Nassau County Assessor Harvey Levinson says the West Hempstead Library Project will increase the tax levy for 2006-2007 by $1,148,648, a whopping 63 percent increase from the previous year. Levinson called the increase "unconscionable."

According to Levinson, when homeowners look at their total school bill property tax obligation, the library tax levy increase will result in an average home paying about $459 in library taxes as opposed to $277 paid in 2005-06.

"It would be unfortunate and unfair for homeowners to blame their higher school tax bill on the school district, when the additional increase was caused, in large measure, by the library district's decision to absorb a capital project's cost overruns through a direct tax levy - not to mention a $652,000 interest payment on the bond," Levinson stated in a press release. "Most alarming is the fact that the West Hempstead Library Board of Trustees did not understand the consequences of their action in raising the tax levy by 63 percent."

Residents of West Hempstead approved a $9.975 million bond referendum in June 2003 to construct a new library at 504 Hempstead Avenue. Since then, the West Hempstead Library Board and the West Hempstead Board of Education ran into some difficulty in obtaining the property for the new library. Because it was a lengthy battle in obtaining the property, construction costs had gone up from the original estimates. The library board and the school board also had trouble obtaining the property known as the strip mall with the boards having to go to court in an attempt to obtain the property through condemnation proceedings.

Levinson is not suggesting West Hempstead residents blame the school district, which saw its budget fail on the first vote only to pass the second time around. The tax levy increase for the school district amounted to 2.74 percent over the 2005-2006 budget. "It would be unfortunate and unfair for homeowners to blame their higher school tax bill on the school district, when the additional increase was caused, in large measure, by the library district's decision to absorb a capital project's cost overruns through a direct tax levy - not to mention a $652,000 interest payment on the bond," he said.

West Hempstead Library Board President Ralph Reissman believes Levinson's criticism is unfair since much of the increase in the tax levy is due to the new library project.

According to Reissman, the library budget the previous year was $1.8 million. The budget increased, he said, to $2.9 million strictly because of the project. In addition, according to Reissman, the old budget of $1.8 million was based on the fact that the library is still renting one floor of its current library from the school district for $1,200 a month.

According to Reissman, the increase also included $652,000 for the first bond payment on the 30-year bond to construct the new library. Reissman said 33 percent is due to the rise in petroleum prices and construction costs. "What that did was force us to use our building reserve to take care of additional costs including the final payments on the land purchase," he said.

In addition, the library board had the land it had to purchase appraised at $1.2 million but ended up paying $2 million for both parcels, the strip mall and the gas station, needed for the project.

According to Reissman, the library board had to put in its $600,000 reserve into the project. In addition, another $450,000 was due to having to extend the length of time the construction manager was needed.

Reissman said that a large portion of the increase is due to one-time expenses that will not be incurred on a yearly basis. The construction manager costs, the land purchase costs "We're not going to buy the land again. It's ours, "Reissman said. "The interest on the bond we're going to have to pay, but that's built into our budget."

He also took exception to Levinson's statements and said that the increase was explained to the public. Also addressing why the cost overruns for the project were put in the budget, Reissman said the board didn't have another $1 million in reserve. "When he [Levinson] saying it's an unconscionable 63 percent and the library board didn't know what it was doing, of course we knew what we were doing. It would have been unconscionable for us to tax people four years ago just to have multimillion dollar reserves in case something happened," said Reissman.

The library board president said the board plans on building the reserve back up.

The new West Hempstead Library is expected to open in July 2007.