Westchester County Executive George Latimer officially handed off his proposed $2.2 billion operating budget to the chairman of the Westchester County Board of Legislators for review today.

The budget is highlighted by a $7 million cut to the property tax levy.

Since Westchester homeowners pay some of the highest property taxes in the U.S., this proposed reduction in the property tax levy is welcome relief for many homeowners struggling to make ends meet during the pandemic.

If the budget is adopted as proposed, this would be the third consecutive year that the property tax levy is reduced.

At $7 million, it would be the largest reduction since $10 million was cut back in 2011. Latimer says they were able to make such a large cut by finding new revenue sources. "I would say the single largest impact comes from non-property tax revenue that we were able to achieve. The single biggest piece of this was increased sales tax revenue. Sales tax revenue was better than we expected. And we shared a percentage of that back to the school districts and to the towns and villages and small cities as well.

Latimer cut the levy by $1 million in both 2020 and 2021.

In a preview of his $2.2 billion spending plan a couple of weeks ago, Latimer said the budget reflects what they believe is a stronger economic position for the county throughout 2022.

The budget proposal requests $476.4 million in new appropriations on all funds basis for 2022 including:

• $291.9 million for general county purposes

• $152.4 million for the sewer and water districts

• $4.1 million for the refuse district

• $28 million for the airport

The county Board of Legislators is expected to vote on budget on Dec.13.