Sleepy Hollow
There is an 800-pound gorilla in the Village, and Village Administrator Anthony Giaccio does not attempt to hide it. “We’re just slightly over the cap,” he says. “Maybe to the tune of about $10,000, $15,000.” However, since the Village Board voted to override the cap before the final budget numbers were known (something most other municipalities in the region did) Sleepy Hollow will not face any penalties. This year’s tax levy came to $9,507,804, which is a 2.74% increase over last year, though much of the pain of that increase will be felt by non-homestead properties [4 family homes & commercial], which will see their tax rate increased by 7.96% as opposed to 1.49% for homestead properties [1-3 family homes].
As the Village continues to wait for GM or Castle Oil to come onto the rolls and provide some much-needed relief, they continue to save money through attrition, as a number of public works employees have retired in the past three years, and the police force has dropped three men in the same time frame. “We’re pretty much down to the bare bones. The next step would be layoffs but we haven’t gotten to that point yet,” says Giaccio. “I think next year will be even more difficult to keep the taxes down. The Village has, over the last five years on average kept the tax rate below 2%. Each year you do that you find fewer and fewer places to cut.”
