Letter to the Editor: In Response to Trustee Connell’s Audit Report Letter

Trustee Connell’s letter can best be described as disingenuous. Right off the bat she credits the TAG/Democratic party with being fiscally responsible and keeping taxes low, without mentioning the pain of 23.5% property tax increases on village residents that were largely unnecessary.

The budget was not “spookily accurate”. In fact, it earmarked $2.6 million in reserves for increased spending, reserves that went unspent due to $2 million in property tax increases. It budgeted for $27 million in general fund expenditures, $1.4 million OVER the $25.6 million that was actually spent.

Compounding such poor budgeting, the TAG/Democrats again increased taxes 7.58% for FY 2026, another $1.5 million out of your wallet. Trustee Connell and her colleagues seem to think that fiscal responsibility means extracting as much of your money as possible.

As candidate for Trustee during last year’s village election, the Unite Sleepy Hollow team’s contention and financial modeling suggested that the fiscal situation was better than the TAG/Democrat claimed, who insisted that the Village was near bankruptcy. We suggested that over the past several years poor budgeting and delayed financial reporting led to unnecessary tax increases. The $1.4 million in less spending alone is proof of that and represents more than 50% of the tax increase! Despite being called “unscrupulous campaigners” using made up financial numbers, our financial models largely proved correct.

If you can roughly predict the budget math as Trustee Connell claims, how did the TAG/Democrats get it so wrong?  With a growing tax base and a responsible group of village employees, the Board has a responsibility to deliver tax relief. With an improved capital base, the recent receipt of $4.6 million from Edge on Hudson, and continued grant funding, we can invest in important needed capital projects.

During the campaign, USH suggested modest 4.4% and 2.6% tax decreases for the next two fiscal years, which could be achieved by utilizing just $1 million of excess reserves. Since Trustee Connell feels the urge to continue in campaign mode, we will continue to advocate for such tax relief, confident in the knowledge of our financial expertise and cognizant of the pain poor budgeting and excess tax increases have inflicted on village residents.