Budget Office

For those of you not familiar with the Town’s budget, the Town serves as the “umbrella government” for the Village of Ossining and the majority of the Village of Briarcliff Manor, and also serves as the direct government for the approximately 5,600 residents of the Unincorporated Town. Our budget is relatively small, compared to other local municipalities, but complex—the Town oversees multiple funds, the largest being the General Fund (everyone who lives in Ossining pays Town General taxes, and this is where most of our municipal services are paid for), the Unincorporated Fund (police, building, planning, zoning, and animal control services), and the Highway Fund (road maintenance and snow removal). In addition, we have several smaller Special Districts, which apportion expenses and debt from capital improvements to our sewers and street lighting, as well as contracts for service for refuse and recycling, fire protection and emergency response.

Municipal governments are not immune to the pressures of inflation and rising costs that we are all dealing with when balancing our own household budgets. We have had to make some difficult decisions this budget cycle to balance rising costs for fuel, contractual increases associated with CPI, and anticipated increases in health insurance costs for our employees. Unfortunately, we have had to curtail some expenses in 2023, but we are also seeking alternative solutions to ensure the Town budget is resilient to these global fluctuations now and going forward. For example, we continue to electrify our municipal fleet and buildings, which allows us to reduce our carbon footprint and our dependence on an increasingly volatile global market for fossil fuels. We also seek outside sources for funding wherever possible, and during my tenure as Town Supervisor, we have brought in over $2 million in outside funding to support infrastructure investments, like the Morningside Drive paving project, and special projects, like the Sustainable Ossining Comprehensive Plan. As for most organizations, our largest expenses are associated with staff salaries and benefits. As Town Supervisor, I have negotiated multiple contracts for our unionized employees in our CSEA and Teamsters units which provide for fair pay and benefits for our staff, while also remaining cognizant of our fiscal responsibility to the taxpayers of the Town of Ossining.

It is thanks to these sound budgeting techniques in both the short and long term that the 2023 Tentative Budget proposes tax rate decreases of approximately 6.5% for the Town General Fund and 6.3% for the Unincorporated Fund.

We continue to maintain our tax assessment roll at full market value, with reassessments completed annually based upon sales ratio analysis during interim years between full reappraisals, like what occurred in 2020. As a result of this continued effort to keep our tax roll at 100% of full market value since 2015, we have seen a decrease in grievances, small claims cases, and tax certioraris, and/or success in court when cases do end up before a judge. Reducing the frequency of these costly processes to contest one’s assessment helps the Town’s bottom line and ensures equity in our tax roll, as these avenues are often only available to those who can afford representation. Full reappraisals are anticipated every five years in an effort to maintain accuracy in the roll, so we can expect another to occur in 2025. The residential property market continues to be very strong in Ossining, so most property owners have seen the assessed value of their property increase in recent years. As a property’s assessed value is tied to its tax bill as much as the Town-wide tax rates, we understand the increases have been unsettling for families and small business owners concerned about their bottom lines. We are happy to report that for the average residential assessment in the Town General, the annual increase in taxes based on the 2023 Tentative Budget is only $13.29. And for the average residential assessment in the Unincorporated Town, the annual increase is only $64.62. We aim to be transparent about this process and if you have any questions about your property’s assessment, please do not hesitate to contact our Assessor’s Office.

We have a lot of exciting projects slated in our Capital Plan for 2023 and beyond. In our parks, next year, we plan to focus our attention on Gerlach Park, with a new playground funded by a grant from Senator Pete Harckham and new LED field lights. At Ryder Park, we will also be installing a new playground for kids, and kids at heart by including adult fitness equipment, funded by a grant from Senator Elijah Reichlin-Melnick. Both playgrounds will be ADA compliant to ensure that children of all abilities will be able to play alongside one another. Louis Engel Park will undergo a transformation in the coming years with significant funding from the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program, which is federal funding directed to local governments via Westchester County, to relocate bathroom facilities closer to the spray park, playground, and beach area of the park. These bathroom facilities will also include changing rooms and showers to bring us closer to hopefully re-opening the beach at Louis Engel Park as a bathing beach in the future. We have also applied for grant funding from New York State to complete a beach sanitary survey to fully investigate this potential project to ensure safety for users. The Town also applied for funding under the Village of Ossining’s Downtown Revitalization Initiative to construct a new, state of the art, performance space at Louis Engel Park which will capitalize on our growing River Jam summer concert series and food truck Fridays and continue to make Ossining a destination in the region. With Louis Engel Park’s close proximity to the Hudson River, we continue to evaluate all capital improvements to ensure they are resilient to sea level rise and flooding caused by climate change. We are close to completing Phase II of the Climate-adaptive Design (CaD) Studio, which envisions a more resilient shoreline in Ossining. Phase I of CaD was led by graduate students from Cornell University, and Phase II is now being led by a professional engineering firm, HDR, with the goal of bringing the visionary student designs to something that is actually implementable for our publicly owned waterfront along Louis Engel and Henry Gourdine Parks for the Town and Village to bring to fruition in the future.

Learn more about this project atwww.greenossining.organd participate in the process by joining us for a community meeting on November 3, 2022.

The Town Highway Department will focus on re-paving Tappan Terrace and Leawood Drive next year, completing the phased re-paving of this neighborhood which has been underway for several years. In 2022, we started the process of evaluating our facility needs and will continue this long-term planning exercise to ensure our Highway Department is adequately housed for many years to come.

I know I speak for our Town Department Heads when I say we are very proud of the budget we are putting forth to the Town Board and the community for 2023. The Town of Ossining is a great place to live, work, and play. The investments set forth in this budget will only continue to improve upon this incredible community we are proud to call home.

The Supervisor’s Tentative 2023 Budget is available in the Town Clerk’s Office at 16 Croton Avenue, the Ossining Public Library, and online at www.townofossining.com. There will be a short presentation on the proposed budget at the Tuesday, November 15 Town Board Work Session, which is scheduled to take place at 7:30pm via Zoom and in-person at the Ossining Municipal Building at 16 Croton Avenue. Here is the Zoom access information for the November 15 Work Session:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82184663706
Or Telephone:
US: +1 929 205 6099
Webinar ID: 821 8466 3706

The Ossining Town Board will also be discussing the Supervisor’s Tentative Budget with our department heads during the week of October 31 on the following days and times, via Zoom and in-person at the Ossining Municipal Building at 16 Croton Avenue:

The Town Board will also hold a Public Hearing at 7:30pm on Tuesday, November 22 via Zoom and in-person at the Ossining Municipal Building at 16 Croton Avenue. Members of the public can join us on the evening of November 22 to view this Public Hearing and make comments by using the Zoom access below, or by appearing in-person:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87069189290
Or Telephone:
US: +1 929 205 6099
Webinar ID: 870 6918 9290

We urge members of the public to review the budget and either make comments at the Public Hearing, contact my office at (914) 762-6001, or email the Town Board atThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

pdf Town of Ossining - Fund Balance Policy (54 KB) (Passed by Town Board June 2, 2010)

folder Audits & Financial Statements - Archive

folder Archive - Voucher Detail Reports - Approved vouchers by the Town Board.

pdf Town of Ossining Fund Balance Policy (54 KB)

The Town of Ossining (the “Town”) has an important responsibility to its citizens to carefully account for public funds, to manage municipal finances wisely and to plan the adequate funding of services desired by the public, including the provision and maintenance of public facilities.

An important indicator of the financial stability of the Town is its un-reserved fund balance that represents the un-assigned and unencumbered balance of the Town’s revenues held in the Town’s numerous funds.

pdf Download the Fund Balance Policy for full details... (54 KB)