spending increases including contractual expenses and higher health insurance premiums” and also enhance town government operations by saving money this year and utilizing non-tax sources of revenue.

Riverhead Town’s credit rating has been upgraded by Moody’s Investors Service from Aa3 to Aa2. The town's rating was downgraded from Aa2 to Aa3 in 2015.

Riverhead Town officials adequately assessed the impact of the pandemic on financial operations when they developed the 2021 operating budget, a review by the Office of the State Comptroller found.

The supervisor said putting together a budget within the property tax cap, despite a $1.9 million reduction in revenues, was an "arduous task."

Riverhead Town is facing at least a $1 million revenue shortfall in lost building and planning department revenues due to the coronavirus public health crisis and could see a bigger deficit if state aid revenues are reduced.

The Riverhead Town Board adopted a final operating budget Tuesday night, amending Supervisor Laura Jens-Smith’s preliminary budget to add $105,500 from the capital projects reserve fund to pay for a second new code enforcement officer and a part-time paralegal to focus on code enforcement cases.

The state comptroller says budget documents should show a few years’ worth of budget data. Not in Riverhead, where the budget shows no actual numbers for the prior year or year-to-date.