Correction: This story was corrected to reflect the fact the Pelham village board voted to set a public hearing on the state tax-cap override law and did not act on the law itself.

The Village of Pelham Board of Trustees set a Jan. 25 public hearing on a local law that would allow the village to override the state-mandated 2% cap on property tax increases in the next budget.

A vote on the proposed law may follow the public hearing that night, according to an email from Deputy Mayor Mike Carpenter.

The board has annually adopted a law allowing an override—should it be needed—since the cap was imposed on municipalities and school districts in 2012 by legislation signed by then Gov. Andrew Cuomo. For the first time in 2021, the trustees passed a budget exceeding the cap due to revenues lost because of the pandemic. The village’s fiscal year begins June 1.

During the board’s Jan. 11  meeting, Mayor Chance Mullen said he is confident that taxes will not need to be increased above the state limit in next year’s budget.

“Even though our revenue has still not come back, we’ve already budgeted for those (declines), and so we’re not approaching a place where we suddenly have to increase levy to deal with lost revenue,” said Mullen. “It’s sort of baked into the cake.”

New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli set the cap on property tax increases for municipalities at 2% for 2022. “The tax cap, which first applied to local governments and school districts in 2012, limits annual tax levy increases to the lesser of the rate of inflation or 2%,” said a press release from DiNapoli’s office.

The release said the comptroller calculated the inflation rate at 4.7%.

The village board voted to authorize the hiring of Richard Papa Jr as a police officer. He joins the Pelham force from the Mount Vernon department and was sworn in as a police officer third grade.  

The transfer comes after the the department brought on three new recruits to the force, following on recommendations from the Steering Committee on Police Inclusion the village find ways to attract more diverse candidates to the department.

“Mr. Papa is very badly needed at this moment,” said Mullen. “We have been understaffed for a couple of months now and having someone transfer over is going to be very helpful. And, of course, the other three are also badly needed, but they’ve got about six months of police academy before we can actually put them on the beat.”