Irvington
Irvington played it safe with their budget, coming in $182,200 below their allowable tax levy cap, for a final general fund budget of $15,398,891. “There were no significant cuts in services,” says Village Administrator Lawrence Schopfer. “But there were across-the-board department cuts of a little over 2%.”
Even with the aforementioned cuts, such as three positions from the public works department, and staying so far under the tax levy cap, Irvington residents will be hit with a 3.94% tax rate increase. This is due partly to spiraling costs such as retirement contributions which increase over $200,000 this year, and also due to a drastic drop in Irvington’s assessment rolls. “There was a decrease of about 2.6% in our assessment roll,” says Schopfer. “What that means is that if our tax levy was unchanged, taxes would still go up 2.6%”
Looking towards the future, Schopfer sees a coming collision between the cost of doing business and the need to stay under Governor Cuomo’s tax levy cap. “We may be able to keep [the tax levy increase] under 2% in the next few years, but I don’t know if we’ll be able to do it with just minor tweaks,” he says. “As you get farther along, let’s say 5-10 years, you’re going to run out of places that don’t affect the basic services of the community. Eventually you’re going to start cutting into the core of the services that we provide and there will be some very difficult decisions of whether we provide those services or not, or if we go over the cap.”
