Town Board - Regular Meeting

town board meeting of November 18th, 2025. If you could please uh rise if you're able for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Welcome. This evening we are thrilled to recognize and celebrate historic preservation in our town of Bedford in our in our Hamlets Katona and Bedford village and throughout the entire town and tier one and tier 2 properties. Uh I'd like to extend our gratitude to all the homeowners here this evening. Uh this has this day has been many months in the planning and we will explain a little more about the work that has gone into that and why um later on. But first, I would just like to really thank all the volunteers who have worked on this effort. Um, the volunteer committee specifically Clayton Rose, Kate Terry, Jenny Weissberger, Chris Delaney, Taran Kendall, Ellen Cohen, Dear Dortney Batson, Liz Hack, Andy Chintz, and John Stockbridge. So, thank you all very much. But before we kick off our presentation, I would like to introduce you to Daniel McKay, New York State Deputy Commissioner for Historic Preservation, who has been visiting us this afternoon and um sharing with us a variety of ideas and uh opportunities for historic preservation in our town. Um he has been working on the John J. Homestead renovation project and uh other historic endeavors in Bedford. So, um I thought he might want to say a few words um over here at the podium, please. So, thank you so much for joining us and staying with us um for a long day in Bedford.

Ellen, thank you and board members, thank you for the welcome and uh thank you to the audience for your the very many reasons you may be here this evening. Um, I suppose the common denominator is that you're stewards of a historic home or property somewhere in the town of Bedford and and kudos for taking on that role. Um, I serve as deputy commissioner for historic preservation for New York State. I oversee the state's historic preservation portfolio, both the federal programs that are extended down to New York State by the National Park Service and the Department of Interior. and I oversee the state the state level incentives uh some of which pair very nicely with with the federal programs and some of which are standalone where there is no federal program. The state has stepped in uh in in various ways uh to establish um incentives and education and programming that um uh that that fills the void that that the federal government has has not chosen to undertake in New York. Um I should probably start uh so that's a big portfolio. It's statewide. Uh, you know, New York State is a state with a remarkable, um, social and economic history. Uh, the New York State Park system, um, my my responsibilities as the state preservation officer in New York, uh, sometimes my office is parked in the economic development agency. Sometimes it's parked with the secretary of state. In New York State, the responsibilities are parked at New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation. last in the name, but as we tell our staff, we are we we want to we want to be first uh first in the agency's thoughts. So, uh we're running the National Register program in New York. We're running the federal and state rehabilitation tax credit programs, the certified local government programs. We are administering some very distinct his uh grant programs for historic properties if owned by nonforprofits and municipalities. the tax credits begin to reach down to uh

individual property owners, whether commercial properties listed on the National Register uh or in some cases res well residential properties listed on the state register of historic places. and Ellen and I had a good conversation about um really the the state of uh preservation infrastructure here in in um in Bedford and some potential opportunities to make preservation even more attractive uh and incentivized um and I look forward to the chance to continue those conversations with the supervisor, the town board um and staff as necessary. So um one of my uh one of the functions of my office is serving as the sort of technical adviserss to the state historic site system. Uh there are 45 35 designated historic sites within the New York State Parks Agency. Um thematically or chronologically the uh oldest one from a thematic perspective is is Ganondagan. It's a Senica Indian site outside of Rochester, New York in the town of Victor and it commemorates Senakica Indian history both his you know the historic and prehistoric components of that history as well as the contemporary influences of the Senica nation in western New York. The other end of the chronology is the Darwin Martin House, a Frank Lloyd Wright designed house in Buffalo which um actually had several large components of the property demolished by former owners in the 1950s and60s and the that property has been uh restored and recreated so that the full campus that Darwin that Frank Lloyd Wright designed for his client Darwin Martin um is now is now intact and and restored. Um, in between are are sites like Phillips Manor Hall and uh Skyler Mansion and um Claremont, the home of the Livingston in the Hudson River Valley and uh Johnson

Hall, which was the home of uh General Johnson, the the the British liaison to uh the Native American nations uh of of that time frame. And we're central, you know, our sites are central to the telling of the Revolutionary War story. and our sites are central to the continuing uh impact of the revolutionary war period, the unfinished business of the American Revolution. So, Stonewall is a state historic site uh in New York City in additional to being a national historic landmark. So, um that's a big portfolio. Uh that's just one piece of the portfolio, but that alone is a big one. Uh we have offices, my my staff is based outside of Albany. Uh we have a large uh historic campus. We are we occupy a um former uh Cluit Peabuddy shirt collar factory where um they used to bleach fabric for shirt collar manufacturing in um uh in Troy and that has been adapted for reuse. It has conservation labs. It has a collection storage facility of over 2 million objects that are not on display or not on interpretation in the historic site network. And right now, a good portion of the interior contents of the Bedford House at Jay Homestead are in storage up in Albany and in several other locations uh while we await, you know, and we are waiting uh for a project um to get underway to uh restore Bedford House and reopen that property to the public. And we appreciate your patience. Um the shutdown to the house started with the uh with the um undertaking of a fire suppression system project. Uh a project that was underway during the time frame when NRAAM burned in Paris. And we were so very happy that um we had made the investment in Bedford House to install

uh you know a highly uh refined and and technical you know uh system uh that would not only save the house but also protect the collections within that house in case of a potential fire. The house was going to reopen when a decision was made to uh make additional investments in the property. And uh initially the concept was that in the 65 acres of that national historic landmark property, the agency would be investing approximately 2930 million to undertake a number of improvements including ADA access, improved parking, restoration of the house, uh making the visitor center and orientation space for season uh as well as other components. And uh ultimately we we pulled back from that project. it was clear that uh costs were rising. There were some other factors. Um we were able to sit down with with neighbors and Ellen and other members of the community to say we're we're pulling back. We're going to reconfigure. the commitment to invest in uh Bedford, you know, in the property remains, but now that $30 million budget is being focused very specifically and intentionally on Bedford House proper along with some other utility um and related upgrades. So, it will not be a campuswide investment. It'll primarily be a Bedford House investment. But when Bedford House comes out of this uh out of this process, um the restoration will be immaculate. uh and it'll be a fitting uh fitting gift uh to not only the local public to have access to the house again but during this revolutionary war commemorative period to sort of reestablish and reposition uh John J um as a complex figure founding father diplomat um owner of enslaved emancipator um we will be able in that

restored house to interpret and will be interpreting the full range of stories in history uh at that site. That $30 million investment is going to be the largest single investment in a historic site uh in New York State Parks history. It actually follows the previous record investment which was also in Westchester uh at Phyllis Manor Hall in Yoners. It's about an $18 million hardcost project and uh that site looks extraordinary. I hope you've had a chance to visit since the investment has been made there. Um it it it is a site with its own unique story. You know, the primary uh or the easy story to tell there is a story of um uh the loyalist family that owned the property and was literally chased off the property during the Revolutionary War period for siding with the British. But what but it now basically serves as 2,800 square ft of interpretive space in the oldest piece of property, the oldest structure owned by New York State Parks. um you know dating to the 1600s. Um that property now tells the story of sort of the transition between Dutch colonial rule and the first uh the first generation of English colonial rule uh in New York State. And so the story of the Native American presence uh in the lower Hudson Valley uh the story of the enslaved who really built the wealth uh of Philips Maners Phillips the Phillips family. Um and it's an extraordinary it really has set a benchmark. It was designed to set a benchmark not only from a restoration perspective but from an interpretive perspective and that is what we will be able to bring to the John J site in the Bedford House as well. Um so we are looking forward uh the bidding uh the bid documents are being refined. Uh there's one more piece to incorporate into them. Uh we expect to be out to bid for that project sometime in 2026. uh and then we'll probably be able to re

you know on that schedule uh the intention is to be able to reopen the site uh in 2028. That's a long time. Uh we uh are sorry it's taking that time uh but I think what what comes of that time and that investment uh will be visible uh understandable by all by all of us as to you know the links which the agency u took to um recommmit to that property. So, um, otherwise, you know, 2026 has been, uh, 2025 has been a a tumultuous year. Um, you know, there have been significant impacts to historic preservation because of approaches, uh, in the, you know, in in the by the White House to historic preservation funding. Uh, I've had 18 staff that have been sort of at risk from loss of federal funding. Uh, we have weathered all those storms. We have been able to uh negotiate the receipt of of significant grants um that have been slowly coming through the park service been you know we had applied for under the Biden administration were awarded under the current administration uh and we have been able to sort of find a way to proceed. Um, additionally of note, um, we have, um, significant funds coming to New York State Parks and the Division for Historic Preservation from the African-American Heritage Commission allocation of Governor Hokll. Uh, she allocated $16 million to um, pursue uh, implementation of the strategic plan that was released last summer by that by that commission. uh over $6 million coming to parks to invest in interpretation uh and and other goals uh to implement the strategic plan uh of that commission and some of that money will indeed influence interpretation uh at the J Homestead. So um I think historic preservation is in a

pretty pretty good state in New York despite some challenges of the last of the last year. Um we are a nationleading office. Um we have um we're operating incentive programs that are that are really setting national records every single year in terms of engaging private investment in historic preservation. Um we have expertise on staff that is certainly available to municipal government but is certainly available to you as private citizens. do not hesitate to call our office for consultations, advice, uh leads, um on on opportunities. Um we are uh very client oriented. Um that has been an approach that I've tried to instill in the office since arriving about nine years ago. So um thank you for the opportunity. When I arrived the bsentennial, the rev up commission was meeting. and I got to hear a little bit of the energy and momentum uh that that uh that commission is creating here at the town level. Uh I I staff the Rev work commission, the New York State 250th commission for um my commissioner who is who is co-chair with commissioner Betty Rosa from state education department. The allocation that's coming to the two agencies has arrived at state parks. Half has been allocated to state education department and it's the state education department funding 2.5 million 1.4 is being directed into local communities. I think Westchester 250 will be the recipient. Um and then we'll make further dispersement. So I I hope it it seemed from the energy in the room at uh 3:30 that RevUp uh would be well entitled to uh to access some of that funding. So I hope I hope that comes true. Uh we will be making an ask for additional funding uh in this we are making an ask for additional funding in this upcoming uh

state budget 2026 the 250th a lot of focus on Philadelphia the constitution the bill of rights um but 2027 is absolutely New York's year so much so many things that happened up and down the valley uh across across the state out to uh out to western New York and Buffalo Buffalo. Uh 2027 is New York's year in the commemorative period and um we look forward to being back to see what happen is happening locally. Uh and uh thank you for your commitment to uh to that effort and and the energy that that meeting seemed to indicate was happening here locally. So thank you.

Thank you very much, Daniel. Um we're really uh excited about a lot of those projects and for the the restoration at J House that really will be tremendous for for our community. So thank you. Um and yes, we will be applying for those grants. That's a good thank you for letting us know. Um so kicking off this evening, uh I'd like to just start by thanking all of you here who are owners of historic properties. we uh started this effort uh to increase education around historic preservation I think back in maybe February or March. Um a few of the his we have three historic commissions that uh oversee applications or take uh do recommendations regarding applications for historic home renovations or exterior changes to properties in the districts. And so we have our Kona Historic uh district advisory commission. If anyone from that commission is here, if you could raise your hand. Yep. Thank you. Uh we have our Bedford Village uh historic district review commission. If you could raise your hand if you're here. Thank you. And then we have our historic building preservation commission. Raise your hand, please, if you're here. So, these volunteers um really put a lot of time and effort into helping review these applications when a historic property comes before them, but they felt that, you know, in in talking to some of them that there just wasn't a lot of information out there about what that means, what you're going to, you know, if you're buying a home like this, what what is this going to turn into? um how you know so we really started talking about how could we put more information on the website reach out to realators let people know who are buying homes but also how could we really celebrate that this is a huge important

thing in our community it gives so much character to our town and to our hamlets to have these beautiful historic structures and it's really you know up to the property owners to take care of these these are labors of love I know many of you it's a lot to take care of a historic property. And so, thank you, thank you, thank you. We want to continue to thank you and to continue to let the whole town know what you have that, you know, they really cherish and that they should cherish. So, this is the beginning of really an effort to continue to lift up historic preservation, to celebrate those who help with historic preservation, and to keep the education, the conversation going. And we thought, well, let's start small. We won't start with a big party. We'll start with recognizing, you know, five properties and we'll do a proclamation, a town board meeting, no one will come, but it'll get in the paper and then we sent out a letter and 80 people RSVPd to come. So, next time it's BYOP. Um, and we will continue doing this. Um, we're starting with just five, but clearly there are so many properties that are just gorgeous and people take such good care of that we so appreciate. So there's we're putting the plaques that we'll be presenting to these properties tonight. We have a a copy for the homeowners and a copy for the wall down near the assessor's office. And so hopefully we will continue to fill up that wall with photos of all of the beautiful historic properties in our town and so that everyone can see how lovely they are and how important they are to all of us. So to all of you, thank you. Um, before I turn it over, I just want to say I hope we can give all of you a round of applause. Now, I would like to turn the program over to Clayton Rose, who is the chair of the Bedford Village Historic District Review Commission, and Kate Terry, who

serves as the chair of the Historic Building Preservation Commission. cheat sheet. Hi everyone. Thank you so much for coming. This is really an amazing turnout when we've been talking about this for months. Um, so we have five homes to recognize. We are going to tag team this and I apologize. We will be I will be reading off the page because it's a lot to remember on the the different uh properties, but we are starting with 82 Edgemont. Um, this home was I don't know if it's kind of fun when you see it and you can hopefully recognize it, but definitely go touring around to find these houses. Um, built in 1897. Since uh living in Kona in the early 90s, Celeste Crosby has dreamed of owning a Queen Anne style home in the Katona historic district. In 2005, her dream came true when she and her husband Gary Mckendry bought their house at 82 Edgemont that you can see. The historic home built in 1897 in the newly established village of Katona had been neglected for some time. They decided on a major renovation. This entailed new electric, plumbing, heating, air conditioning, slate roof, siding, windows, doors, porch, walls, subfloor, floor. We all have been there. We know this list of things. And then when you open one thing, you get five more. Water line, gas line, septic, kitchen, bathrooms, molding, stairs, additional joists and rafters, structural supports, and fireplaces. literally almost everything in and an addition in the back and complete renovation of a carriage house followed. Um they put a lot of effort into preserving the architectural integrity of the home. Their architect was instrumental in this regard providing a wealth of experience in restoring local historic buildings as well as excellent advice on materials and colors of the roof, siding, windows, etc. They raised their family in the dream home and will continue to care for it until that is it's time to hand the keys over to the next family take to take care. So, we would love to ask uh

the Crosby Mckendry family to come up if you're here.

Lisa, you come over, Lisa. We made that list, but actually

Okay. Uh our second uh property uh 34 Village Green. The old firehouse now known as Oho built in 1929. Building owner Goven Freedelland was always fascinated by historic firehouses and he wanted to repurpose this home for heroes into something meaningful for the Bedford Village community similar to what he did with a charming villa in Posatino, Italy. Govin teamed up with Nicola and James Stevenson who were owners of the original oho on Court Road. Uh when the fire department moved to its new location, the Stevensons jumped at the opportunity to enter into a long-term lease uh at the old firehouse, citing its beautiful bones and incredible potential. There was a lot of potential. Uh there was a lot of work before the potential was realized. Uh the renovation was extensive. um and included replacing the asphalt driveway with a page Dicki designed garden, upgrading the bathroom and the HVAC, and exposing the original polished concrete stone floor. In a nod to the building's historical significance, the Stevensons didn't make any exterior changes. In fact, they kept the original shutters with fire axes and even incorporated those fire axes into OHO's new brand identity. Very subtly but very beautifully. Nick and James, if you could come up.

Okay, the next is uh 48 Parkway. This is a James Hoy house built in 1860. Uh the Kendall bought this historic home in 2014. While not setting out to purchase historic property, they fell in love with the Italian8 architecture and embraced the idea of being custodians of their home, one in a long line of families that have loved and cared for this house for more than 150 years. In 2023, the Kendallles began a renovation to add an ADA accessible suite with bathroom and elevator and exterior ramping. Thrilled with the final product, the homeowners were glad to have worked with an architect and contractor that made preserving the history of the home a priority. Owning one of the homes that was moved from Old Kona in 1897 to accommodate a reservoir, the Kendallles felt an especially strong sense of responsibility for preserving this property's place in history. It's beautifully done. So, UM, TARAN, IF THANK YOU. THANKS. THANKS. OKAY. 47 Pound Ridge Road, the Nehemiah Bates Homestead, built in 1794, this threestory side hall colonial anchored Bedford Village Green. Its grand scale, character, and beautiful property led Seth and Curtly Cameron to purchase this home in 2006. The previous family had owned the home for nearly 220 years, but had recently been renting out this home, which had

fallen into a state of disrepair. So, guess what comes next? Uh, a gut renovation. The Camerons replaced the electrical, the mechanical, and the plumbing systems, but also worked hard to keep as much of the original interior as possible, including floors, windows, moldings, and fireplaces. Few exterior modifications were made. Um, unfortunately in 2014, a fire caused extensive interior damage, uh, resulting in a second major rebuild. The Camerons again made all efforts to retain as much of the original home as possible and again made few changes to the exterior. The house today is a combination of the original side hall colonial and a Victorian home that was moved to the site like likely in the late 1800s and attached to the east facade of the existing structure part of a long history of moving houses in Bedford. When asked what was most surprising about owning a historic property, Curtley's answer, how well these homes were built compared to the homes today. currently.

Sorry. Okay. And uh the last home we're featuring tonight is 118 Babbot Road. It's the Armstrong House built in the early 1900s. So drawn to the character and charm of this colonial revival style home, Ellen and Daniel Cohen bought their house in 1999. Distinguishing features include original wood beams, wide plank floors, and a detached barn that was turned into an artist's studio. In 2005, the Cons undertook a major renovation and addition that included a three-story expansion with a sunken living room, a new bedroom, a master bathroom upstairs, a tiled mudroom with a new side entrance in the back of the house was also added. Throughout the Coins made sure to preserve the exposed wooden beams that give the home its historic character. What surprised the homeowners most was how living in a a historic property sparked a deeper curiosity about the town's history. They discovered that the house was once part of an apple orchard and dairy farm and learned that Babbot Road was originally called Reformatory Road, named for the New York State Reformatory for Women, established early in 1901. So, I welcome the Cohens up. Thank you.

Thank you all.

So, thank you everyone. Again, if anyone is particularly interested in continuing to work on this project of educating and lifting up historic properties, please reach out. Please apply to be on our historic commissions and also there's opportunities to work with our historic museums, the Kona Historic Museum, Bedford Hills Historic Museum and the and the Bedford Historical Society. So, lots of ways to get involved if um we want to continue this project and we look forward to recognizing more properties in the year ahead. I'm sure many of you a lot of these um efforts are familiar and so we look forward to hearing your stories and celebrating um your efforts as well. So, thank you very much for being here. You're welcome to stay and congregate um around the food out in the rotunda if you would like to or stay for the budget hearing which is starting shortly. So, thank you very much. No offense.

That's a good He he actually stand right there.

He was like, "Oh, I don't think I was sick like two months ago, so I'm like I don't think you can't have anything. No.

Your husband seems like very damaging. Big turnout. She's right there. Well, you will be, but I wanted to.

They should come to gonna blow up your eagle like that. It takes like days to get around your

You already know. I'm like, it's Sunday. I'm like, I missed it. Okay, keeping on schedule, we would like to move to the public hearing. We have um a public hearing set for the budget presentation and um public comments. I would like to move that we open the hearing. Second. All in favor? I and just confirm with the clerk then that madam clerk the hearing was noticed. Yes. Yes. Okay. Yes. In the recorder.

In the recorder. Okay. And so to kick us off, we have comproller Brian Connealy, our town budget officer, to present the 2026 preliminary budget. And then we will open up the floor for comments or questions from the public and the board. So thank you for joining us, Comproller Connealy. Rally.

No. Good evening. Good evening. Um, I thought everybody was here for me tonight. A little disappointed. Um, hope you're all doing well. Thank you. Thank you for being here.

Thank you for the opportunity to present the 2026 budget tonight. Um, as introduced, my name is Brian. My name is Brian Connealy. I'm the controller for the town. So, as the controller, I also serve as the budget officer and my less known title as parking administrator as well. Um, which I've grown to like. Um, so I have a PowerPoint presentation tonight. Um, you know, I was thinking before the meeting, uh, there's three takeaways that I want the Bedford residents to have tonight. Um, you know, one, I want you to get an understanding of the fiscal position of the town and just how good financial shape that we're in. Um, the second takeaway is, um, you know, obviously I want to talk about the specifics of the budget for 2026. Um, and the last one, hopefully the the residents get an idea of like our philosophy of the budget and how we approach the budget and, you know, we're very thoughtful of the process and it's a long process. And I'll add one number four. I hope everybody enjoys the presentation. I know sometimes budget presentations can be a little bit boring, but uh, I'll try to be a little extemporaneous and talk as opposed to read the PowerPoint slides. So, all right, let's begin.

Uh, so first I want to talk about the the timeline of the budget. Um, you know, the budget process is governed by New York State law and local law for Westchester County. Um, so we're required to submit a tentative budget by October 30th to the town clerk. Um so our process starts in the summer where departments submit their budget request for 2026. Um the supervisor, myself, the town board. We have several meetings with the department. We have a public work session if the public wants to get involved and try to get the message out. There there's a lot of back and forth before we get to October 30th. Now, I do want to say um in most years we don't have many changes from the tentative budget because we did a lot of work to get there to the preliminary to the adopted. This year is a little bit unique. Um we had the library proposition that passed um after the October 30 deadline, right? Um so that's a big change in the budget which we'll get into and discuss a little bit. Um, we also we held off on issuing our bonds for 25 a little bit because we're anticipating a drop in interest rates. We were successful in that and you know we were 2.9% effective interest. But of course now after the October 30 deadline, we have to change every amortization schedule in the budget. So you know there are a lot of little small changes to make. Um but the biggest one obviously is is the library contract now becoming its own separate tax district which passed um in November overwhelmingly from what I understand.

Um so last meeting I was a little bit under the weather. I wasn't here but the tentative budget moved to preliminary. We still have the preliminary budget tonight. Hopefully we can adopt it as final there. You know there's no issues. Uh so the budget becomes effective January 1st of next year but the tax bills go out in April for town tax. So that's what the deadline the uh the flow looks like. If anybody has any questions you could ask after the presentation uh for people watching if you want to contact me separate you could certainly do so that that's absolutely fine. People done in the past my website my address is on the website for the town. So that is the timeline of the budget. All right. So I want to talk about the tax cap calculation. The the tax cap calculation has been around for for a number of years now. It started in 2012. I I think it's pretty well known even for people that don't follow local government. they're always kind of looking at the tax cap for their town. Uh the goal is always to remain within the tax cap. I think people are very comfortable if that's the case. Um you know, you don't have many people here tonight. What I noticed from my own personal experience is a year you're breaking the cap, you have a lot of people here to complain. Um so I just want to take you through the the formula. I don't want to spend a ton of time, but just want to point out everybody associates the tax cap with the 2% increase. That's not necessarily the case because there's exclusions that are allowed for good reasons. So, briefly, I'll take you through that. The the prior year levy was uh 30 million 189657.

One of the exclusions I want to talk about is the taxbased growth factor. You know, this is a positive thing. if if this increases. Um, and just a shout out to the assessor for the town of Bedford. He caught a mistake from the state and it's been corrected. So, we're glad that he's on that and reviewing. Um, just wanted to note that. So, we have a 1.36% increase in our tax base. So to kind of explain what that means, when you add if you add a building or new assessments to your roles, it's a positive thing because it, you know, dilutes the tax rate for everybody. So there's a difference between the tax rate and your tax levy. The levy is how much money you're adding to your tax levy, but based on assessed valuations, your tax rate can change. And we'll look at that a little bit later. Pilots are nonmaterial here. Um the the allowable tax levy growth factor, that's what everybody kind of focuses on with the tax cap. Um you're allowed to increase the prior levy by inflation, but it's capped at 2%. So that's the 2% we all lock into. Uh you know, since co we've been in high inflationary times, I think, you know, we are to some extent. So it's probably 2% now and for the near future I would think. Uh the other one I want to mention is the prior year reserve offset. So if you don't go up to the tax cap, you can carry forward a portion of the unused um leftover for the prior years to the next year. So Bedford's amount is 232,000. And I'm going to use estimated numbers tonight just to keep things simple. Um, one thing I want to note is

the the town has not broke the tax cap since the first year we had the tax cap of 2012. So I think that that's a pretty important point that you know town is has been very moderate with the increases. Um, I think a lot of towns probably can't say that. Especially this year I'm hearing a lot of people were struggling to kind of stay within the cap limit. Uh the last thing I want to mention is although not a big dollar amount, it's 50,000. The New York police and fire pension rates have had a very drastic increase for next year. So the state has allowed an additional exclusion for that and the Bedford amount is 50,000. So in summary, we could increase the tax levy from last year by $1.3 million or what's 4.3%. The good news is we're not anywhere close to that. We're not breaking the cap. We're significantly below. So if that's all people want to see, you can turn off now. I'm just kidding. So let let's talk about what the town actually did. Um this is the like the third page in from the budget and this gives a summary in the aggregate and by individual funds on how much we increased the levy not the rates but the levy over last year. So I'll briefly take you through this. Now, the general fund, we took out the contracts for the libraries, which was $1.7 million last year. I am going to show a slide after this, which would show you if we didn't remove the 1.7 million, so you get a more realistic idea of what the increase would be if that didn't occur. So, no other fund changed besides the general fund. So, I'm going to use this

because it's a little less busy to go through. Um and this is really what is the town controlled um increases for the levy. So for a general fund with the removal of the the libraries, we're going to have a 7.86% decrease for next year or $1.3 million. Highway fund, you know, we're we're in very good shape in in highway. We have a very strong fund balance. Um, but some of the struggles every year in local government are salaries, benefits, and debt service. You know, most I'd say probably every town at 75% of your budget, right? Or those costs. So, we'll talk about a little bit later, but they always go up. So, that's why we have still have a nominal increase there. Um we've also added one FTE in highway but we have reduced an FTE somewhere else. So net net we have no additional FTEES added for 2026. Open space is the levy is a percentage of the general and highway levy. It's 2%. So, because we had a reduction with removing the library contracts, it lowers the 2% on the highway and general fund. So, we actually have a 4.5% decrease in the open space fund. Uh, it's a $22,000 decrease. And, you know, the unfortunate part is it it adds a little less revenue for 2026 for the open space fund, but I, you know, nonmaterial. All right. Next funds the the park districts um you know not very nominal increase. Bedford Village Park is 1.46%. Bedford Hills is a little bit more at 3.66%. It was trending a little bit worse in

our 24 financials. So we're just going to have to catch up a little bit. Uh Kona Park is 1.57%. For the Bedford Village lighting, we've been a little bit behind in terms of the utility cost for the electric for the lighting. So, we had to catch up a little bit to correct this. So, don't be concerned. You know, it's a 29% tax rate increase, but we're talking $5,900 amongst a pretty large assessed valuation group. So dollar-wise, this is not going to be material impact for people's bills. Uh you know, similar kona, but it's only an 8% increase, but again, a very small dollar amount. Uh please don't be concerned. One the next area which I want to talk about a little bit and give a little insight is the uh the fire protection district. So within the town, we have the three fire companies that service the greater majority of town. We have a small district with with about 85 parcels that is not within those boundaries. And I recently found out why. This goes back 80 years with how the crazy boundaries are dividing in Westchester County. Um so this is like a legacy thing where it was on its own. So, you know, the three fire companies have their own voting uh tax district that this board does not control. This small fire protection district with the 85 parcels is under our control and um we contract with Mount Kiscoco for the service. So, we have an expired contract. Mount Kiscoco has come back with the rather large increase request. Uh we spoke about this in the public works session

before too. Um we're we're still we have not agreed to the contract. We're still pushing back a little bit and working with um with their neighbors, you know, try to have a fair increase. Uh but I I have to budget what it potentially could be because I can't come up we can't come up short on the levy and not be able to make the payment. Um we do have some other options. We we could contract potentially with Bedford Hills or Bedford Village or potentially they could roll into the fire districts. Uh but we're hoping to come to an agreement with Mount Kiscoco on this something fair. Uh if if there's anybody in that fire protection district that wants to contact us separate, feel free and we can kind of keep you informed on the situation. Um going down to the waters, uh seedar down to 0%, the other water funds were looking for 2% increase. We are not Commissioner Wyn has decided to not budget for an increase in water rates, but we will watch it closely to see if if that changes for some reason throughout 2026. Uh last fund is the paramedic district. This is we're in the the WHEMS's consortium to provide the advanced life support for the transport. We don't have much negotiating power here because it's, you know, an overall contract that we're in. So that's an 8% increase, but again, I I don't think it's a big dollar amount. We'll actually look at some examples later on the presentation.

And that was because we added another fly car last year, so we're catching up to some of those expenses. So it shouldn't continue to be that much. should level out then, right? Yeah. Okay. So, for here, um, it's a little skewed, but in total, we have a 3.3% decrease in our total levy over last year, and that's predominantly because of the Yeah, the library is moving over. Um, so we're significantly below the Go ahead. No, you can finish your sentence. Oh, I'm sorry. So, we're we're uh significantly below the tax cap by $2.3 million for the actual budget.

Okay. Thank you. We contracted 1.8 with the libraries last year, but I know our budget had 1.7 and then we like made it up somehow later. So, are we reducing it by 1.7 or 1.8? I used what was put in the budget. Okay.

Um for this because that's what actually I'm doing budget to budget, not actual the budget. So, I used the 1.7. Um, we'll discuss a little later, too. But it's also important to notice when I'm comparing with it and without on the next slide, I'm using what was in the budget, not what was passed for the $2.6 million um for the proposition because if it remained a fund, there wouldn't have been that form of an increase, right? So, okay.

Yeah, good clarification. So this is a little more busier but I just want to focus on the the general fund which had the library contract and the total. So this is essentially the slide before except the first group is it before we remove the library after the red leper libraries after we took out the library. So, if you add in the last year library contract for the 1.7 million, we would have a 2.6% increase in the general fund. Um, in the aggregate in yellow, we'd be a little bit below a 2.5% increase, 2.4% increase for total levy. Um, that'll be further reduced by our growth and assessments in terms of rates. So what I consider a very nominal increase in the face of increased pension cost, health cost, um union contract settlements, and debt service that we've added. Right? So we're keeping the bud budget very steady over last year. This is a summary of the total budget. So, our total appropriations are $47.6 million for next year. The non- tax revenues are $17.56 million. The non- tax revenues are like are everything but like the key things are like sales tax, mortgage tax, building fees, interest earnings, like you know the big revenue sources, appropriated reserves. Um, for those that don't necessarily know what that mean in the public, this is your what they call a lot of times appropriate fund balance. So, this is using our

savings or fund balance to offset tax. Otherwise, what would be a tax increase by using some of our savings? Um, you know, this is a good thing because we don't have to increase taxes by what we're using to balance the next year budget. We've also built up a very strong fund balance which I'm going to show later. Um but also the other side of that is we don't want to be relying on using fund balance every year to balance the budget. So we want to kind of work this down. We did reduce this from last year. So we're heading in the right direction. Um we had highway fund had $und00 million that we used to balance highway budget last year. Now we're not using anything in highway. So we have a pure balanced budget.

We have not increased the general fund appropriated fund balance from last year or the water 100,000 from highway. 100,000 was in highway. Yeah. So this year there's no appropriated fund balance in highway. We kept general fund 600,000 and we kept water 250,000. So the same amount as last year. We may not use it. I mean we we haven't been using it in the last couple years. we've actually been doing very good. And you know, some of our revenue sources are at alltime high.

You know, safety inspections are coming in 1.5 million. Um the highest they've ever the highest they've ever been for two years. Um yeah, so the total tax levy is 29.184 million. Um, again, we're $2.3 million below the tax cap. All right. So, I I added this slide from last year, and it's very simple, but I I hope it just kind of gives some insight um on how we approach the budget and our thought process for this year. So, this is a list of the major expenses and how we're going to fund them. So, the bud, you know, the budget is very big. It's 150 pages. There's 2,000 line items. It could be very confusing for people to go through. But if you really look at the expenses that are that are $100,000 more than last year, it's only a couple things, you know, and it goes back to most municipal budgets are salaries, debt service, and benefits. Um, the big things that have added this year is police retirement system. It's a $400,000 increase over last year, right? It's a huge number. And these are based on estimated bills, which don't usually change that much um because the state actually gives you the estimates. Regular retirement 200,000, salary, 600,000. Now, we have three expired contracts, so we don't necessarily know where we're going to end up for 26. Um but we have to budget an estimate just in case. So this is an estimate plus all the non-UN increases that we have or just step increases that are not increases but people metriculating through their steps in the union.

Um debt service we've issued a bond we mentioned we closed last week. Uh that's 600,000 increase over last year. We do have we had a portion drop off in 25 of an old bond. We have another the next bond that drops off is 2031. So we do have a couple years where we're going to have a little bit of the higher debt service level. Um but then we'll drop down a little bit in in 2031. So the point of this is we have a million8 if we if we don't reduce our staffing the debt service we've already closed, right? Um we have a million8 in new appropriations over last year right for the major categories. Um so when we look at it you know how how does the board how does the administration how do we look to fund this amount of an increase? We're we're slightly over 2% increase effectively. Like we have a decrease in levy, but if you add it back in, we're like two and a half uh 2 and a half% increase with the libraries. So I everybody locks in the 2%. So I just said hypothetically if we did 2% increase that would get bet for an extra $600,000 in revenue for next year, right? Just for taxes. So the question is, how do we fund the other $1.2 2 million in the increase in appropriations. Now to the right, I wanted to show our fund balance history over the last couple of years. 2021, we had 23.3 million in fund balance. 2022 we have 28.4 million. 23 31.7 million. Sorry.

2024 31.1 million. I'm projecting um a favorable fund balance for 25 as well. So I think that'll grow for 25. So our thing is how do you cover the extra with taxation if we're beating the budget every year? And we're beating the budget because we budget conservatively. And on top of that, to be fair, we've also had some outlier years with their revenue performance. Like, you're not going to hit that every year with sales tax, mortgage tax, building inspections. Like, we've been kind of at an all-time high. So instead of going to the public for taxation being over, you know, I'd say well over $31 million in reserves, we're looking what else we can adjust on the revenue side to match the appropriations. Um interest earnings, you know, we probably assume they're going to decrease rates in 26. Even with decreased rates, I think we could still hit $400,000 over what was in our 25 budget. Uh, building permits. We're projecting to hit 1.5 million for this year. We hit 1.5 million this year. So, we budgeted that number, which is a 400,000 increase over last year, just based on the fact we actually hit those. So, We very realistically could hit the 1.5 million. If that doesn't happen, we have so much builtup fund balance, we can kind of take that chance for next year, then

there there's 400,000 other areas that we either increase the revenues based on real results or cut appropriations. So that's how we kind of balanced a $1.8 an $8 million increase on the appropriation side with only going to taxation for 2.5%. All right. So, I I kind of hoping that gives the people like an idea of how we look at the budget and we don't just say let's increase the taxes to cover the increases. Let's kind of think about a little bit more thoroughly. You'll you'll notice one thing I didn't have in that prior slide was the health benefits. And the reason being is we budget for a 10% increase last year for health benefits. The rates came out after we adopted the budget. So we put the additional into contingency. They were much lower than that 10% number. So for this year, we're going to let that 10% ride. um will probably be fine. So, we didn't have to increase the appropriations for the health benefits for 2026. Ju just to get an idea of how expensive health benefits are. Um we'll focus on the family plan. The town is paying $40,400 for a family plan. You know, it's astronomical cost, right? um you know newer newer people coming on they have negotiated higher contributions to the premium but the more senior people in government have better deals and they contribute you know much lower percentage of retirees. Um so we're you know we're trending in the right way to try to push the cost share the cost but um you know a lot of

the senior people have lower contribution rates. Um health benefits are 7.6 6 million. It makes up 16% of the budget alone. You know, we're also at a point where we're getting close to having more retirees than active people on our health plan. So, and it's not that's not just us, that's every town, right, is dealing with that. Pension rates also, you know, very very large increases. This is a struggle for us. So if you're not going to reduce staffing, you know, you're really locked into the stuff. For health, we participate in the NIH plan. That's contractually obligated. We agreed to that. You have to be in in the pension system for all full-time employers in New York.

Um 2020 for police and fire. This is the average rate for the pension system. So there's different tiers, but here I listed the average. 23.5% of someone's salary. the 2027 projected bill, 36.5% of a salary. So you figure, you know, police officers with a lot of overtime, that that's a very big cost, right, for the town. Um, non-emergency services, the regular retirement system, 2020, 14.6% of a salary. 2027 projected 17.6%. another huge increases. If if you look at the um the graph here, you know, the 80s and 90s were very high pension rates. They dropped down, we're right back up. It's reverse bell curve. So, you know, hopefully in the future things kind of level out, but we're we're in a very high rate environment for benefits. May not happen, but yeah. So, you know, th those are our biggest struggles. Like I'd say any municipality, um contractually negotiated salary increases, um debt service, benefits, you know, more more so health and pension are the real big increases. Um there's not much you can do in terms of negotiating that. I will say the one thing that we did this year um my leison on uh Councilman Bicker, we looked at a lot of the professional service contracts and evaluated putting some of those out for RFP. One of them we did was the insurance. So we haven't put the insurance out in a long time. This is workers comp and it's also the general liability portion. We've got back the workers comp portion and we have a significant reduction for workers comp. So that's why it's good, you know, to keep vendors honest and

event, you know, periodically go out for RPS. Uh the general liability results are not back, but we we did very well with the reduction of workers comp and we actually kept the same carrier. So with the competition, they reduced it. So that's good. Um so the next couple of slides, what I did was I took real tax bills for each one of the hamlets. Um, it's a projection on what they paid last year versus what we're projecting next year based on this budget. So, I'll talk about the the Bedford Hills one first. So, for this tax bill, the um the assessed valuation was 72,165. And yeah, I know like assessed valuations not everybody understands this uh like esoteric language. Um what this means is we have like an equalization rate which we divide to get the fair market value. Um 25 is very easy to remember because 7.65% like you know FICA. So that's one you know I'm not going to forget. So if you divide the taxable assessment by the EE rate that should give your approximated fair market value, right? And the state gives us the rates every year. So a 70, you know, somewhere I use stuff in like the 70 to 75,000 range. These are real bills. You're looking at, you know, like a $900,000 house or just under a million. So I think that's, you know, a fair number to use within this town. Um the school bill, we know it's a separate bill. Um you get that January and September.

Everything else is on the town bill, but the only thing that this board has control over is from the general fund to the consolidated water on this slide. You know, we don't control the county tax. Obviously, uh the fire districts have their own vote and now the library is not under the control of this board with the proposition. So, I just want to look at the town portion of the bill. If you look at the the last column here, these are the changes in rates for each one of those districts. So, with removal of the library, we have a $163 decrease in the general fund. Um, I'll just hop down. If you look at in yellow, this is what I'm projecting to be your separate line item on your tax bill, not controlled by this board, will now be $312. and that I looked at their content, you know, to the public before this happened and I'm in agreement with their math. They were using $70,000 test valuation. Um the the equate change, but you know, it's it was close last year. So that line would be $312. They estimated about a $100 increase per household, which I'm in agreement with. So, if that didn't change, if it stayed to 1.7 or 1.8, it would be about $100 less, right? So, if you put that back into the $163 reduction, it's a little hard to

explain, but if you add that back to that line, the amount, uh, you'd be looking at like a $50 increase in the general fund tax line, right? Um, because remember the 312 is what it would have been when it was a contract in the general fund. Plus, they went from a million8 to 2.6 million, which passed. So, the total tax is 312, but the increase would be 100 bucks. It would have been 200 bucks if if that didn't pass and it was still in the general fund. Uh, highway fund, you know, $17 increase. Open space, a $3 decrease. Paramedics, $5. Even with the increase we saw before, Bedford Hills Park, which was the biggest increase with the 3.6%. It's $12. Consolidated water is $14. So, you know, you're looking at your increase is $120. If the library is back in there, you're like less than 100 bucks, right? So I think it's a very digestible tax increase knowing some of the struggles we have with the increase in benefit costs, salaries, and debt service. Right? So I think it's, you know, it's a very fair budget year-over-year. So the next slide, I just want to give some context like how much of your total tax bill is actually the town tax. Um the town tax is 19% of your total bill. School is always the biggest with 63%. Um now the little yellow is the library, the county and fires the 16%. So the town provides an enormous amount of

service with police and highway recreation, but you know we're we're a very small portion of the bill. We're less than usually 25% of the bill in most towns. Um, I have one in each district, you know, kind of is the same concept. I'm not going to go through in detail, but very similar. If you look at the Bedford Village, you know, very, very similar concept. Um, the Bedford Village tax bill, little bit less. It's 18% of the town tax um of your overall tax bill. Kona, you know, say same thing if you look here. Um, you know, you're looking at like a $100 tax increase if we the libraries remained. Um, similar Bedford Village, the town is 18% of your overall tax bill. So, you know, we're we're relatively small slice of your overall tax pie.

Brian, quick question. The rate on the school for Katona was different from Bedford Hills and Bedford Village because of the different school districts. Yes. Yes, I saw 181 versus 165 per each of the assessed values. Yeah. And that's why it'll change a little bit the pie chart. Now, I don't have the next year. So, I just took a 2% estimate over I just that's the one thing that stood out. Okay. Yeah.

All right. So, I just want to look at the two major funds, general fund and highway fund. Um, this is like a summary view. So, If you look at the the appropriations year-over-year, we are $28.2 million25 for the expense, 27885 for 2026. That's a $370,000 decrease in your expenses for general fund. Um, if you add it back $1.8 $98 million versus the 400. It's a $1.4 million increase in the general fund. We talked about that before, but striving that increase is salaries, benefits, debt service, right? Um, very typical everywhere. We're we're in a an environment of very high increases every year for benefits. You also see for revenues we had 10.9 million for last year and 11.8 million for this year. So to offset that we went through the revenues. We're a little less conservative, still conservative. I still think we're going to beat the budget, but a little more realistic based on the amount of fund balance we've accumulated. You know, over $31 million in fund balance. I think we need to be a little bit less careful just to make sure we're not holding on to too much taxpayer funds or increasing rates that we don't necessarily have to increase. Right? So, we have a minor change in philosophy but still very attainable numbers. Um, so we increase the revenue the general fund 944,000 that was the building permits, the interest and some various revenue

sources. uh tax levy went down to $1.3 million. Uh we understand why the the assessed valuations um this is what we talked about the tax base growth factor. We had 604.9 million last year in like total assessments

versus 606 n you know 607 million let's say in in uh total assessed value total assessed valuations for 2026. I do have to mention that we've been lucky with not getting hit with major certiaris here in the past. There are still a few large pending cersiaris. So we may not see the benefit we've had in prior years where we can get like a half% decrease in tax rates compared to the levy increase by the increase in in assessed valuations. Um Harry kind of filled me in on some of the cersiaries pending. They're still negotiating but we have a little more exposure this year. Um, a lot of that relates to the the drop in or eek rate that happened from year-over-year. Um, I don't think it would it would be go negative, but the 2 and a half% increase, let's say, in general fund um may remain 2% if the tax hurts hit as opposed to getting like a 2% increase because the valuation went up. Um, I know it's hard to follow a little bit for people that don't live in that world, but just want to put it out there. Um, so if if the Cersiaris don't hit, you know, we we were the 7.6% I believe decrease in the general fund, but it'll be an 8.2% rate decrease because of the assessed valuation growth. Uh here's a chart of the breakdown between the different categories of appropriations. So just to kind of drive that point home, salaries 43% of the general fund. Employee benefits 35%. Right? So we're

at 78% right there in salary and benefits. Another 7% in debt service. So we we try really hard to go through contractual services, supplies, you know, we look at orders, try to push back, try not to spend money. We don't have to look at professional service contracts, but there's not much of an impact even with doing that because most of the budget is, you know, it's like a fixed cost. Thank you. All right. Highway highway is a little bit easier to explain because there's no changes in highway with uh the libraries. Um so our expenses for uh 2025 were less

were 9.6 million versus uh 9.9 million for uh 2026. So we have about 250,000 increase in appropriations. We've added an FTE in the highway fund. That's part of it. And then your normal COLA increases and debt service and benefits. Uh revenues, we increased it 175,000. You know, this is partially chips and and then various line items within the highway fund. Uh CHIPS chips funding is the the money we get for the state. Um, every year as I mentioned before, if you look at the appropriate fund balance, we had a 100,000 in 2025. We were using money to balance the budget. We've weaned off that. So, we have a complete balanced budget for highway fund. it the tax levy went up 172,000. Um as noted for assessed valuations we have an increase of 2.1 million. This is you know more parcels coming on or you know more valuation added to the town. So you know this is a good example here of what we talked about. We had a 2% levy increase budgeted for the highway fund with the growth with the growth in assessed valuations. it only comes out to a 1.6% increase, right? So, your actual tax bill will be lower than the 2% levy increase. Um, if if the Cersiar is hit, that may change a little bit. Um, we we use that for all the examples here. We use like the $70,000 assess valuation. Um, which is like a $900,000 property in town or a little more. Um,

so that's the $16 increase we have here. Very nominal increase in the highway highway fund. You know, it's it's a little less total of salaries and benefits because of all the paving and infrastructure work we do, but it's still a high percentage. You know, 29% is uh salaries, 23% is uh benefits, right? So that's uh 52% of the fund, the salary benefits. I kind of went over all the special districts in the first page, so I'm not going to redo it here. Um flip to the next slide. The key takeaways that that I really want to give tonight is, you know, the 2026 budget were $2.3 million below the tax cap. If you're comparing apples to apples and you put the library contract back in, we're still $555,000 below the tax cap, right? So, we're way under the tax cap. Um, our external auditors or a Conor Davies, they issued us an excellent um an unmodified opinion, which is the highest level of assurance you can have. So, from our external orders, we look great um for them. We just closed on the bond last week. Uh S&P gave us a AAA rating. Um stable outlook. So our creditors are look really favorable on us. That's how we can get these 2.9% rates in higher rate environments. Um our last audit financial statement backing out reserve capital money. We have over $31 million in fund balance. I don't have a crystal ball, but I based my projections. I think we're going to

add to that for 2025. So, we're we're in extremely strong fiscal position. We're looked at extremely favorable by external auditors and rating companies. Um have not broke the cap since 2012. You know, we're in excellent shape. I think the board's doing an excellent job. I think the administration is doing an excellent job, department heads, all the employees. So, I just want to leave it at that and thank you so much.

Thank you, Controller Keley. That was very interesting as you set out to do. So, thank you. It was conversational and easy to follow. So, thank you very much and thank you for all your tremendous work on this with all of our departments um for the past many months. Thank you so much.

Any questions? No question, just a a comment that the way you kind of restructured the slides, Brian, and to bring things in a more simplistic form, I think is is tremendous. And this is again, I'm going to sound like the nerd here. I love going through this. This is one of my favorite meetings we have every year to go through these numbers. And the way, again, you outline them now and they're so pointed. It it's it's it's great. It's it's I think it's a tremendous service to our towns people who can, you know, ultimately get it from you and go through it and understand it to a good degree by themselves without even listening to your, you know, presentation. And I just want to say thank you. Yeah,

I have to agree. I mean, I find this to be one of the best meetings all year because it really tells us a lot about the functioning of the town, the financial health, how things are working, where the money's going. It reminds people about what a large percentage of the funds are the fixed expenses and how well we do with that remainder of the funds that are, you know, variable. I and thank you. This was excellent. Thank you so much. Thank you. And I really appreciate those comments because I find, you know, budgets can be very complex when you look at the how voluminous they are.

But, you know, I try to break it down to something that's a little more simple and digestible. Um, and you know, I think giving more of like a conversational presentation is is a little bit better for the public to hear, right? They kind of understand it more. So, you know, I think thank you for those comments. Um, one more thing because I looked this up myself, so I could give the answer, but you're standing here, so I'd rather you do it. Um, I get this question all the time, and what people really want to know is what is the bottom line? What is the tax rate going to be for town taxes next year? And can you just share that?

I I think like the simplest answer is we we use like that $70,000 assessed valuation. Um just an example cuz that's what is like a middle middle class house in you know in this area which to me is a lot of money but you know it's a middle class house. Um it it looks like that our portion of the bill, right, what what this board is in control of to to approve would be like a hundred bucks increase for the year, maybe a little bit less. That that would be like the rate increase for all the funds, but like the percentage.

Oh, so that that that's a little bit hard of of um a question to answer because parcels can be in different different uh funds and special districts. Okay. So, like, you know, it really depends. Like, we're all on the general fund, we're all on the highway fund,

but you could be in different park districts, you could be in different um water districts. Um some people are not in the water district. So, you know, um I mean, I guess the the simple answer is we have a because we removed the library, we have a 2.3% decrease in what this board is control of. Um to be fair, if you added back in the contracts without the voted increase, we'd be a 2.48% total increase levywise. If the cersiaris don't come in high, you know, we could be like a 2% effective rate increase over the year. It's going to depend a little bit on the districts people reside in, but I think the simple answer is it's like a like between a two and a two and a half% increase for rates.

Thank you. Thanks. Okay, any questions? Any comments from the public? Okay. So I think we uh should move to keep the hearing open to our next meeting where we would let people digest the budget, take a look online and then there are any further comments we can hear those the next meeting um where we would hope to approve the budget um at that meeting um so that that can be filed you know in time for the end of the year. So I think um do we have to move to do that or we just leave it open?

Well, yeah. Okay. So I made the motion to keep the hearing open to our next meeting on December 2nd. Second. All in favor? I motion carries. Great. We won't make you present again on December 2nd. Thank you so much. Wants you to. But um thanks for coming by and Melanie. Okay, great. Uh, we'll move to our consent agenda. We have a request by Controller Conley to approve the abstract claims and paid priors in the amount of $877,161. Uh, and we have the acceptance of all of our monthly reports. Do we have a motion to approve? So moved. Do we have a second?

Second. All in favor? I. Motion carries. Under new business, we have a request to approve an election stipen of $3,000 for Linglu, Deputy Town Clerk, effective October 21st, 2025. Do you have a motion to approve? So move. Second. And Ling is doing a wonderful job. The deputy clerk's office. I think this was just left off our initial appointment. So this is pretty standard to receive the election statement. All in favor?

I. Motion carries. Uh we have a request from the town clerk uh for the board to approve the American Legion Post uh 1575 for their 2026 Bell Jar license application. Uh I'll make motion to approve. Second. Sorry. Any questions? This is like a required thing by the state that we do every year. Um all in fa all in favor. I motion carries. Okay. Do we have any comments from the public? Board member announcements. Yes. Thank you.

Um so we had a very u you know uh we just want to thank uh Blue Mountain Housing for hosting a wonderful uh housing forum. Um the focus being on affordable housing. There were over um there was I think it was around 50 to 60 residents who showed up to uh learn more about the state of affordable housing in our town and uh also to share their viewpoints. Uh you know the spirit in the room was uh resoundingly positive. it, you know, our residents uh want to work uh with the town to uh increase access to affordable housing and uh certainly I think next steps are uh to look at uh you know what tools are available at our disposal um and specifically looking at our comprehensive plan um thinking about our our you know vision for affordable housing um of course in line with our with our town character but also um responding to the community's uh you know, desire to not just have more affordable housing, but to increase our housing stock in general and finding creative solutions to do so. I just wanted to thank uh Blue Mountain Housing uh publicly uh for um for this effort and uh we're certainly here to uh collaborate every step of the way.

Thank you. Yeah. Specifically, I would definitely like to thank Julie Stern and Tom McGrath and um those who participated, Blanca Lopez, who's um the Westchester County Planning Commissioner, um Danny Wan from um Community Preservation Corporation. Um and David Cohen Gorum and the other members of the housing committee and and I know Andreas, you're also involved. Thank you um for promoting that and um getting such a great turnout. It's good to hear the community input and we look forward to um you know figuring out how to tackle some of the big challenges that we have there. Um our as was mentioned earlier the Revup coalition group met this evening and um I think there are about 30 people here um tonight to join the coalition. They all representing organizations throughout town. So that is uh great and volunteers will be welcome to get involved as we continue to add events and exciting ways to rev up 250. Uh we are currently interviewing people for committee appointments. a lot of committees turn over or vacancies um come up or um people apply for a reappoint in I think a lot of January 20th seems to be a date that um planning, zoning, wetlands, historic commissions, all those um cycle through. So anyone interested should apply and we'll be putting that in the newsletter all the openings. Um I think at our next meeting we have invited business promote the Bedford promoter business promoter to come give an update on her uh her work throughout the town and also Mark Tielking our um energy and sustainability director will come and provide an update regarding our energy work and improvements uh in town.

So, I think that and the gas powered leaf blower ban goes back into effect on December 7th. So, everyone's doing all of their leaf blowing um for the heavy leaf cleanups now. And um happy Thanksgiving. We'll be back December 2nd. There being no further business, this meeting is adjourned. Thank you.