The Town of Islip held a special town board meeting for a budget hearing on Nov. 7 at 9:30 a.m. at the Town Hall in Islip. The meeting was held to consider the adoption for the 2025 operating budget.

The meeting began with the pledge of allegiance, of which town supervisor Angie Carpenter, asked the town’s comptroller, Joseph Ludwig, to lead.

Carpenter asked the public if anyone wanted to address the town regarding the preliminary budget or to address the board. No one from the public stood. Ludwig continued the meeting with a summary of what the proposed preliminary budget is considering for the Town of Islip.

“This has been one of the more brutal budgets we’ve had to deal with because we’ve had a lot of things fighting against us,” Ludwig said. “Before I give acknowledgements to everybody else who helped create the budget, I do want to say thank you to all the board members for the questions, the interest.”

At the previous board meeting, the town board voted to pierce the tax cap. There were recent changes to the retirement system. Currently, the Town of Islip is tier six members, but as of recently, they are now receiving tier five benefits. It costs the Town of Islip $1 million.

Additionally, the mortgage tax is down $7 million over the last two years.

The two preliminary adjustments that were made to the budget affected two areas. The first is the Central Islip Ambulance District. After the district had submitted their budget, they made changes, and this was reflected with a tax cut and savings off their contract.

The second was for a community on Fire Island. The cost is increasing due to a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ beach renourishment project that was approved earlier this year no longer being funded by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers because they are out of money.

FEMA, in the past, has funded beach renourishment every five years. However, with natural disasters being unpredictable, Fire Island proposed a plan to allocate funds to be used in the event of an emergency.

The increase and adjustments are only for the mentioned taxpayers and districts.

The capital budget was not addressed as it is still being finalized. The discussion was opened and adjourned to be included in the Nov. 19 meeting with a proper budget that can be presented to the board. The meeting will take place at the Town Hall in Islip at 2 p.m.

After Ludwig thanked the department heads and commissioners, Carpenter thanked the board.

“I personally want to thank the members of the town board, because this has been a most collaborative process in the fact that they have really drilled down,” Carpenter said. “Got into the weeds, met with the departments, met with the controller—we were all anxious to try to see if we could minimize the impact to the taxpayer, yet at the very most, present a responsible budget for the town.”

The two amendments listed are special district amendments, whose impact to the average taxpayer annually was listed as $109. Ludwig stated that it had been brought down to $90.

Carpenter announced a motion to amend the budget, increasing the fund balance with the increase in taxes in the areas mentioned.

Additionally, the town proposed a motion to amend the amount of fund money used. It was listed as $11,850,000 for the general fund and $1,245,202 for the part town fund. The town sought to increase the fund balance by $2 million and part town fund by $154,798.

The two adjustments would decrease the aforementioned $109 to $90 for taxpayers.