To the Editor:<\/p>\n
On March 16, Mayor Chance Mullen began the opening of budget season with an update on the Village of Pelham\u2019s flood mitigation project.\u00a0 Although characteristically lengthy, it has two real headlines:\u00a0 the estimated cost of the project has increased materially in just 2 years, and New York State has no interest in lending a hand to Pelham.\u00a0 The result is not only a tax-cap busting budget, but also the certainty that spending for this one project will crowd out other priorities for years to come.<\/p>\n
As to cost:\u00a0 in November 2023, the cost of the project was estimated at a fairly staggering $39 million.\u00a0 Under two-and-a-half years later, it has risen to an estimated $48.5 million \u2013 an increase of just over 24 percent.\u00a0 And this is before any ground is broken:\u00a0 project costs frequently increase once a project is started.\u00a0 The Mayor\u2019s update does not discuss the reasons for the increase, although he does note new discoveries with respect to utilities and the needed relocation of water and sewer mains.\u00a0 And of course, underground infrastructure aside, this part of Westchester is very rocky.\u00a0 It\u2019s not unreasonable to expect an ultimate project cost of over $50 million.<\/p>\n
The Mayor also states optimistically that the Village will receive at least 50 percent of project costs in grants.\u00a0 This is based on an \u201cearmark\u201d of $16 million from Westchester County, which has not yet been legislated and is not legally enforceable.\u00a0 An application will go in for another $8.25 million.\u00a0 How about New York State?\u00a0 Our Village electeds\u2019 efforts seem to have yielded only a $500,000 yet-to-be-legislated \u201cearmark\u201d from State Senator Nathalia Fernandez \u2013 or 1\/300th of the $150 million that New York State has allocated to neighboring Mount Vernon for its sewers.\u00a0 So much for working with the state government, as Governor Hochul effectively says to Pelham: \u201cDrop Dead.\u201d\u00a0 Given its financial stress, can Westchester County be reasonably expected to follow through with its earmarks, or will this be another example of the \u201cpromised\u201d Covid-era grant for pedestrian safety at Sparks and Wolf\u2019s Lane, which was cancelled, resulting in the Village financing the over $300,000 in improvements alone.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Mayor thus proposes an increase in the Village\u2019s tax levy of 8.7 percent.\u00a0 Due to the recent appreciation in home values, the Mayor states that the rate increase is 3.8 percent, but this is a red herring \u2013 home prices fall as well as rise over time.\u00a0 Moreover, since \u201croughly half\u201d of the 8.7 percent increase is attributable to flood mitigation, the Village would likely have needed to bust the tax cap without those expenses, due to higher pension and health insurance costs for Village employees.\u00a0 Because such costs are likely to continue to rise, and because the Village needs to increase its \u201ccontingency reserves\u201d for floodwater debt service, not to mention debt service on the Village\u2019s existing debt, which has spiraled in recent years, other improvements \u2013 such as paving the many pockmarked Village streets \u2013 will need to be sacrificed.\u00a0 Village residents are thus assured of seeing repeated future budgets that do not comply with the tax cap while receiving fewer services in return.<\/p>\n
As a boy, I read and re-read Walter Lord\u2019s \u201cA Night to Remember,\u201d the best recounting of the hubris that led to an unsinkable ship being rammed into an iceberg despite receiving plenty of messages about ice.\u00a0 The Titanic sank in April (fittingly the same month as the end of budget season in the Village).\u00a0 The Mayor and the Village Board begin their upcoming budget review on March 20th; sad to say, with a fiscal outlook mirroring the North Atlantic in early spring, their attitude is that of Bruce Ismay, the Chairman of the White Star Line:\u00a0 Full Speed Ahead!<\/p>\n
Arthur S. Long<\/p>\n
165 Boulevard<\/p>\n
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