Westchester County Budget & Appropriations Committee Capital Budget Presentations – October 20, 2026

On October 20, 2026, the Westchester County Board of Legislators Budget & Appropriations Committee, chaired by Legislator Tyrae Woodson-Samuels, met in the Committee Room at the Michaelian Office Building from 1:00 PM to 2:30 PM for capital budget presentations. This was the agenda’s Capital Budget Presentation – Part 3. The Department of Information Technology and the Department of Public Works & Transportation presented capital requests for the upcoming budget year. No capital budget vote was taken; the committee adjourned at 2:30 PM.

Department of Information Technology

• GIS hardware and software continuation (BIT 9B): $450,000 requested to upgrade existing GIS systems, acquire additional services, and continue application development for planning, emergency response, and environmental facilities work such as sewer line, catch basin, and inspection tracking.
• Building access control and video surveillance (BIT 45): $2,000,000 requested to continue countywide upgrades. IT officials reported 37 sites and 2,125 cameras installed so far. The existing system is roughly 20 years old, and final camera counts will be determined through facility security assessments.
• E911 and Next Generation 911 (BIT 61): $3,000,000 requested to upgrade the county’s 39 public-safety answering points to an IP-based emergency communications infrastructure. State parameters for Next Gen 911 have not yet been finalized.
• IT infrastructure upgrade (BIT 67): $8,850,000 requested across five phases, including desktop support and endpoints ($1.8 million), employee productivity and business continuity ($1.8 million), core infrastructure for end-of-life servers and software, telecom and critical communications logging, and network and security hardware ($1.2 million).
• IT officials described countywide infrastructure planning as top-down, with the District Attorney’s office operating its own separate network as a law-enforcement agency. Legislators stressed that every department must be covered so that no single department becomes a cyber vulnerability.
• IT officials also said cloud-based services cannot be paid for with capital funds, so the shift to cloud will add pressure to the operating budget. Bond periods are governed by local finance law periods of probable usefulness, typically five years, with BIT 45 carrying a ten-year period.

Department of Public Works & Transportation – Buildings and Equipment

• B014F: $535,000 requested for design of exterior and structural infrastructure repairs at the Richard J. Baronko Courthouse, the annex, and the west-side retaining wall and path.
• B015F: $1,434,000 requested for design of interior infrastructure repairs at the White Plains Complex, including a new 480V electrical service and replacement of heating supply and return piping.
• B035S: $1,805,000 requested for rolling equipment acquisition, including crew-cab dump, plow, and spreader trucks, a mason dump truck, a crew-cab utility truck, a forklift, a flex-wing deck mower, and a tilt trailer.
• B01280: $250,000 requested to continue feasibility studies supporting long-range capital planning.
• B0125: $1,800,000 requested for design, construction, and construction management of rooftop HVAC unit replacements at a county facility, including units serving archive and storage areas.
• P0134: $720,000 requested for study and design of electrical infrastructure upgrades at the Grasslands campus.
• B0134: switchgear relocation at the Baronko Courthouse from a flood-prone B3 level to B2, with equipment upgrades.
• P0136: $150,000 requested for design of emergency generator replacement at the White Plains Complex; the courthouse generator is about 25 years old.
• Legislators asked for routine capital-project status reporting, possibly a dashboard. Commissioner Hugh Greechan said DPW is working with IT on internal reporting and can coordinate with the Board.
• On equipment, DPW officials said they right-size vehicles and pursue electric or alternative-fuel options where reliable, noting the fleet already includes F-150 Lightning pickups for non-plowing use. A list of vehicles to be decommissioned is available, and county purchasing supports municipal piggybacking on bids.
• Feasibility-study funding has supported studies including the Mountain Sportsman Center, DSS locations, and fleet and road maintenance facility consolidation. The mental health clinic project is essentially complete, while the Department of Health consolidation has some final accounting loose ends.

Department of Public Works & Transportation – Parkways, Roads, and Transportation

• Parkways: D0033 requests $2,750,000 for design of the Bronx River Parkway north and south bridges over the Bronx River at Harney Road, with construction expected in 2029. DPW is coordinating with parks on traffic management. The Playland Parkway project (P032) is in construction, with completion expected around the end of 2027; bridge work comes first.
• Roads: RB132 requests an additional $200,000 for construction based on a 90 percent design, covering approximately 0.4 miles with a PCI of 63 in 2019. Budget adjustments were also requested for three roads, RB185 Lee Street, RB1940 Avenue, and RB203 North Division Street, based on 90 percent estimates. RB204, the airport access road, was increased to $3.2 million because it was held back for gas-line work and costs increased.
• RB251 is a new consolidated county road renovation program replacing four existing projects: Commerce Street in Mount Pleasant (0.7 miles, PCI 69 in 2022, average annual daily traffic of 1,726), Dana Road (0.4 miles, PCI 62, average annual daily traffic of 4,800), Palmer Avenue (0.33 miles, PCI 67, average annual daily traffic of 10,900), and Post Road in White Plains (0.4 miles, PCI 63, average annual daily traffic of 9,600).
• Legislators asked for PCI and AADT data for their districts. DPW said updated PCI ratings are being collected and will share available data.
• Transportation: T0098 requests $2,500,000 for transit vehicle replacement, targeting 20 to 25 vehicles per year out of the 113-vehicle fleet. P0056 requests $75,000 for bus stop improvements; 19 shelters have been completed and 15 are targeted for the next capital year. T0071 requests $750,000 to replace 21 45-year-old exhaust fans at the Yonkers central maintenance facility. T0072 requests $8,450,000 for bus garage site infrastructure work, including parking lots, access drives, replacement of underground oil and grease tanks with above-ground tanks, detention pond and drainage improvements, EV charging, a solar canopy, an emergency generator, and ADA compliance.
• During transportation discussion, legislators raised concerns about EV charger utilization, loss of prime parking spaces, and whether the county earns revenue from chargers. DPW officials said the county currently does not charge for EV charging, will pursue grant funding, and can share usage data. Other legislators noted higher demand for chargers in Yonkers and the economic-development benefits of charger availability.

Department of Public Works & Transportation – Airport

• A0147 requests $5,000,000 to purchase and install a generator capable of fully supporting the commercial passenger terminal and parking garage. The current generator covers only about 40 percent of the terminal. Power outages occurred three or four times in each prior 12-month period, though there were none in the last year.
• A0148 requests funding to advance design and NEPA and environmental review of the commercial passenger terminal modernization. Airport staff said the terminal is really three buildings, with the main facilities opened in the late 1990s and a baggage screening building added in 2016. The site has multiple HVAC and sprinkler systems, slope issues, and TSA space inserted in the center of the terminal. No concrete construction cost estimates are available yet; HNTB is the design firm. Staff said they will pursue federal, state, and passenger facility charge funding, while noting FAA funding will not cover revenue-generating areas such as concessions or rental cars.
• Airport staff stated the terminal modernization would not change terminal-use regulations, commercial flight caps, or general aviation activity. They also said FAA rules do not permit airports to impose limits on private flights.

Key Outcomes

• No capital requests were voted on at this meeting; it was a presentation and discussion session.
• Staff were asked to provide capital-project status reporting or a dashboard, a decommissioned vehicle list, closeout project lists, updated PCI and AADT data, bus shelter improvement locations, cost estimates for solar canopies, EV charger utilization and revenue information, and airport terminal design firm references.
• The committee adjourned at 2:30 PM.