Naughton Slams Board

Update: Nov. 7, 2010




At least I'm not the only one who has a problem with the newly adopted town budget:

During my 24 years as Superintendent of Highways, I have worked to ensure better roads for a better Huntington.  However, in recent years, starting well before the current economic situation, my efforts have been hampered by town board members who do not like the idea of having an independently elected town official who is not beholden to them.

The highway office has been unconscionably deprived of the use of budgeted monies to properly maintain and improve roadways that benefit residents in neighborhoods and communities throughout our town. Huntington residents have been denied fair value for their hard-earned tax dollars.

Effective and efficient highway operations contributed to a $10 million surplus in the highway office’s budget as of last December.  However, instead of being prudently reserved for future highway needs, $1.9 million of surplus was improperly transferred this year to a contingency fund so as to show a healthy reserve funds balance that might not have otherwise existed and help artificially prop up the town’s bond rating. What most of our residents may not realize is how much the town’s debt services will increase because of extensive borrowing to fund pet capital projects such as the second ice rink at Dix Hills, the costs of which are way over budget.

Despite the fact that the monies were in my budget, the town board sought to prevent me from filling a number of vacant and much needed positions in the highway office and from spending the requisite funds to pave and rehabilitate more roads and improve drainage conditions in many areas of Huntington.  They had the audacity to sue me for filling several vacancies that were fully funded and tried to prevent me from promoting a number of employees in the highway office by refusing to pay them. An arbitrator’s decision overruled the board’s actions. 

Despite all of this, the supervisor now proposes to cut the highway office’s allocation of funding for 2011.  His proposed budget calls for the elimination of 12-15 employees and will significantly hinder our abilities to properly maintain and improve hundreds of miles of town roads. Although such cutbacks may result in a reduction in highway taxes, this will have a negligible effect on homeowner’s taxes. All other taxes are significantly higher; garbage taxes, for example, are slated to go up by almost five-percent.  And our debt services, as I’ve mentioned, are exploding. The supervisor’s budget priorities are wrong, while his treatment of the highway office has been mean-spirited and wrong-headed. Our town and its residents deserve better than this. I urge the town board to amend the proposed 2011 budget prior to its adoption.

William Naughton