Hillside Public Library Budget Presented to Public

The proposed budget for 2011-12 is $2,834,925, which is up 1.98 percent from the previous year's budget.

The biggest increase in budget is salaries, which for approximately 35 employees went up $21,100 to $1,076,100. Two other sizable increases were $5,000 for health insurance and $6,040 for Social Security.

A resident who attended the Thursday evening budget hearing at the library asked for a breakdown of the salaries of each employees, citing that it is a tough economy and budgets need to be tightly scrutinized. Members of the board told the resident that he need to put in a Freedom of Information Act request for that information.

State aid to the library was down $1,000 in the 2011-12 budget to $6,000. Board member Kathleen Seyfried explained that the state aid amounts to about 20 cents per resident now and has gone down a lot in the last two years.

Seyfried added that the taxes related to the library are a small percentage, about two percent, of taxes for New Hyde Park residents that also include school, county and town taxes. Given the average assessment in New Hyde Park, Seyfriend estimated that the average increase in taxes from this year to last year would be about $5.

After the budget hearing and subsequent monthly board meeting, board member Peter Pinto noted that the library provides services to three communities -- the Village of New Hyde Park, the and the .