EXCLUSIVE · TOWN HALL · LINDENHURST

New York caps how much more a town can raise in property taxes each year. A town that wants to go over the cap cannot simply do it. It has to pass a local law saying so, and it has to hold a public hearing first.

Babylon scheduled that hearing on October 7.

Resolution 705 is three sentences of plain intent. The Town Board, it says, “is desirous of passing a local law to pierce the tax cap,” and because state law requires a hearing before such a law can pass, one will be held at Town Hall on November 5, 2026 at 3:00 p.m.

A page later, Resolution 706 sets the hearing on the 2027 preliminary budget — same place, same date, same 3:00 p.m.

So the two questions arrive together: here is next year’s spending plan, and here is our request for room above the limit.

Both passed on the consensus agenda, offered by Councilman McSweeney and seconded by Councilman Gregory, 5 yeas, 0 nays.

What we cannot tell you yet is the size of it. The preliminary budget was not attached to the agenda packet; Resolution 706 says only that a copy “will be available at the office of the Town Clerk.” Any figure you see before that document is public is somebody’s guess, and we are not going to add one to the pile.

It is also worth being precise about what scheduling this hearing does and does not mean. Passing a cap-piercing law is not the same as piercing the cap. Towns across New York routinely adopt the enabling law as insurance and then pass a budget inside the limit anyway. It buys flexibility. It remains the single most consequential vote a town board takes in a year, and it is being taken at three in the afternoon on a weekday in early November.

If you want to be in the room: Town of Babylon Town Hall, 200 E. Sunrise Highway, North Lindenhurst, NY 11757 — Thursday, November 5, 3:00 p.m. The draft local law is on file at the Town Clerk’s office for public inspection during business hours, and notice of both hearings has to run in the Town’s official newspaper. The main number is 631-957-3000.

We will read the preliminary budget when it is out, and write up what is actually in it.

Source: Town of Babylon Town Board, resolution agenda, October 7, 2026 (Resolutions 705 and 706)