Board approves $28.2M budget with 2% tax hike

By MARTIN WILBUR

Mount Kisco approved a $28.2 million budget for the upcoming fiscal year that lowered the tax rate increase to just under 2% and trimmed the tax levy by about $56,000 from the initially proposed plan.

Village trustees ratified the spending plan by a 4-1 count before the required May 1 deadline that will see water and sewer rates rise along with a second parking meter rate hike this year. When the 2026-27 fiscal year begins June 1, meters in the municipal lots and on the streets will jump to $1 an hour. It was raised from 50 cents to 75 cents an hour in January.

Some discontent

Despite minor adjustments to the final numbers since Village Manager Ed Brancati unveiled the tentative budget in mid-March, there was debate and some discontent during the public hearing among the Village Board and the public about aspects of the new budget. 

The tax levy, which was first proposed to be $16,869,000 was lowered slightly to about $16,813,674. The initial tax rate called for a 2.34% increase before it was reduced to 1.9953%.

Mayor J. Michael Cindrich warned that if the village fails to attract new development, the cost of living in one of the more reasonably priced communities in Westchester will become unaffordable. He said if the village hadn’t hiked parking rates, for example, the tax increase for the year could have been twice as much.

Fees hold taxes down

“The fact is if we don’t have some development in the near future, you can project that the tax rates will be growing exponentially,” said Cindrich, who voted for the budget. “If we didn’t have the increase in parking fees over the last two years, I suspect that the tax rate would have increased from 1.99% to over 4%, and this is a challenge because who pays these fees? The people that live in Mount Kisco and some of the outsiders.”

Cindrich called for the village to undergo a more extensive audit rather than only relying on the annual audit to accurately assess Mount Kisco’s fiscal status and to study all of the fund balances with several large expenses coming up, most notably the still unknown updated cost to replace the Preston Way bridge. The village is using nearly $1 million from the fund balance to help balance the 2026-27 budget, a decrease of about $200,000.

“The board is going to have to make a decision if there are cost overruns, to borrow money, do we borrow more or do we use some of the fund balances that we have, if appropriate, to pay for the bridge,” Cindrich said.

Deputy Mayor Karen Schleimer was the dissenting vote on the board, stating simply that the members could have done more to save residents money.

“I still think that we are overburdening our taxpayers and I think we could have done a better allocation,” she said.

Village is complying

Board member Tom Luzio said that while not perfect, the bottom line was that the village will be complying with the tax cap and keeping the tax rate increase at a reasonable level despite all the challenges. The approved budget is also about $69,000 under the tax levy limit.

“I know not everybody’s happy with the final result, but the final result does keep us under or at the 2% that we hope to have,” Luzio said.

At the April 27 special meeting to adopt the budget, the board debated whether to restore the $25,000 per space parking payment fee for developers who are unable to meet on-site parking requirements. Since 2019 it has been $12,000, although it had previously been $25,000. The money could go to building a parking garage or acquiring more land for parking in the future.

While Cindrich and Schleimer supported the hike, it did not receive backing from Luzio and trustees Heather Bryant and Tammy Brown because the issue had not been raised in time to be discussed at the public hearing last month.