By Joseph D’Andrea
The Lake Success Board of Trustees said Monday an audit of village finances found them to be in good health.
“We had a meeting with the auditors who said that, basically, everything looks pretty good,” said Mayor Adam Hoffman. “Our surplus is in line, and they’re okay with us using the $700,000 for the next year. We’re sort of a year behind the budget, but everything worked out pretty close to what we thought the surplus should be at the end of the year. I think we’re pretty strong financially.”
Trustees unanimously approved a resolution to accept the final audited financial statements for 2022.
Also among other approved items was a resolution to purchase a shed for salt and sand storage from Britespan Building Systems through Eagle Associates with the help $99,800 grant received from Nassau County.
The village does its own salt-spreading and road work with snow. The state told the village that they could no longer use the building they had been using for salt storage for decades, prompting their plan to build their own storage area.
“We got the grant approved by Nassau County, and in order to get the grant processed, we have to do certain things in certain orders,” “We had a meeting with the auditors who said that, basically, everything looks pretty good,” said Mayor Adam Hoffman. “Our surplus is in line, and they’re okay with us using the $700,000 for the next year. We’re sort of a year behind the budget, but everything worked out pretty close to what we thought the surplus should be at the end of the year. I think we’re pretty strong financially.”
Patrick McDermott, superintendent of the Lake Success Public Works Department, spoke to the board, providing updates on village projects.
National Grid put out notices on June 12 announcing that new gas mains are to be put in, beginning in Hampton Court in Great Neck and Westminster Road in Lake Success,
“We’re going to split the cost with them to repair the road,” McDermott said.
According to McDermott, Briarfield Drive is among the three areas to be started on first by National Grid in two weeks.
“The village was awarded a $50,000 grant four years ago from the incoming senator,” said Village of Lake Success Administrator Patrick Farrell. “We did a project and we have to wait, so we’re redirecting the budget of the project. We’re waiting to get approval for this grant that was given to us four years ago, and it hasn’t really gone anywhere. Many municipalities are in the same position as we are.”
“Pat [McDermott] and his crew are doing an amazing job refreshing and renovating the bridge on Penn,” said Deputy Mayor Gene Kaplan. “All the support beams were checked out — solid but need changing. The railers, the side rails, the entire surface on the bottom, will be done in a couple of weeks.”
While discussing a quote from Streamline Aquatics, the board also made a mention of possibly switching over to saltwater tanks in public pools, which generate chlorine, have a lower pH rate and would be “safer and easier to work with — we would just need to buy pounds of salt.”
“We have two primary chlorine tanks [for the pools]. Cracks developed in both of them. We got one to seal, and we’re fine now, and we’re working to get the other tank through the season. To replace the two tanks, you’re looking at about $6,300.”
The board voted to approve an amount not to exceed $4,000, for the purchase and installation of one tank, if need be, to then switch over to salt in case of an incident.
In line with the ongoing process that will see McDermott obtaining estimates from Nassau County, Spyro Dimitratos, trustee and deputy liaison of DPW, said, “This is just us wanting to open the discussion on this. We still have to do a boatload of work.”
Nicole Morton, president of Salerno Brokerage Corp., spoke to the board regarding the company’s insurance renewal, which the board unanimously voted to approve, not to exceed $242,294.
“The reinsurance market is very concerned with rate advocacy in order to be relevant for years to come,” Morton said. “Whether it’s a crazy property storm or a nuclear verdict, there’s something that has triggered them. That in itself has been causing the insurance carriers to mandate significant rate increases. On top of that, they take our exposures. We have high values here — we’re over 40 million in our blanket limit for buildings and contents, we have all of our vehicles, DPW, police, our golf course, and catering service.”
Morton went on to explain that the insurance corporation has high liability limits, “which are great because the market is also very tight on that.”
The overall renewal is less than what had been budgeted in February, with about $8,000 on the side of property and casualty and about $12,000 for workers’ compensation. Their current property deductible is $2,500 per property claim — buildings, contents, storm damage, fire, power surges, and frozen pipes.
“We’ve had only two minor property claims in the last five years,” Morton continued. “The carrier suggests that we increase to $5,000 per property deductible, and I think we should consider it. It would be about a $4,500 savings.”
The topic of complaints relating to garbage pickup was also discussed, with Village Attorney Andrea Curto providing proposed legislation to “clean up” garbage placement, specifically those who place their garbage on the side of the curb.
Part of the proposal, as outlined by Curto, reads: “Owners shall store containers in a location that is not visible from the street and garbage contractors shall remove the garbage from that location.”
“Some people didn’t want to hide their containers,” Curto said. “They wanted to put them by their garage, so we said, alternatively, ‘owner may place the containers at the front corner of the garage for garbage pickup at 7 a.m., and then must relocate the containers to a location that is not visible from the street upon the garbage contractor removing the garbage from the containers.’ So there are two alternatives.”
A public hearing regarding the matter has been set for August 14.
