By NEAL RENTZ
The Lewisboro Town Board, in its continued discussion of the 2025 budget on Nov. 4, agreed to increase spending on road paving and look at potentially constructing a new police headquarters.
On Oct. 28, Lewisboro Supervisor Tony Gonçalves proposed a tentative 2025 budget that included spending levels which would exceed the state-mandated property tax cap for the town of 2.49 percent.
The tentative budget was $1 million over the tax cap, and without changes the tax rate would increase by 14.2 percent. The proposed tax levy for 2025 is $9,789,360.
The supervisor’s tentative budget called for spending from the general fund to be $11,820.026, and the highway fund proposal is for $4.850,618 for a total of $16,670,644. That’s an increase of $1,393,177 compared to the current year. The revenue increase in the proposed budget is $172,769.
However, the town board came to a consensus Monday to spend more for road paving and resurfacing than proposed by Gonçalves at the request of Highway Superintendent John Winter, who is in his first year on the job.
In his originally proposed spending plan, Gonçalves sought $360,000 in town funds for repaving and resurfacing of the roads. But the board agreed to increase to the original requested $600,000.
Winter said his goal was to get on a schedule where the town will only have to maintain projects rather than overhaul them.
“But that will take time and a larger portion of the town budget to accomplish,” he said.
The highway department has not received adequate town funds since the 2008 financial crisis, Winter said. Within the 2024 budget the department has received $180,000 for road repaving and resurfacing this year.
Road repaving and resurfacing “is the number one request and complaint I get from residents,” Winter said. His department should repave several miles of road per year rather than one mile of road per year, he said.
Councilman Dan Welsh said the town is between 30 and 40 miles behind in roads that need to be repaved.
“We should have done those roads. We didn’t do it,” he said.
Police department budget
Also at the meeting, Gonçalves said the town is in the initial stages of working on a plan for a new police department headquarters at 79 Bouton Road, South Salem, site of the former Lewisboro Elementary School. The town currently rents the police headquarters, which is in two trailers, from the Katonah-Lewisboro School District at an annual rate of $22,000.
One potential site for a new town police headquarters could be next to the state police barracks, Gonçalves said.
Police Chief David Alfano told the town board the current town police headquarters has drawbacks, including having no showers or generators and by law, the department cannot bring juveniles to the building.
Gonçalves said a committee has been formed on what the school district will do with the former Lewisboro Elementary School property, but has not come up with a decision. The committee “has not made any progress,” he said.
The town’s contract with the school district is set to expire at the end of June 2025, but the town could potentially extend its lease for another year, said Gonçalves.
On another topic related to his department, Alfano addressed staffing. The Lewisboro Police Department has a force of 16 part-time officers and four full-time officers, which includes the chief and a sergeant.
Councilwoman Andrea Rendo told Alfano that residents have asked her if town police could patrol after midnight; Alfano said he has been asked if there could be police on patrol overnight, particularly with recent commercial burglaries taking place in town. Without a town police shift after midnight, local emergency medical services workers are waiting up to an hour “for state police to show up,” Alfano said.
Police departments in the United States are suffering from a “shortage of officers,” Alfano said. Local municipalities are seeking to hire new officers from the same pool of retired police, he said.
In New York state, retired police officers receiving a pension cannot earn more than $35,000 annually from a government job, Alfano noted. A several-years effort to convince the state Legislature to increase the cap for retired police officers has failed, making it difficult to hire retired officers. The town wants the Legislature to raise the cap to $50,000, he said.
Alfano said there should be a five-year plan developed for the police department.
A public hearing on legislation that would give the town board the authority to break the tax cap has been scheduled for Monday, Dec. 9.