$2.5M village budget includes plans to repave major road, buy rescue boat

Nissequogue Village trustees plan to buy a rescue boat and make infrastructure improvements including repaving a major road under a $2.5 million draft budget.

Buoyed by federal pandemic aid, more state highway funds than last year and swollen property values, the proposal would increase spending by 13% but freeze the property tax rate at $22.90 per $100 of assessed value.

Trustees have scheduled a budget hearing 7 p.m. Tuesday at Village Hall.

River Road repaving would be the largest single expenditure, with a cost estimated between $225,000 to $250,000, Mayor Richard Smith told Newsday. The 1.5-mile-long road is one of two main roads into the village, along with Moriches Road. Town of Smithtown Highway Department or contractors would do the work sometime after the start of the village’s fiscal year June 1, Smith said. Workers last year shored up the one-time Indian footpath, which abuts Nissequogue River on one side and on the other steep hills whose natural springs undermined the road bed. 

The budget would also fund purchase of a shallow-bottom rescue boat for the Fire Department, which responds to about 10 calls a year for Nissequogue River rescues of canoeists and kayakers. 

Boaters unfamiliar with the river’s strong tides sometimes run aground and into trouble, Smith said. “They think they can walk to shore, but with the fine silt it’s very easy to get stuck all the way to the beltline.” Village officials are evaluating boats from two Louisiana companies and expect to spend about $28,000, he said. 

A portion of the village’s first installment of $88,820 in American Rescue Plan funds would go toward improvements of the village preserve on Long Beach. Residents visit that 40-acre site to fish or pick beach plums. Improvements would include new fencing and a bluestone gravel parking lot. The work is expected to finish by July. 

The budget would also replace one of the vehicles used by the village’s roughly 18 part-time police officers, at a cost of under $50,000, and fund the purchase of a $55,000 skid steer to be shared by the Highway Department, which would use it for maintenance, and the Fire Department, which would use it to clear branches from roads after storms. 

The property tax freeze was the village’s fourth in five years. “We try to watch every dollar we spend,” Smith said.