By Lauren Connell, Trustee of the Village of Sleepy Hollow
The Village of Sleepy Hollow recently received its 24-25 Audit Report and we finally get a clear picture of our financial situation. Regardless of how you feel on other issues, if you care about fiscal responsibility and keeping taxes low, the TAG/ Democratic party clearly got it right.
After three budget cycles with a fiscally responsible TAG approach, the 24 – 25 audit results show that we have turned a corner. I am hopeful we may even have a balanced budget this upcoming year, for the first time in five years. A big congratulations to Mayor Rutyna (TAG) for making smart financial decisions that resulted in a budget that ended up being spookily accurate, with only a $130,615 spending gap. This leaves us in a great position to keep taxes low for the 26 – 27 fiscal year.
As Mayor Hsu (TAG/ D) stated in the recent newsletter, the highlights are:
- Overall, the Village brought in just over $26.2 million in revenue, an increase of $2.7 million from the prior year. Notably this included $2 million more in real property taxes and $400,000 more in permit fees
- The Village kept expenses flat at $26.4 million, with significant expenditures on employee benefits (nearly $6 million) and debt servicing ($2.2 million)
- Given the conservative approach to spending by the prior administration, the Village only needed to draw down $130,615 from the unassigned general fund to balance the budget
This audit shows that the Village’s financial position is stable heading into the next fiscal year, with revenue continuing to grow and restrained use of reserves providing a solid foundation to manage rising costs and long-term obligations while planning for future priorities. This is a very different place than we were 3 years ago, when we had a multi-million dollar spending gap and multiple trustees attempting to push the Village into taking on more high-cost debt.
So why was there so much confusion last fall during the election season? Because our audit results lag behind our current spending by 1-2 years. That gives unscrupulous campaigners the ability to make up their own numbers and ask the public to trust their “financial model.” Don’t fall for it! The numbers speak for themselves. When someone says we should have cut taxes the past few years, ask them how that is possible when there was no surplus in 24 – 25. In other words, we still spent more than we took in last year; we were still in the red. Audit results speak louder than email blasts, no matter how many font sizes and colors you use.
When it comes down to it, the Village budget is math. You have money coming in and money going out. You can roughly predict, usually but not always, a lot of that. If you stay fiscally responsible you stay out of trouble. If you go with an overly optimistic, rosy vision of the future, you end up taking out a huge bond and creating a multi-million-dollar spending gap, like the Unite Sleepy Hollow administration did while in power for a decade. Then you start to worry about the basic fiscal stability of the Village.
In July 2023, I made the below simple chart using the audited financials and budgets on the Village’s website. After the recent budget results came out, I went back to check on how my prediction did: we are ahead of schedule in a good way.
Even more encouragingly, the $4.6M developers contribution was recently transferred to the Village. While this money is restricted, it does give us the opportunity to catch up on some highly needed capital expenses that we have been deferring. For example: the first property tax update in decades, a new fire truck, a new recycling truck, and other key capital expenditures that the BOT has prioritized. It is illegal to use for tax breaks, and, even more importantly, it would be irresponsible to use it for tax breaks and leave us less fiscally resilient.
If we remain fiscally responsible and resist the siren-like seductive pull of Unite Sleepy Hollow’s magic vision of money growing on trees, we can stay the course and continue to keep our Village out of financial trouble. Even better, together we can continue to be diligent about prioritizing and watch our Village achieve great things together.
