By THANE GRAUEL
The town has obtained a $7.6 million state grant for Scotts Corners drinking water improvements.
The grant constitutes the bulk of the funding needed to lay water lines between the business district and an Aquarion connection near the state line in Stamford, Conn. Pollutants, including Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, PFAS, known as “forever chemicals” have been found in the area’s groundwater. The project is expected to cost $11.13 million, with property owners making up the rest.
A letter accepting the grant was signed at a very brief special meeting of the town board Thursday evening, Nov. 7. The town’s tentative budget for 2025 also was introduced.
Town Supervisor Kevin Hansan said after the Nov. 7 meeting that the meeting was a formality.
“The state gave us until Friday to sign it,” Hansan said of a grant acceptance form from the New York State Environmental Facilities Corporation. “We had one week.”
Someone from the audience had tried to ask a question but got shut down.
“I had told them there’s going to be no questions,” Hansan said of the special meeting,
“It was just to get the authorization signed that we’d already predetermined we wanted when we submitted the grant back in June.”
Hansan noted that just a handful of Westchester municipalities had earned such grants this round.
The town board met again Nov. 12, and held a lengthier discussion on the tentative town budget, which squeaks in under the state’s tax cap.
The new tax levy would be $6,872,610, which is an increase of $198,688 over the current year’s $6,673,922. Under the tax cap, $200,111 would have been allowed, but the budget came in $1,423 under that.
“The tax rate increase right now is 2.17 percent, compared to, currently our national CPI is 2.44, New York you’ve got about 3.77,” Director of Finance Steven Conti said at Tuesday’s meeting.
Conti noted during his brief presentation that the town had not busted the state’s tax cap in more than eight years.
The board has workshops set to discuss the budget. Conti said a public hearing, with public input, would take place on the budget Tuesday, Dec. 3, at 7:30 p.m.