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The 2016 budget, approved by a vote of 9-8, includes funding for individual nonprofit contract agencies at 95 percent of their 2015 levels. The amended budget was the product of several difficult choices to close what legislators described as a $13 million hole in the county executive’s proposed budget.
Several legislators said that was the best they could do given the shortfalls in the budget, and that without the revenues they added to the budget, it could have led to far more drastic cuts. During the public hearing on the budget, Paul Trader reminded the legislators of the importance of the programs/services delivered to thousands of Rockland residents by non-profit contract agencies.
The executive’s budget also included a 4.95 percent tax increase that legislators raised to a 9.86 percent increase because they determined that amount was needed to balance the budget and keep commitments to pay down the county’s debt and meet other obligations.
The county executive’s office still has five business days to sign or veto the budget.
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