Mattituck Park District seeks tax bump to pay for needed repairs

Mattituck Park District officials are asking residents to chip in about 30 cents more a week to maintain 28 acres of beaches, waterfront and recreation properties in a budget vote next week.

The proposal would raise the property tax levy from approximately $655,000 this year to $720,000 next year. according to the district’s 2027 budget materials.

For the average property owner, the district estimates that works out to about $16.25 more per year, though the actual increase would vary based on assessed value.

“This money is intended to go 100% to capital improvement budgets, not to general operating expenses, not to salaries, not to benefits, not to anything other than to allow us to continue to make needed and necessary repairs to the facilities of the Mattituck Park District,” Kevin Byrne, chairman of the Park District, told The Suffolk Times on Friday.

The proposal amounts to roughly a 10% increase and would exceed the district’s allowable levy under New York’s property tax cap of 2%.

“Look a little bit past 10% and look at the dollars,” Byrne argued.

The Park District oversees nine public properties covering, including two protected swimming beaches, playgrounds, athletic fields, walking trails, tennis courts, a dog park, community rooms and docks. Byrne said its holdings include roughly 2,000 feet of Long Island Sound shoreline and another 2,000 feet along Peconic Bay.

Those holdings come with some big-ticket maintenance needs. Byrne, who is in his fifth year at the helm, said three parking lots will need to be redone over the next three years at a combined estimated cost of about $500,000.

“How do I do that on $650,000 a year?” he said. “You don’t.”

The district has been building reserves to prepare for capital expenses that would be difficult to absorb in a single year. Byrne said revenues have exceeded expenses for five consecutive years, strengthening its finances after years of operating at a deficit.

“We’re fiscally sound,” Byrne said. “We have money in the bank, we have reserve money in the bank. We’re operating without operating at a deficit.”

Two of those properties — Breakwater Beach and Veterans Beach — consume nearly 30% of the district’s annual expenditures, Byrne said. Seasonal costs include lifeguards, gate attendants and cleaning.

“People have to decide: Are the parks worth it to them?” Byrne said. “If it’s not worth it, vote the budget down.”

The vote next Thursday comes almost a year after residents rejected a much larger tax increase and sent commissioners back to the drawing board.

Last August, commissioners proposed a $925,500 spending plan that would have raised $757,800 through property taxes — a 28% increase from the prior year. Voters rejected it 143-86.

Park officials returned weeks later with a scaled-back proposal carrying a roughly 10% increase, which passed in a second vote, bringing the current levy to approximately $655,000.

Byrne said comparing percentage increases across taxing districts can be misleading because their budgets vary so widely.

“A 2% increase in the school budget annually represents 150% of the annual Park District budget,” he said, referring to the recently passed Mattituck-Cutchogue School District budget that state below the state cap.

Voting is scheduled for Thursday, Aug. 20, from 3 to 8 p.m. at Veterans Memorial Park in Mattituck.

If voters reject the proposed budget, Byrne said the district would not return with another proposal as it did last year. Instead, it would default to the 2% increase allowed under the state tax cap.

Byrne urged what he estimated to be around 6,000 residents eligible to head to the polls to offset the “150 or so who always come out to vote no to everything.

“Perhaps the community at large could come out and make their voices heard,” he said.