Village Board News: Trustees Speak out on HQ Tax, Unclaimed Funds

During the trustees comments session of Tuesday's village board meeting, Trustees Ed Oppenheimer and Mike Sepe expounded on the village's ongoing fight with Nassau County against its and how it's unfair to Rockville Centre residents.

The Headquarters Tax pays for when county police forces are called into the village for assistance. The headquarters tax accounts for about 40 percent of residents' total county tax bill, village officials said. 

Last year, village residents paid $6.1 million to the headquarters tax, and Oppenheimer and Sepe said that is way too much considering the village has its own police force.

Sepe explained that RVC residents are not only paying for county police bureaus that are currently defunct, but also for the same police services the village gets from its own police force.

"We will no longer willingly tolerate this," Sepe said.

Oppenheimer noted that he saw a tax bill for a Massapequa resident — Massapequa is an unincorporated village and does not have its own police force like RVC — and their HQ tax decreased by 10 percent. In contrast, Rockville Centre taxpayers HQ tax increased by 23 percent, he said.

"I think it's time someone does something about it," he said.

In other village news, Oppenheimer urged residents to go to the Office of the New York State Comptroller website to check if they have any unclaimed funds. To see if you have any unclaimed funds, go to www.osc.state.ny.us.