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Updated: November 17, 2009, 11:59 am	Share    Print    Email

East Hampton Town Board members Pat Mansir (center) and Brad Loewen (right) walked out of budget talks on Friday and refused to return unless widespread layoffs were taken off the table. Photos by Aaron Boyd

East Hampton - After a particularly contentious, and at times even mean-spirited debate, the East Hampton Town Board has submitted the preliminary 2010 budget for public hearing, scheduled for 10 a.m. on Thursday, November 5. The budget balances $72 million in appropriations with $15.5 million in revenues and $56.6 million in taxes, resulting in a 10.908 percent property tax increase for residents outside the village and a 10.586 percent increase for residents inside the village.

Those increases bring the tax rate to 32.135 percent per $100 of assessed value outside the village boundary and 15.572 percent within.

After the resignation of Supervisor William McGintee in September, Deputy Supervisor Pete Hammerle has been leading the budget discussions, which have been tense and at times viscious.

In an attempt to pull that rate increase down, the town board has been meeting in extra sessions to find where they can cut back. After a number of executive sessions discussing staff cuts, Deputy Supervisor Pete Hammerle offered 15 layoffs totaling approximately $1 million in salaries and benefits for 2010. A vicious argument ensued that finally resulted in two board members, Pat Mansir and Brad Loewen, walking out of the meeting, effectively shutting it down as the two remaining members no longer constituted a quorum.

"I was pretty exasperated last week when we worked on all those staff cuts just to find out that we didn't have the consensus we thought we had," Hammerle said during an interview on Wednesday between work sessions, "So all the staff reductions went off the table." The preliminary budget had to be filed the next day, Thursday, October 29, one week before the scheduled public hearing. "Thursday is our deadline and I do not want to default to the tentative budget," Hammerle stated, as the tentative budget submitted by Supervisor William McGintee before he resigned was missing an additional $500,000 in payments to the retirement fund. That information came late, according to Hammerle, "It's very possible that it's something Bill [McGintee] didn't know about at the time."

In order to avoid defaulting to the tentative budget, Hammerle agreed to restart the discussions without layoffs. "The two that walked out agreed to come back with certain parameters - we couldn't talk about staff."

With the budget cresting over $70 million on Wednesday, Councilwoman Mansir asserted that they were "trying to remove as much as we can. I would like to not cut services, but some areas I would not mind cutting," such as changing the leaf pick-up program to a bagging program and eliminating garbage pick-up through the winter months. "What I'm not willing to do is put people out of work," she explained, "The economy will revive and those services will be needed again," as will the positions that staffed them.

The East Hampton Town Board had been meeting in special executive sessions to discuss staff cuts, however when they returned to the table for a vote two of the board members revolted.

The other problem with layoffs, according to Mansir, is the civil service policy of bump-and-retreat, whereby if a senior union employee holds an eliminated position, they are given the option of moving back to their last held position in town, precipitating a domino effect down the line. "The people that would then finally be out of a job were some of our best people," Mansir said, adding that, "When you indiscriminately lay off people, we're liable for lawsuits on every one of them."

The ramifications of bump-and-retreat are real, Hammerle granted, however, "When those people are hired, hopefully they understand that they work in a civil service hierarchy. It's not so much that I want to fire people," Hammerle had explained, "but we've built up the work force" while the town was flush with revenues. Hammerle viewed this budget cycle as an opportunity to finally sculpt a balanced budget. "I'm a little disappointed at this point because I thought we had a chance this year to look at everything," he said, "And I can't honestly say to them that we looked at everything and that we cut everything we could cut."

Loewen and Mansir have refused to vote for a budget that includes layoffs.

"The budget is bad," Councilman Loewen concurred, dissatisfied with the 10 percent increase, "Pat Mansir and I believe that we can reduce that increase by looking at services that are not vital to the safety of our residents, duplications and unnecessary services. We came up with $500,000 worth of reductions and we didn't even have to try that hard."

Hammerle addressed the half-million worth of cuts, stating that the $300,000 in projected savings from the leaf-bagging program and the $75,000 saved by not emptying the trash bins by the beach in the winter would not be realized in 2010. "The Highways Superintendent said no way," Hammerle stated.

According to Councilwoman Julia Prince, every $500,000 taken out of the budget at this point represents a one-point reduction in the tax increase, a conversion that is about as close as a simple calculation can get according to Town Comptroller Janet Verneuille. "I can't sit back and say it's okay to vote for a budget we could take another million dollars out of," Prince said on Wednesday, questioning the motives of the two councilmembers that refuse to vote for layoffs, "You can't pick a few people over 20,000 [voters], you just can't."

Conversely, Loewen won't vote for "a budget where the primary targets are our workers," he said. "Their point of view is that we can eliminate that increase by cutting down the workforce," Loewen said, "They're essentially putting the entire burden on our workers." Loewen considers the process by which the laid off positions were decided to have been backwards. In his assessment, the board should first "define what services aren't needed and if there are positions attached to those we might have to let them go," he explained, adding that, "We have an early retirement incentive that is just picking up steam. If people retire after layoffs we might not have the staff to cover the services we didn't eliminate."

For now layoffs are off the table. "I don't think they're inevitable," Loewen said, "They may be necessary, if we determine that reducing the services calls for layoffs, I'm willing to consider layoffs. But what we're doing now is just sort of nickel-and-diming the budget, not giving it a serious look."

With only four board members, two votes against would defeat the budget, automatically adopting the supervisor's tentative budget, which would lead to another deficit next year. "Let's just look at everything, then just sit back and say, 'It is what it is,'" Hammerle said of continuing the process, "It's a little tense, but we're being civil." Going forward, Hammerle considers it his role to ensure that they do not default back to the tentative budget.

The 2010 preliminary budget is available at the Town Clerk's office or online and the public will have the opportunity to give their input on the numbers on November 5 before it is finalized and sent to the New York State Comptroller for approval.