Village board trims $27.2M budget; final vote set for April 28

By MARTIN WILBUR

Mount Kisco property owners are likely to see a smaller tax increase when the Village Board is expected to approve the municipality’s 2025-26 budget on Monday night.

Village Manager Edward Brancati announced that nearly $143,000 has been trimmed from the $27.2 million budget through several small reductions that lowers the tax rate hike from 2.89 percent to 1.99 percent. 

Despite the reductions, the village will continue to bump up against the tax cap because the $142,874 that was saved will now be assessed to the property owners in the Village Center Improvement District. That’s to pay for a share of the streetscape improvements that have been done in the heart of downtown. The budget complies with the tax cap by $2.

Instead of apportioning the cost of the improvements over a two-year period, the village is now going to assess that expense in one year, Brancati said.

“There’s no change in what we present from a tax cap standpoint, but it is for all property owners, the rate is coming down,” he said. “Then, what we’re going to collect from those in the Village Center Improvement District, will be much closer to what full apportionment should be.”

Reductions include eliminating a $66,000 transfer to the capital budget, going from three summer seasonal workers each in the highway and sanitation departments to two seasonal employees, which will save $17,280 and removing the request for a part-time building department position that will reduce expenses by $28,000.

Another change that will reduce the budget by about $20,000 is transforming 1.5 full-time equivalent positions in the recreation department to one full-time slot that will be split between regular recreation and the senior rec programs, Brancati said. Originally, a full-time recreation leader was included in the budget along with a part-time position for the seniors, but those will be combined.

At Monday evening’s Village Board meeting, the board closed the public hearing and decided to hold off on adopting the next fiscal year’s budget until Monday, April 28, to evaluate whether there should be additional changes. At the two meetings where the hearing was open, only one resident spoke, asking officials to reduce the tax increase to at or below 2 percent.

Mayor J. Michael Cindrich also said he would like the board to consider adjusting parking fees and possibly reduce the days and hours that the village allows free parking in hopes of finding ways to increase revenue. In addition to revenue, Cindrich said he has found that there are days where parking is at a premium downtown, including a Saturday earlier this month when a protest, an antiques show and an event at the firehouse left few spots available.

“That was an awful lot of spaces taken up,” Cindrich said.

It is unclear whether the village will make a proposal to change parking rates and hours in time to adjust revenues for the upcoming fiscal year.

The 2025-26 village budget will take effect at the start of the new fiscal year June 1. The board must adopt the new budget by the end of April.