Oyster Bay passes $342.8 million budget that freezes property taxes

The Town of Oyster Bay on Tuesday approved a $342.8 million budget for 2025 that freezes property taxes; this reversed the trend of tax increases in some Long Island towns.

Spending will rise another $3.3 million in 2025, slightly more than the 2024 budget of $339.5 million. Under the budget proposal, the total tax levy would be about $233 million, down $671 from last year.

The vote was 7-0.

Employee salaries are expected to reach $102.9 million in 2025, up from $100.2 million in 2024, according to city budget documents. The town’s total debt payments will drop from $88.2 million in 2024 to $84 million in 2025. Spending on employee benefits is expected to increase by nearly $6 million in 2025, according to the budget.

Rob Darienzo, the town’s budget director, said that jump is “all in the area of ​​medical benefits.”

“Costs have increased roughly 8-10% in recent years, and a similar increase is projected for 2025,” he said in an email. “The worst part is that when we prepared the budget we had no idea what was going to happen, so we’re guessing it will be similar to past years.”

Property taxes for the average home will be the same as in 2024 ($144 per month or $1,728 per year), Darienzo said.

The town expects other expenses to increase as well, including legal fees rising from $2 million to $2.5 million. The town expects IT maintenance costs to increase from $3.3 million to $4.2 million.

Darienzo said the spending plan does not include one-time revenues such as federal pandemic aid.

All five East End towns plan to exceed the tax cap in 2025, citing the rising cost of employee benefits as a factor for the proposed increases. Newsday reported. Brookhaven And Towns of Babylon They plan to pierce the cover. At the beginning of this month, the Municipality Hemp voted to exceed the cap and approved a budget that increased property tax levies by 12.1%.

Oyster Bay has $100 million in reserves, according to the town’s budget proposal. Oyster Bay Supervisor Joseph Saladino said in a statement that the town has strengthened its finances “through strong conservative budgeting practices.” The town is paying off debt service faster and limiting new borrowing to capital projects, Saladino said.

In 2016, then-town Supervisor John Venditto increased the tax levy by 11.5% in an effort to reduce the deficit by $44 million. The town has not raised taxes since then, officials said.

The 2025 budget includes: Investing in downtown HicksvilleStreetscape and walkability projects are expected to begin in 2025, according to Saladino.

“We will continue to transform Hicksville into a vibrant downtown for millennials, young families and senior citizens,” Saladino said.

Over the summer, Moody’s Investor Service upgraded Oyster Bay’s credit rating from A1 to Aa3 and said the town’s financial outlook was “positive.”

Oyster Bay’s practice of keeping property taxes flat could continue “almost indefinitely,” said Ken Girardin, research director at the Empire Public Policy Center, a conservative-leaning Albany think tank. But he said the tax base must continue to expand.

“Growth is the key,” Girardin said. “If real estate values ​​decline or the town loses a significant taxpayer, that will be a challenge the board will have to take on.”