Port North Trustees Finalize Proposed Budget

The Village of Port Washington North's most recent Board of Trustees meeting was more than just a board meeting, it was an intense workshop regarding the potential proposed budget.

The proposed budget for the period from June 1, 2010, to May 31, 2011, is currently at $12,447,631, over a $1 million decrease from last year's $13,458,232 budget. The budget also includes a proposed tax levy increase of 1.47 percent.

"We didn't have to drop it much," said Mayor Robert Weitzner, of the potential budget number. "We arrived at the number through an analysis of our revenues and expenses."

The board also spent a significant portion of the meeting reconfiguring the proposed budget. "We had a budget number, but we were uncomfortable with that number," Weitzner said. "We wanted to drop the tax increase below two percent and we just made revisions and lowered our contingency a little bit. And for the most part, that's what got us to the final number."

Weitzner explained that the potential 1.47 percent tax increase is the village's lowest increase in the past five years. He also emphasized the board's satisfaction with the slight increase to offset the budget decrease.

"What I can say is that we are fortunate that we can maintain the kind of services we've had in the past — road work, street cleaning, and our leaf pick up," Weitzner said. "And frankly, all we have to do is increase our taxes by under one-and-a-half percent. ... We have a balanced budget, so it was just a matter of what rate we were comfortable with and where the numbers fell for us to get there."

The mayor added, "We didn't change any services, we didn't cut any services. We just recalculated and reviewed all of our revenue sources and all of our expenses and there were some instances where we thought the expenses could go down and some instances where we increased expenses. There was a series of about eight moves made to arrive at that 1.47 percent."

The final proposed budget will be presented at the village's April 27 meeting.

The meeting also marked the first for the village's new treasurer, Susan Pisano, who came on as a consultant on Feb. 18 and was appointed treasurer roughly a month later. Pisano has a business background and professionally she has grown from titles of business manager to assistant comptroller to comptroller and finally treasurer.

"I want to give them the best financial information that they can get," Pisano said of her goals as the new treasurer for Port Washington North. "I want to do some planning for the future, maybe do a five-year plan with them. I don't know that they've had a five-year plan. I think it's all been year-to-year [planning], so I think I'd like to do some long-range planning."