With expenses continuing to increase, the village board and mayor have looked for ways to increase revenues. The mayor and the village board have voted to raise parking meter fees as well as other fees and fines in an attempt to increase revenues without having to further increase taxes. One revenue that would ease the burden on village taxpayers is if the county increased its contribution to the village from sales tax revenue.

At a recent budget discussion, Mineola Mayor Jack M. Martins pointed out that the village generates a tremendous amount of sales tax from the number of businesses the village has. However, according to the mayor, the county distributes its sales tax revenue to itself as well as to towns with very little coming to the villages.

The village received a yearly stipend of $10,697 of sales tax revenue. from the county. By comparison, the Town of North Hempstead receives approximately $6 million in sales tax revenue a year from the county.

Mayor Martins believes that now that the county's finances are in order and is showing a surplus, it's time to increase the sales tax revenue stipend to the village since Mineola is not getting its fair share. Such an increase would help ease the burden to the village of other mandated cost such as the expected increase in the contribution to the state's retirement system.

According to County Comptroller Howard Weitzman, the county ended the 2003 fiscal year with a $25.5 million surplus. During the fiscal year, the county received $895.4 million in sales tax revenue.

According to village attorney John Spellman, villages used to receive no sales tax revenue. However, the Nassau County Village Officials Association along with some other organizations lobbied the county for some sales tax revenue.

As part of the 2001 Nassau County budget passed by the Nassau County Legislature and then County Executive Tom Gulotta, the county agreed to distribute $250,000 of sales tax revenue to the 64 villages in the county.

However, according to Mr. Spellman, the stipend was given to villages as a token gesture on the part of the county to appease the mayors, but the stipend hasn't been funded any further. Mineola, he said, is currently getting about 5 percent of what it should be getting.

"Mineola [the largest village in the Town of North Hempstead] is being significantly shortchanged," said Mr. Spellman, who added that based on a study that was done three years ago, the village should have been receiving sales tax revenue in the $200,000s.

Another mayor who shares the view that villages should be getting more tax revenue from the county is Freeport Mayor William F. Glacken, who was a key figure in getting villages some sales tax revenue. "I think it's long overdue," he said.

According to Mayor Glacken, there was a state law, which authorized, but did not require the county to share a portion of its sales tax revenues with villages, according to a revenue sharing formula that is in the state law. If all of the 64 villages in Nassau County were getting the full allocation according to the law, then the villages combined would get about $13.5 million, Mayor Glacken said.

The sales tax revenue is distributed according to population. Freeport, which currently gets $24,000, would get about $1.2 million. However, the state law is discretionary and does not require the county to share its sales tax revenues with the villages. According to Mayor Glacken, the county legislature could make a determination of how much sales tax revenue to share.

"It's unfair for [the county] not to because both our residents and our businesses help generate those sales. We should get our fair share," he said.

The county, however, in recent years has found itself in need of revenue since it was experiencing a fiscal crisis. Nassau County Legislator Richard Nicolello, whose district encompasses Mineola, said increasing the sales tax revenue that goes to villages would not be considered until later in the year when the 2005 budget is being prepared.

However, realistically, although the county has been receiving bond upgrades, it is still not out of the woods when it comes to its fiscal situation. "The county is doing better, but there are deficits still facing us in the coming years. Each year, we've been able to finish with a surplus, but with the escalating costs of Medicaid, employment contracts and those things, the following year with the same tax base, we then fall behind again. It's just that constant battle to keep up. I'm not sure what [county executive Tom] Suozzi is going to propose, but I'm not sure we'll be in a position to do anything like that this year," Legislator Nicolello said.

The legislator says his district is composed of mostly villages so he would favor anything that would increase the share to the villages, but it has to be considered within the reality of the county's ongoing budget difficulties.