Huntington, N.Y., Nov. 5, 2026 — The Town Board spent most of a two-and-a-half-hour meeting on the preliminary 2027 budget, then moved quickly through a consent calendar that waived holiday parking meters in Huntington Village, appointed three board members, and set a mid-November hearing on battery-storage systems.

Town Comptroller Jonas Wagner, introducing himself at the start of the combined operating- and capital-budget hearings, said the preliminary operating budget is $269.74 million, up $24.40 million, with a proposed tax levy of $169.94 million against an allowable cap levy of $147.39 million. That is $22.55 million above the cap, according to the slide he presented. The plan uses $1.275 million of fund balance, keeps 699 full-time positions and includes a $17.425 million capital program. ▶ Watch this moment · 14:39

Wagner told the board this was “a preliminary budget before the board, not the final adopted budget,” and that the board is scheduled to adopt on Nov. 17. He said the state’s cap would allow the levy to rise 2.68 percent, or about $3.8 million, over 2026, while the proposed levy would be up $26.4 million, or 18.4 percent. He said the town has adopted budgets below the cap for four years, that Huntington is the only Suffolk town that has not overridden the cap at least once in the last five years, and that Moody’s had reaffirmed the town’s AAA rating, including on $23.8 million issued in August.

On a sample tax bill shown in the presentation — a property with an assessed value of 3,300, described as a full-market value of about $733,333 — town, part-town, highway, lighting and refuse charges would rise a combined $291.05 a year, or about $24.25 a month, under the proposed plan, he said, cautioning that actual bills would vary.

At the board’s request, Wagner said, the comptroller’s office also prepared a budget that stays under the cap, asking departments to cut operating expenses by 16 percent. He described that exercise as an “illustrative scenario, not a proposal to lay off 916 employees,” and said 123 of the positions in that illustration were full time, with the largest potential effects in parks and recreation, human services, general services, public safety and highway. Department heads, including from human services, later described what those cuts could mean for senior meals and programs.

During the public comments that followed, residents pressed the board not to pierce the cap. One speaker said the levy rise would take more from taxpayers than the new spending required and that reserve use was falling. Another, identified in the captions as Johanna Suchow, urged the board to repeal a 2025 resolution on six-year lifetime medical benefits. The captions do not always make speaker names certain; only names that came through clearly are used here. ▶ Watch this moment · 2:00:14