Westchester Insider: Westchester County Legislator Ruth Walter 15th District: Historic 2022 Budgets Cut Tax Levy, Expand Human Services, Invest in Infrastructure.

 

Historic 2022 Budgets Cut Tax Levy, Expand Human Services, Invest in Infrastructure.

On Monday, the Board of Legislators unanimously passed operating, capital and special district budgets for 2022 that cut the property tax levy by $7 million, increase support for human services in Westchester, and expand the County's investment in infrastructure improvements for the 21st century.

We are making an historic commitment to childcare quality, affordability and access. The $10.2 million increase we approved will make childcare more available, and more affordable, for more families, and help the County's outstanding childcare providers recruit the best staff in this competitive field.  This will positively affect children's lives, help parents get back to work and aid local businesses struggling to recruit and retain workers.

The $50 million we approved for land acquisition and infrastructure for affordable housing is the largest single-year commitment of this sort in County history. This addresses a crucial need – ensuring that seniors and working people can afford to remain in our communities.

We are using federal American Rescue Plan funds in creative ways to build a better future, like a new $10 million fund to support small landlords recovering from COVID, helping them invest in improved housing stock for Westchester residents while keeping rents stable.

We've increased funding for youth services and added personnel to our heroic Health Department.

We are continuing to invest in our roads, bridges, parks, transportation and green technology, as well as making new commitments to flood mitigation and to modernizing our wastewater treatment facilities.

Our increased funding for not-for-profit service providers represents only a small fraction of the budget, but has an exponential impact, helping to support domestic violence survivors, helping people facing eviction remain in their homes, offering mental health and afterschool support to children, and more.

In the past four years, we have brought Westchester County a long way.

We have cut the property tax levy three years in a row. We've rebuilt the County's rainy day funds from a low of $65 million to what may be as much as $300 million when we close the books on 2021.  We have eliminated borrowing to fund operations.  And we've made historic investments to Westchester's most precious resource, its people.

The 2022 budgets are the culmination of four years of hard work, disciplined choices, and creative thinking by the County Executive's administration and the Board of Legislators.  They show that with the right leadership and the right values we can strengthen the social safety net, invest in our infrastructure, and at the same time make historic improvements in the County's finances.

Among the highlights are:

• $7 million cut in County property tax levy
• No one-shot revenues for continuing operations
• No borrowing to fund pension obligations or operating expenses
• No use of reserve funds
• $10.2 million increase in funding for childcare
• $10 million from American Rescue Plan funds for Small Landlord Rehabilitation Assistance Program
• More than $1 million to address food insecurity
• Increases of as much as 16% for not-for-profit service partners
• $600K in new funding for Youth Bureaus
• Addition of Health Department personnel
• Funding to support new telemedicine programs
• Funding for new public safety initiatives
• $50 million for land acquisition and infrastructure improvements to support affordable housing, largest single-year commitment in County history
• Funding for flood mitigation, including $11 million added by Board of Legislators for flooding along Mamaroneck Avenue from the Sheldrake and Mamaroneck Rivers
• $35 million to continue process of converting bus fleet from fossil fuel to hybrid and electric vehicles and install EV charging capacity at County's bus garages
• More than $57 million to modernize waste water treatment facilities including more than $22 million in additional odor control at the Yonkers facility