When Nassau County Comptroller Howard Weitzman released his report on cost disparities for services in Nassau County municipalities, the Village of Roslyn came out fairly well concerning sanitation services.

According to Weitzman, Nassau County residents pay anywhere from $301-$974 per household for garbage service alone with residents paying $87-$472 in water taxes and $50-$592 in fire taxes per household. In total, over 200 special taxing districts in the county collected over $500 million in taxes in 2007.

In the Village of Roslyn, garbage services are $342 per household for twice-a-week pickups. Residential taxes for sanitary service are $114 per household.

However, some Roslyn residents noted that Weitzman's report covered garbage services for twice-a-week pickups. In fact, the village conducts pickups three times a week, on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. In addition, the village has designated Thursday as its recycling day. And so, sanitary services take place four times during the week.

Inquiring residents wanted to know if the reality of four-times-a-week pickups would hike both the costs and the residential taxes for such services. According to Wade Curry, of the village's building department, that wouldn't be the case. The village contracts all sanitary services to National Waste Services. A spokesman for National Waste said that the costs to taxpayers are exactly what the contract bid calls for. Therefore, the fact that Weitzman's report was based on a twice-a-week pickup is not altered by the four-times-a-week-pickups.

In all, Roslyn does well in comparison to other towns and villages. Its sanitary service costs are the third lowest in the county, only behind Port Washington and the New Hyde Park/Garden City Park/Floral Park Centre district.

Likewise, the residential taxes for sanitary services are, again, the third lowest, trailing only Glenwood ($5 per household) and Carle Place.

Property taxes for water district costs in the village are $230 per household, while water charges are $75 per household. In addition, fire protection taxes are $124 per household.

As opposed to sanitary service taxes, water district costs are among the highest in the county. The $230 per household in taxes ranks well behind such neighboring villages as Glenwood ($76 per household) and Glenwood-Glen Head ($44 per household).

The village bounces back with fire protection taxes, which at $124 per household are the sixth lowest in the county. Residents of the Glenwood district pay just $22 per household in fire protection taxes.

The purpose of the Weitzman study was to point out the cost disparities in special districts and in Nassau County, and to report that in some instances, taxpayers are overpaying for certain services that fall under the jurisdiction of special districts.

"Hundreds of thousands of Nassau County residents pay far too much for sanitation, water and fire service," Weitzman claimed.

The county comptroller went on to say that when people move into Nassau County, they do so because of the quality of schools and the ambience of the community they choose to live in. "Nobody moves into Nassau County because of the quality of the garbage collection. They expect to receive high quality garbage, fire and water services and those services should be delivered at a fair and reasonable price," Weitzman said.

However, according to Weitzman's report, services such as garbage collection, water and fire services aren't being delivered at a fair price in some of the commissioner-run special districts in Nassau County.