All rise for the Pledge of Allegiance led by Councilwoman Hebert.

I think the United States of America for which this all right, thank you everybody, and thank you for coming to pull these tables together.

It's like a two-inch gap here.

All right.

So it's a little bit different this year.

Obviously, we have some budget issues to talk about.

And you know, in past years we we didn't do uh budget workshops like this, but I think it's important to do it this year.

I think uh both uh Terry and Dave had uh mentioned this, and and it was a great idea.

So here we are.

And I anticipate several meetings like this over the between now and September 30th.

That's the the state mandated deadline to present the preliminary budget, and then between September 30th and I think it's November 20th is the final date to present it to adopt it.

But she's cut the third extended budget given to the town board members by October 50, preliminary budget hearings is November, November 20th is the final day.

Yeah, okay.

So the the rough outline, you know, in practical terms, I think what we'll wind up doing is uh when we present the when when the town clerk, I'll I'll deliver the the preliminary budget to the town clerk at a publicly noticed meeting, and then the town clerk will then present it to you simultaneously.

So and then in the in that interim period between September 30th and uh November when it's uh when the final budget is voted on, uh the town council members and everybody is welcome to offer amendments to the uh preliminary budget, creating a tentative budget, and it's tentative budget that gets voted on as the final.

And again, correct me if I'm wrong, but if the final budget doesn't pass, then it is the preliminary budget that's automatically adopted for state law.

Is that correct?

That's all right.

I think I had that right.

So this budget that we've we're working on right now, what we're gonna talk about today is a is a draft uh plan uh that that's been worked on with each.

Oh, the town clerk has some important announcements to make.

Mr.

Town Clerk.

Thank you.

Important or not, it's mandated by the state.

That's important.

Believe me, after spending many years up there, there's not many important things.

But uh in a meeting notice uh delivered on August 24th, 2026, and addressed to Councilman Bernardo, Councilwoman Lubinacci, Councilwoman Mari, and Councilwoman Hebert, the following was stated pursuant to section 62 of the town law.

Uh two special meetings of the town board of the town of Huntington will be held on Wednesday, August 26, 2026 at 2 p.m.

And Thursday, September 3rd, 2026 at 2 p.m.

And I might not be able to make that one either, but uh uh PM in room 114 at Huntington Town Hall 100 Main Street, Huntington, New York, to consider reviewing the draft 2027 budget and to discuss all related financial business and any other business that may come before the board.

Uh board members uh will analyze fiscal data to ensure they are fully informed before voting on whether or not whether to override the state mandated tax cap signed Edmund J.

Smith supervisor, Supervisor Smith.

I can confirm that said meeting notice was duly signed, distributed, and posted as required by New York State law.

Thank you.

All right.

Back to back to why we're here.

All right, so the you know, the piercing of the tax cap is something we haven't done in 10 years in the town here, so it's this is all uh relatively new is as far as budget discussions go.

Um and the the number, and we'll go into this today, but the the number that I've been throwing about for easy math, you know, with a 250 million dollar operating budget, 2%, $5 million.

The controller's office has corrected me.

It was actually close the the available uh tax cap is closer to 3.9 million.

So it's it wasn't even it wasn't even five million as a as a just a pure math problem.

You know, our garbage collection contract with Covanta, and the the data's in there, I believe, is 3.6 million dollar increase this year.

Uh and there may be some add-ons on that.

So we're you know, right out of the gate, the tax cap has been exhausted.

So that in that's why if anybody heard me say in the past that you know this is you know this is this year, there's almost no mathematical way to avoid this.

That's that's where it's uh that's where it's coming from.

And you know, the last several years have been saying that you know there's only so long you can you can you know cut and cut and cut before you really get into some uh some very very painful cuts to the public.

And to start with, I want to I want to thank the directors uh of each department for going through this.

Uh and I I I know that you know cutting 16 roughly 16 percent of each department has been a uh a very painful exercise.

Um I I think though it's uh as we said in my initial uh letter to everybody, I think it's uh ultimately be a useful exercise.

Um it's been tremendously useful for me to go through this because it it has illustrated quite frankly uh how much of this town uh and how much of the services that we provide to the to the taxpayers at very little cost.

And you know, another putting it another way and we'll go into this.

When you look across the the town and the head count of what what layoffs would be required to get under the tax cap, the vast majority of it is seasonal part-time and temps, and the amount of the amount of services that those seasonal part-timers and and temporary uh employees provide to the residents at very very little cost to the residents in terms of the budget, uh quite frankly is remarkable.

Um but the the downside to that is in order to make a dent in the budget to have some to move the needle per se, you have to you have to lay off quite a few of them.

So, you know, for example, with you know, a seasonal person like a lifeguard, you know, I say Todd Shaken said a lifeguard, okay.

High school or college kid making a few thousand dollars over the summer, okay.

You you have to you have to lay off a lot of them to move the needle.

In fact, by contract, all of them.

Okay, so those are the kind of things that that really struck me going through this process that it takes a huge amount of uh cuts to to start moving the needle and getting under the under the tax cap.