After a lengthy budgeting process fraught with disagreements, the City of Saratoga Springs has come up with a budget that not only will keep many municipal jobs, but will require a lower tax hike for city residents than originally planned.
Commissioner of Finance Kenneth Ivins unveiled the new proposed budget during a City Council meeting on the evening of Monday, Nov. 3. After meeting with department heads, he drafted a budget that stands at $38.5 million, about $400,000 larger than the previous proposal.
Overall, I think it’s a good compromise; we put a few things back in, said Ivins.
It keeps 17 part-time positions in the Department of Public Works that were set to be cut and restores $60,000 of the $100,000 cut from the police overtime budget. Taking advice from an October presentation from Chief of Police Edward Moore, the city will also seek to hire two additional officers in an attempt to cut future overtime expenditures by $150,000 to $200,000.
The new officers will be paid for by an upcoming Department of Conservation grant for the city’s Energy to Ice program, which uses methane gas from the former Weibel Avenue landfill to power ice compressors. A grant of $526,000 is possible, though Ivins has budgeted $450,000 in what he describes as `one-shot money.`
Other savings, such as an unexpected reduction in the city’s liability insurance premiums equating to about $100,000, allows the new budget to lower the property tax increase from a 3.8 percent to 2.7 percent. A property valued at $200,000 would see about a $30 increase in taxes.
In the Department of Public Safety, Commissioner Ron Kim identified four possible sources of new revenue. By charging for repeated false alarms, accident reports and photos, towing and instituting property maintenance fees, the city could pick up around $100,000.
All of those proposals would require action from the City Council.
Kim also suggested the city consider contracting out emergency services to other municipalities, especially as the area’s need increases with the arrival of an AMD microchip fabrication facility.
`Down the road, the demand for higher quality emergency services in some of the specialized areas that are going to probably have more housing is going to be a little higher. Our city has those services,` said Kim.
Costs of building a new indoor recreation center at the Southside Recreation Fields will not be included in the 2009 budget, instead being pushed back to 2010.
`We’re not avoiding the bullet here. All we’re doing is jumping in front of it in another year,` said Ivins.
Ivins did express concern over some of the measures being taken to manage the 2009 budget, including the fact cutbacks are being avoided by a one-time grant. Also, Ivins said the money the state shares with the city from video lottery terminals at the Saratoga Raceway shouldn’t be counted on in the future.
`If this VLT money goes away, we need to look at serious cutbacks or other sources of money,` said Ivins.
A number of the commissioners espoused the need to lobby in Albany to keep those revenues intact, especially since former Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno will no longer be pulling for the city.
The council can still make changes to the new proposal, but the city must adopt a budget by the end of November. It is likely it will come down to the wire, as requests for proposals for a public safety building on High Rock Avenue won’t come back until right before a Nov. 24 meeting, when it is expected the council will vote. There will be a workshop on that date as well as Nov. 10, and there will be a public comment period on Nov. 18. All will be held at 6:30 p.m.“