________________ LONG BEACH _______________
HERALD Also serving Point Lookout & East Atlantic Beach
Beach passes on sale Saturday Vol. 35 No. 20
MAY 9 - 15, 2024
1256939
Page 11 $1.00
City celebrates 100 years of bats and balls By ANGElINA ZINGARIEllo azingariello@liherald.com
Bob Arkow/Herald
Baseball Day is held annually, to celebrate baseball, and the value of giving back to others.
The Long Beach community came together to celebrate Baseball Day last Saturday, an annual tradition organized by the high school baseball program. From clinics for both Little League and softball players to reunions of Long Beach High School team alumni and competitive games, the event was a testament to the legacy of baseball in the city. The high school fielded its first squad 100 years ago this season. “It’s 100 years, which is a really special sort of event,” the team’s current head coach, Jason Zizza, said. “We wanted to recognize that, and intertwined with that 100-year celebration, we had an alumni celebration. . . . We got it out on social media, and we sent email blasts, and we ContinueD on page 19
L.B. spending plan proposes 1.04 percent tax increase By BRENDAN CARPENTER bcarpenter@liherald.com
Throughout their campaign for City Council last fall, Brendan Finn, Chris Fiumara and Mike Reinhart made it clear to Long Beach residents that they were going to work to prevent taxes from increasing. That turns out to be easier said than done. Long Beach’s 219-page proposed budget for fiscal year 2024-25, which was released on the city’s website late last month and presented at Tuesday night’s council meeting by Comptroller Inna Reznik and City Manager Dan Creighton,
includes a homestead tax increase of just over 1 percent, and a non-homestead tax of roughly 2 percent. “Property tax increase for homestead residents is 1.04 percent, or approximately $53, on average,” Creighton said. “We have been challenged by the City Council to reduce this further to zero, and we’re still working on making that a reality. So we’re not done; we’re still making some changes.” Reznik said the budget’s projected increase in revenue is driven by an increase of more than $900,000 in property taxes resulting from new development and construction in the
city, such as the Superblock, as well as an increase in sales and use tax revenue and investment income. The spending plan also has a one-time, $2.4 million reimbursement from the state for past expenses that the city will not be able to count on in future budgets. The spending plan totals just under $105 million, an increase of about $2.7 million over the current budget. Reznik said that the city had little wiggle room when putting it together. “When you have a budget that’s comprised of categories of expenses where you have no control, you have to figure out how to control whatever little
portion of that budget you have control over,” she said. “There are major categories in a budget. For example, payroll is almost 37 percent of the budget, about $38.5 million.” I n h i s bu d g e t m e s s a g e, Creighton said that the primary factors are increases in collectively bargained salaries, costs related to health insur-
ance, state Local Retirement System payments and the city’s property and liability insurance costs. Long Beach, he added, needs to absorb a $2 million increase in Police Department expenses that arose from the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association receiving its first new contract in over 20 years. ContinueD on page 5