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Written by Joanne Wallenstein

Published: 12 April 2022

Created: 12 April 2022

Last Updated: 13 April 2022

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Scarsdale Assessor Victoria Sirota has prepared a presentation of available tax exemptions and how to apply for them if you’re entitled. The presentation can be viewed on the Village website here:

A complete list of real property tax exemptions, applications, and instructions can be downloaded from the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance website

• Star Exemption.  Homeowners currently receiving the Basic STAR property tax exemption may upgrade to the Enhanced Star if one of the owners is 65 years of age by December 31, 2022 and the household 2020 income is equal to or below $92,000. One may also visit the online NYS Star Resource Center for more information.

• STAR credit. New applicants may apply online through the NYS Department of Taxation and Finance, or by calling 518-457-2036. The May 02 filing deadline does not apply to the STAR credit.

• War Veteran’s Exemptions. Eligible war veterans must submit the initial exemption application form and separation papers to the Assessor’s Office by the filing deadline.

• Low Income Senior Exemption. Under this program, property owners at least 65 years of age by May 01 whose income is less than $37,399.99 may be eligible for exemption benefits on a sliding scale.

• Persons with Disabilities and Limited Incomes. To qualify, persons with disabilities must submit documented evidence of their disability and meet income limitation requirements not to exceed $37,399.99.

The exemption application deadline is typically May 01. However, since May 01, 2022 falls on a Sunday, both new and renewal exemption applications must be received in the Scarsdale Assessor’s Office or postmarked no later than Monday, May 02, 2022. If you have any questions or need copies of the exemption applications, please call the Assessor’s Office at 914-722-1133 or e-mail the Assessor at [email protected].

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Written by Joanne Wallenstein

Published: 25 April 2022

Created: 25 April 2022

Last Updated: 25 April 2022

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The Scarsdale Little League campaign to install lights on a baseball diamond at Crossway Field continues with a hearing of the Scarsdale Planning Board scheduled for Wednesday May 4 at 7 pm via Zoom.

The Planning Board will consider a proposed $455,000 gift from the league to finance the installation of lights on Crossway 1 and in the parking lot to allow for night games in the spring and fall. In addition to underwriting the cost of the installation, they have offered to fund the utility and maintenance costs for 25 years.

They estimate that the lights would be used for a total of 88 days for five out of seven days per week during the fall and spring. The proposal has received the endorsement of the Scarsdale Advisory Council on Parks and Recreation.

At the hearing, the Planning Board will consider the location of the lights, the type of lights, the potential for light spillage and “the potential impacts on adjacent land uses, including but not limited to potential increase in noise and traffic created by athletic events, including practices and contests conducted after sundown.”

Once they consider the questions above, they have been charged with making a recommendation on the proposal to the Village Board.

The proposal has both supporters and objectors.

A group called the “Crossway Lights Committee of the West Quaker Ridge Neighborhood Association” are among those who are seeking to turn down the proposal. Here is a letter from that group forwarded to us by Gerald Antell:

Crossway Lights are an Unnecessary Luxury

Night games would be fun. Night games would be cool. This is how Little League Board member, Steve Pass frames the motivation to offer a $ 500,000 gift to the Village to install 80 foot steel poles at Crossway Field. A permanent change to a neighborhood that has historically opposed lighted fields and is fighting them now. Our Petition to Oppose this thoughtless proposal has been joined by nearly 200 residents and is growing by the day.

Field availability is not the issue here. In fact, the Little League's own website states:
“many travel teams from other towns have been club teams without reliable access to their town fields, so more games than usual have been played in Scarsdale........we expect that trend to continue.”.

It is also well known that Scarsdale baseball fields have been used by teams from other towns for years.

As our Petition makes clear, the Crossway/Boulder Brook Sports “Complex” is already saturated with more sports activity on weekends and afternoons than anywhere else in the Village. Loads of traffic, noise, players, spectators, ice cream trucks, police cars and trash for hours on end. But this outrageous lighting project proposes to make it worse, disrupting the neighbors until 10 PM, by the time all the cars drive off.

The lighting project estimates 88 nights of use per year. And that's just for Little League games. As the Recreation Department publicity acknowledges, if Crossway were lighted, requests are anticipated from many teams and leagues including Men's Softball, Varsity/JV/Freshman Baseball and Softball, Recreation League Softball and Travel Softball. A lighted field could be allocated seven (7) nights a week, from April through October. That's quite a change for a neighborhood that has never allowed night-time activity in its history.

Supporters of the lighting project point to a similar installation at Butler Field at the High School. This is a laughable comparison. The Butler Field area has had lighted facilities for at least four (4) decades. And since the 2019 installation, the lights at Butler Field have been used, on average, once every two weeks. No wonder there has been mostly favorable reaction from the Butler neighbors----those lights are barely used!!!

But not all Butler neighbors are happy. In fact, our Petition now includes some. It turns out that many Butler neighbors felt ignored during the planning of that project and they are still unhappy about it now.

$500,000 is a lot of money. And the Little League is generous to offer it. The Village and the Recreation Dept. would love to accept it. But their answer should be: Thanks. But No Thanks.

Please join:
Petition to Oppose the Crossway Lighting Project
[email protected]

Gerald Antell
Alan Garfunkel
John Lofaso
Co-Chairs ----Crossway Lighting Committee
West Quaker Ridge Neighborhood Association

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Written by Joanne Wallenstein

Published: 06 April 2022

Created: 06 April 2022

Last Updated: 06 April 2022

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(This statement was forwarded to us by Alissa Baum, President of the League of Women Voters of Scarsdale)
The League of Women Voters of Scarsdale (the “League”) thanks members of the Village Administration (the “Administration”) and members of the Village Board of Trustees (the “Board”) for participating in a panel at the League’s General Membership Meeting and Village Budget Information Session and addressing questions related to the 2022-23 Tentative Village Budget (the “Budget”) on March 29, 2022 via Zoom. The League thanks Village Manager Rob Cole, Treasurer Ann Scaglione, Assistant Village Manager Alex Marshall, Mayor Jane Veron, Deputy Mayor Justin Arest, Trustee Sameer Ahuja, Trustee Karen Brew, and Trustee Lena Crandall, for addressing our specific questions related to the Budget as well as regarding potential issues going forward. The statement below reflects the consensus of League members at a Consensus Meeting held immediately after the Information Session.

Position

The League supports the 2022-23 Village Tentative Budget. The League offers its comments and recommendations regarding certain budgetary items as well as the budget process, with the hope they will be considered as this year’s Budget is revised and finalized, and in the future.

New Budget Strategy

The League notes and appreciates that the process for developing the Budget was significantly different from that used in previous years. This year, department heads were asked to establish goals and objectives and link funding requests to their attainment. Ultimately, department heads ranked priorities (high, medium, and low), and Village staff combined all requests into a single spreadsheet to allow items to be compared and evaluated, thereby providing a comprehensive picture of the costs involved.

In addition, several budgeting practices were revised to provide more accuracy and transparency, including:

Moving recurring equipment and capital expenses incurred in the ordinary course of business into the annual operating budget rather than the capital projects fund;

Itemizing all projects and purchases intended to be completed during FY 2022-23, rather than relying on surplus to fund previously unspecified projects at year end;

Accurately identifying and maintaining an adequate level of unassigned fund balance;

Justifying the tax levy increase with data outlining historical tax rates and projections for future budgets;

Identifying needed and, in some instances, long-deferred capital projects and providing a forward thinking multi-year plan to fund them.

The League commends the Administration and the Board for implementing a new methodology that better allows the public to understand the costs of funding versus deferring investment in identified projects. The League applauds the Administration and Board in looking not only at where the Village of Scarsdale is now but at where we want it to be in the future.

Budget OverviewLWVS President Alissa Baum

The Budget includes a tax levy increase of 3.7%, which is under the New York State Tax Cap of 4.7%. The total tax levy is $44.66 million. The average assessed property will see an increase this year of $216.67. The corresponding tax rate is 4.9535%. The current operation projections for 2022-23 shows operating expenses of $62.26 million, and operation revenue of $61.09 million, which results in a deficit of $1.17 million. The deficit will be covered by a transfer from the general fund balance.

The Budget also includes a proposed capital expenditure of $24.85 million, with $15.21 million earmarked for the pool complex renovation, if authorized. The projected sources of funds come from a combination of $19.2 million from debt, $1.8 million from American Rescue Plan Act Funds, $1.7 million transfer from the General Fund balance, and various monies from an intra-agency transfer, sanitary sewer rent, and the Parkland Trust Fund.

Tax Levy

The League acknowledges the necessity of the proposed tax levy increase of 3.7%. The League commends the Village for providing a clear explanation and justification for the increase, with comprehensive discussion at Board meetings and the distribution of easy-to-understand visual supplementary materials that showed how the strategy of keeping taxes artificially low over the last 20 years by deferring needed capital improvements will eventually result in a sharp tax increase in future budget years. The League has repeatedly expressed concern about the deferral of needed capital improvements and appreciates the effort made this year to set a timeline for addressing some of them.

The League notes that the Village has included a $430,000 reserve in the Budget to reduce by 1% the tax increase that will be required in the following budget year and appreciates the Village’s effort to stabilize the tax impact on residents.

Unassigned Fund Balance Policy

The League supports the revision of the fund balance policy, which now calls for unassigned fund balance to be maintained between 15-20% (up from 10-15%) of the ensuing year’s appropriations, pursuant to GFOA best practices.

In response to written League questions and questions presented at our information session, the Administration explained that the new unassigned fund balance policy is not a significant departure from the previous policy. The Village explanation being that “there were obligated funds parked in accounts that were not being spent down, thus constituting unrestricted fund balance not captured in the reported percentage, i.e., our reported unrestricted fund balance was historically higher than our reporting suggested.”

The League supports the maintenance of sufficient unassigned fund balance, especially in these uncertain times of continued potential disruptions from Covid-19 and the specter of rising inflation. The League is pleased by the more accurate and transparent reflection of unassigned fund balance in the Budget, thereby allowing the public to understand the real status of Village finances.

Capital Investment

The League strongly commends the Village for adopting a CAPEX planning approach to set forth a schedule in which to fund needed capital projects now and over the next five years. The Capital Plan details the projects intended to be completed in the FY 2022-23 year and indicates the source of funding for each project.

Notable Major Capital Projects (and Source of Funding) Include:

Pool Complex Study (Borrowing)
Village Center Transportation & Mobility Study (Borrowing)
Replacement of High Priority Vehicles (General Fund Transfer and Borrowing)
Highway Improvements (Road Resurfacing Pathway Improvement, Priority Curbing Programs (General Fund Transfer)
Storm Drainage, Catherine Road Culverts (Borrowing)

The League encourages the Village to adopt this long-term approach for other major capital expenditures and to engage and inform the public in the endeavor.

Although we are pleased that the Administration and Board have finally sought to address many of the Village’s critical infrastructure needs, the League remains concerned about deferral of other important infrastructure needs, such as Village Hall and Freightway Garage, and hopes that both projects can be considered as early as next year’s budget process.

Water Rate

The League appreciates the Village’s explanations during the Budget working sessions regarding the rise in water rates. As per the Village’s responses to League questions, the Budget includes a 1% increase in water rates and doubles the ready-to-serve charge. The Village states that the increase is needed to cover not only water purchases and ongoing maintenance costs but also $2 million of capital expenses to begin rehabilitation work identified in the 2021 Water System Master Plan.

The League recognizes the need to maintain the financial integrity of the Water Enterprise Fund. The League looks forward to the future discussion of water rates and whether additional tiers of usage are advisable to more fairly charge residents based on their water consumption.

Staffing

The League supports the addition of four full-time employment positions (code enforcement officer, Weinberg Nature Center naturalist, pool and park maintenance mechanic, and tree trimmer) and appreciates the identification of the proposed salaries as well as the fully-loaded cost of these positions in the Budget documents. The addition of full-time staff is a recurring cost and should be considered with care; however, the League recognizes the importance of hiring and retaining the staff necessary to fully support the services that residents expect and ensure the smooth operation of Village affairs.

Sources of Revenue

Property tax is the largest source of revenue for the Village. The League appreciates the graph provided by the Village in its response to LWVS Questions detailing the top non-property tax revenues which shows that parking revenues have not returned to pre-pandemic levels. Given the uncertainty of future daily commuting patterns, the League encourages the Village to find creative ways to generate other revenue opportunities and thereby decrease the tax burden. Such opportunities might include increased code enforcement and penalties sufficient to deter violations as well as the further adjustment of fees and charges beyond those already raised as part of next year’s Budget.

The League looks forward to the continued discussion regarding who should bear the costs of various Village services such as recreation programs. For example, whether costs associated with certain activities like tennis should be funded, in part, by all taxpayers or passed on fully in the form of fees and permit costs only to end users. We encourage the Village to include the public in these important philosophical discussions.

Process and Communication

The League strongly commends the Board for embracing the technology used during the pandemic and continuing to conduct meetings in a hybrid format. By maintaining the remote option after resuming in-person meetings, the Board has enhanced the public’s ability to view and/or to participate and comment during Board working sessions (which were not previously accessible by remote means) and during regular Board meetings. The League believes fervently in the importance of regular, easily accessible dialogues with the community, and hybrid meetings are one way to achieve that goal. The League encourages the Board to continue to find additional ways to engage a larger portion of residents to enable greater participation in important Village decisions.

The League commends the scheduling of additional Board working sessions in order to better implement this year’s new budget strategy and to more thoroughly explain the key decisions about taxes and the funding of capital projects. The League further commends the Board and Administration for posting online budget materials in advance of meetings and for providing explanatory memoranda and other simplified materials, such as the FY 2022-2023 Budget Brief. Publication of this Budget Brief allows the public to better understand the Budget and explanations for various decisions which are not readily accessible in the full 187 page Budget document.

The League thanks the Administration and Board for their professionalism and dedication to our Village. We would especially like to thank the new Village Manager, Robert Cole, who has filled his new position seamlessly as well as Village Treasurer, Ann Scaglione. Both have been so thorough, kind and responsive to our League questions on the Village Budget.

Thank you for taking our comments into consideration.