Please join Councilwoman Lubinacci for the budget we use.

I thought it's all right.

Good afternoon, everybody.

I think our town clerk has a notice that he has to read into the record, and then we'll just have another open conversation about the budget.

Good afternoon, everybody.

A meeting notice delivered on August 24, 2026, and addressed to Councilman Bernardo, Councilwoman Lubanacci, Councilwoman Maury, Councilwoman Hebert.

So the following was stated.

Pursuant to section 62 of the town law, 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 at 2026 at 2 p.m.

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.

Board members will analyze fiscal data to ensure they are fully informed before voting on whether to override the state mandate and tax cap signed uh Edmund J.

Smith Supervisor Supervisor Smith.

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

Thank you, Mr.

Ratt.

Alright, uh so going right into it.

I I hope that everybody over the last couple weeks has had an opportunity to speak to our directors and deputy directors in each department and also with the controller's office.

If you haven't yet, I say again, the controller's office is at everybody's disposal, any data that you need or want.

Same thing, directors as well, deputy directors.

You know, from an operational standpoint, nobody's gonna give you better information than speaking directly with directors or their deputies to find out uh if there were any cuts to be made, how that would have an actual impact on the ground within uh any particular department.

Um with that, uh we went through last week we were talking about uh what the budget under the tax cap or right at just below the tax cap line would look like as far as what uh uh fully funded uh budget looks like going forward, which is taking this year's uh budget rolling it forward into 2027.

Uh a couple changes that you'll see.

I think I don't know if this was provided yet, but it will be uh the where is it right here?

So the vacant positions right now, total of 3.3 million if you added those back in.

That's a total of 57 vacant positions that are in the budget currently.

There's 14 of them are appointed vacancies and 43 of them are civil service positions.

Okay, uh so that will that was fully funded and added back in.

And then uh looking at the uh garbage collection, I we I would recommend and I'd probably put it into uh my presentated presented budget is an additional one million dollars for garbage collection because while we can uh look at the numbers uh as they are, and uh I very bluntly, I think that the the cost of garbage collection realistically is going to continue to rise.

I've been saying it for several years that you know that the biggest fiscal crisis the Long Island in general is going to face is going to be solid waste garbage collection on Long Island.

It's it's it's a it's a real it's a real problem.

Um and then in addition, the special events fund.

Uh we currently budget 100,000 for it.

I want to raise that by uh 200,000 for a total of 300,000.

So special events, just so everybody understands what that why we're doing that.

For years, uh what the practice has been for the town, whenever there is a town wide event, for example, the fall festivals is one of the uh more obvious ones.

So the fall festival, we put out uh for security and other reasons.

The highway department will park uh 10-wheeler trucks on the roadways to prevent any air cars from making the wrong turn into the festival or at uh parades on the parade route doing the same thing.

Whenever that happens, those vehicles and the the personnel that that uh sit with those vehicles, they come out of the highway department's budget.

Okay, because they're highway trucks.

However, these are town wide events, and I think Andre has had a uh a legitimate gripe for the last couple years saying, why are you taking this out of my budget, my highway budget when in fact it's a town wide event?

So what we've done, we did it last year for 100,000, but I think more realistically it's closer to 300,000 in expenses, is we we've created a line item in the budget called special events where the highway department will still continue to provide those trucks uh and and uh additional uh services, but it shouldn't it shouldn't be coming out of the highway department's budget to do that.

It's a town wide event, so it's a it should come out of a town wide fund.

So that that we've created a uh a budget line called special events last year for 100,000, but realistically it's closer to 300,000, so there's a 200,000 dollar addition to that.

Um so with that looking at the numbers currently for adding those three items back in, we're actually closer to 269 million dollars in the total budget.

Okay, and let me just ask was this was this circulated?

Okay, yeah, this is this is hot off the press.

Um but looking at that and then going into some of the things that were uh suggested in in conversations both here uh at the last meeting we had here, and also just uh listening from you know what uh conversations that you have with the controller's office, what they suggested.

So there's several resolutions that are available for cuts, but again, anything's on the table, you can cut or add whatever whatever you think is important.

Thank you.

I have a question about uh line one of the things you mentioned.

Would it be possible?

Excuse me, I'm losing my voice to get the dollar amounts of the unfilled appointed positions versus the unfilled civil service positions.

I'd like to see the difference between those and what the dollar amounts are.

That's in there.

These these are the 14 appointeds.

I don't know if that's the dollar amounts.

So then how much was it overall the entire line item for the unfilled appointed positions?

I mean the unfilled positions.

There's so there's 57 total, there's 14 appointeds which are right there.

Okay, and and as far as appointed go, those are those are what the what the board votes to compensate them at, but there's general guidelines on on what they they fall into, and then there's 43 civil service positions that are unfilled.