Town Board - Regular Meeting

Suffolk County
Friday, October 16, 2026Official site

The Shelter Island Town Board held a budget meeting on October 16, 2026, reviewing proposed operating budgets with the Police Chief and the Emergency Medical Services representative.

About this meeting

Government Body
Town Board
Meeting Type
Town Board
Location
Shelter Island, NY
Meeting Date
October 16, 2026

Published excerpts

Only published remarks appear here. The full transcript is not published.

52 sections

0:00 – 0:17•Amber Brach-Williams

Number 16102, we're back to our budget meeting. First up, we have Chief of Police to talk about PD and other budget items, other, you know, categories, departments.

0:21•Amber Brach-Williams

Okay, oh, never mind, because it's a continuation we don't normally.

14:50•Amber Brach-Williams

I took the union contract and calculated that out.

15:59•Amber Brach-Williams

I would want to make a decision on that now. Or we can revisit it.

16:32 – 16:45•Benjamin Dyett

No, all good. I think that's a good number. Another quick question. The new car that came into service, was it 55,000? Was it the whole number?

17:18 – 17:40•Amber Brach-Williams

okay that was the cost of the new car but that's where we and that's where we ended up which is like you'll see the adopted budget was 55 000 and modified yeah yeah that's what i was asking about the car because i was like well it's modified so we know some things but where's the expense yeah what'd you do with the old car sell to another police department

18:04 – 18:32•Amber Brach-Williams

Okay. And also just, I've said it before, but I'm not sure the public, just for them as well, the personnel services number does not have any of the contract increase. So I have a number in contingency so that we've got it in the budget, but it's not reflected here because I don't want to tip our hand while we're going through contract negotiations.

18:33•Benjamin Dyett

Great. I just got to grab some of the paperwork up right back.

19:39•Amber Brach-Williams

Yeah, I was like, wait, what line did I do?

21:55 – 22:23•Amber Brach-Williams

so i think that's probably a reasonable reduction in light of that however i'm glad you brought that up because i wasn't thinking about that that um that reimbursement is going into a different line we have a cdbg grant expenditure line but we may not put that in again for next year in which case then our costs would go back up right so i i'm not

25:14 – 25:47•Amber Brach-Williams

no that's where the money that we're spending right now is 25. yeah and so we don't have any in the 26 right ask that's what we have to publish here no that's for the 27th yeah yeah we're always a year behind yeah that's so we didn't put it back in for that year so So, we didn't put it in for 20, so it won't be in the 20. yeah, we didn't put it in for 26, which means it's money available for 20. so we should put it in 27. But then that won't help us until 2028.

25:48 – 26:05•Amber Brach-Williams

Yeah. Got to love the CDBG. Can I get any more confusing? Well, it was, it was a little bit hard to administer to. Just, I know the machinations that you went through trying to, like, designate.

26:28•Amber Brach-Williams

Do you recall how much the 4 poster program used to cost us annually? I feel like it was a big number. It was a very large, like, 250,000.

27:33 – 28:02•Amber Brach-Williams

I was thinking 29. Grant was for 29. Okay. Yeah, it's just, we need to attract the hunters. And I know, like, the reason I asked about the four poster program is just because North Haven miraculously got sign off from all of the people. I don't think we could accomplish that here, but I know that some people want to try that again, having heard that North Haven was successful.

28:17•Amber Brach-Williams

I'd also be curious about your thoughts on whether or not you thought it was successful in bringing down tick-borne illnesses?

31:27•Benjamin Dyett

Bo, so in the old four-poster program from, what, 10 years ago, how many four-posters were deployed?

32:55•Benjamin Dyett

And you probably, to be effective, you would need 100 units.

33:45•Amber Brach-Williams

Yeah, no, that was my big recollection. I just, In trying to come up with ways to deal with tick-borne illnesses, which seem to be getting worse.

34:33 – 35:05•Benjamin Dyett

Well, and I mean, it's now reached a level of, it's really a public health problem. And, you know, I don't, I'm trying not to speak out of my own experience, which, you know, I just spent three weeks in the hospital from a tick-borne disease. But I know a lot of other people who have as well. So I think this has got to be taken more seriously. Maybe not right now in the middle of this budget, but... The town has to shift direction on this.

35:10 – 35:26•Amber Brach-Williams

That's why I was like, how much money would this entail? If we do a pivot and do something with four posters, what would that look like? So what did we decide on for the number? 29? Yep.

35:54•Amber Brach-Williams

And I think that there was an employee that was largely designated, so I had another $70,000 for that.

36:25•Amber Brach-Williams

Thanks, Val. All right. I think that's all of your categories.

36:51 – 37:09•Amber Brach-Williams

Yeah, so page 34. Yeah, I was going to say, there's a lot there. Oh, actually, I did want to try to correlate a number. the police towing?

37:49 – 38:06•Amber Brach-Williams

Yeah, I just we're over on towing expenditures. So I did want to find out how much of a budget modification I can make to increase the revenues that potentially could come in for those versus then upping your towing expenditure line.

38:09•Amber Brach-Williams

Yeah, just because I wanted to do a budget mod.

38:29•Amber Brach-Williams

And we haven't hit twice the budget, at least through August 31st. It was $1,495 out of $1,500 had been billed or received.

39:06 – 39:21•Amber Brach-Williams

Yeah, not for Monday night's meeting, but for the next month's meeting. Other revenues, the police revenue sharing.

39:41•Amber Brach-Williams

Yeah, I think 1 year there was risk of it actually going down, but I think. Well, it went down in 25, it was right. Yeah.

41:32•Amber Brach-Williams

And we do keep getting that lex program each year.

41:38•Amber Brach-Williams

Okay. Yeah, just I used to see grants that, like, repeat year after year.

41:47•Amber Brach-Williams

Yeah, no, that's good. Yeah. I saw you put it in so I left it in, but.

42:05•Amber Brach-Williams

Thank you. Thank you. Is Jack over there?

42:19•Benjamin Dyett

Quick random question now, who are the jail attendance.

43:35•Benjamin Dyett

Yeah, yeah, no, thank you. I'm afraid to ask if there's anybody out there that's interested. The former part-time people were failing the psychological test.

50:12•Amber Brach-Williams

I like my sugar straight up. Well, that's how I got you. Yeah.

50:41 – 50:53•Amber Brach-Williams

And executive session the other day? Yes, I wanted to once we're done with Jack. There's like other open session stuff, but then I did want to go back.

51:04•Benjamin Dyett

When will we go over that on Monday or Tuesday?

51:07 – 51:18•Amber Brach-Williams

Okay, we can do yeah, I wanted to start in executive session because there were some questions. So I wanted to get the answers to the questions. So there's a conversation. Okay.

51:27•Benjamin Dyett

Yeah, I've got to go to a doctor's appointment. So that would be good after Jack.

51:38•Amber Brach-Williams

No, and I have, like, some that I still need to do some work on. It was just a weird week. Like, every time I tried to get to this list.

51:55 – 52:12•Amber Brach-Williams

One for HR. Yeah, I was going to say, some of these were waiting for next week. And then also, I just have a list of things. I was like, OK, what on this list can we do? Yeah.

52:16 – 52:35•Amber Brach-Williams

Yeah, Monday is going to definitely be busy with presentations. And then Wednesday, roll up our sleeves.

52:43 – 53:06•Amber Brach-Williams

Yeah, like a deadline. Which Wednesday will be? 16. Okay, I'll let you kick off.

57:50•Amber Brach-Williams

Yeah, I was just sort of like, yeah, extrapolating the rest of this year and then also what prior years have looked like.

1:00:07•Benjamin Dyett

Good, good. I'm just amazed that an EpiPen is $500.

1:04:59•Benjamin Dyett

It's great. No, on the longevity is this new longevity or is this a split between.

1:05:08 – 1:05:33•Amber Brach-Williams

Another salary line, this is new and this is something that Jack has asked for for a number of years. And so we've been discussing it with labor council. To see whether or not the legality of it and. Okay. We need to, we need to finish that discussion, but it is a board town board decision. Okay.

1:05:40•Benjamin Dyett

And he proposed less than what it was rounding. Oh, okay.

1:05:46 – 1:06:03•Amber Brach-Williams

Yeah. If you just look at like all salary lines, I've been rounding so that they're nice round numbers. I hate pennies. Okay. Got it.

1:06:20•Amber Brach-Williams

So we have the open items list, but I think we'll just. Hit that on Wednesday morning.

1:06:36 – 1:07:01•Amber Brach-Williams

Yeah, and then also just some like schedules and things that I need to finish up. So. Okay, okay. So, but I would like to go into executive session, because we wanted to go over the employment history of a few employees so that we can continue to look at some of the. Increases and redistribution positions and stuff like that.

1:07:04 – 1:07:15•Amber Brach-Williams

I'll paper. And so our next meeting will be on sort of a journey. After we came back out of executive session until Monday at 10. Thank you.

These excerpts are remarks by officials whose identity a person confirmed, from a transcript generated automatically from the official public meeting video and presented unedited. Accuracy may vary; view the original recording for reference.