Less than one week after Saratoga Springs Commissioner of Public Safety Ron Kim said that proposed mid-year budget cuts to his department would mean firing 14 firefighters and 19 police officers, Commissioner of Finance Ken Ivins pitched a less drastic scenario for making up the city’s $3 million shortfall at the City Council’s Tuesday, June 2, meeting.
Not a single firefighter, not a single policeman is losing their position with these proposed cuts, said Ivins.
Ivins had originally proposed cutting $1.3 million from the public safety budget, but after working over the weekend he identified nearly $800,000 in line items that could be trimmed.
Other departments would suffer cuts, as well: public works, over $360,000; finance, almost $70,000; accounts, over $40,000; mayor, nearly $100,000; and recreation, nearly $80,000. Altogether, they would make up less than half of the $3 million gap, requiring that over $1.5 million in one time money be raised.
A public hearing on the budget amendments is scheduled before the City Council’s next meeting at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, June 16. Ivins said he will call for a vote that night.
Among the proposed personnel cuts are the elimination of the director of public works and city engineer positions, an executive assistant in the public safety office, several dispatchers, a part time recreation department typist and several workers in the mayor’s department, including not filling a building inspector position.
Recreation, public works and public safety would also suffer various reductions to equipment, training and sick leave budgets.
Ivins tossed out ideas that he said had been presented to him by the public in the preceding days, including mandating single side street parking during snow emergencies, picking up lawn debris less often and soliciting volunteers for flower planting and crossing guard duties. He also raised the topic of using Saratoga County dispatch services.
A line-by-line summary of the proposed cuts can be found on the city’s Web site, www.saratoga-springs.org.
Tax revenues for 2009 are significantly less than predicted so far, and the state pulled the rest of the city’s VLT aid off the table after Saratoga Springs passed a budget with no tax hike, leaving the city without about $3 million it planned on having. Under city charter, the tax rate cannot be adjusted midyear.
In a Wednesday, May 27 presentation, Kim had argued that public safety was being hit with proportionally larger cuts than other departments. Ivins made it a point on Tuesday to note that while every other department took a hit or a small rise from 2008 to 2009, public safety’s budget increased by $674,000 to nearly $19.8 million, or about 54 percent of the city’s budget.
Members of the public, city firefighter’s union and police benevolent association made their disapproval of any cuts to the public safety budget clear by picketing in front of City Hall before the meeting. They also attended the budget discussion, which was moved from the council chambers to City Hall’s Music Hall to accommodate the crowd.
Mayor Scott Johnson and Kim exchanged what were likely the opening salvos in the 2009 race for the mayor’s office`both have received their party’s endorsement. Johnson made a point to refute any claims that he favors layoffs, calling such assertions `propaganda being used to fuel the fire.` Kim stated that Johnson and Ivins (both Republicans) have held discussions with the Saratoga County Sheriff’s Office about merging dispatch services without consulting his department.
`I don’t understand why the commissioner of finance would be sitting down with the sheriff’s department without any representatives of my staff,` said Kim.
Johnson denied having done this, and Ivins said he recently contacted Sheriff Bowen once, by phone, to ascertain whether consolidation is a possibility.
`I decided to do my own due diligence on it,` said Ivins. `I figured if he was against it, I would have forgotten the whole thing.`
Kim objected to using Saratoga County’s services for Public Safety dispatch, saying it would lengthen response time and make $150,000 of recently-purchased dispatch equipment worthless. Ivins said he was not directly advocating the idea, just identifying the possibility.
`All I’m saying is, let’s have a discussionThat’s $300,000 to $500,000 worth of firemen and policemen I can keep on the streets,` said Ivins.
Christopher Cole, assistant chief of police, said during the public comment period that infighting does not help solve the problem.
`In any other corporation or government setting, discussion would have begun immediatelythis did not happen at City Hall,` he said. `We’re one city, not five departments.`
It was hard to miss the fact that the political season had begun in earnest in the Spa City, though, a fact not lost on Ed Lewis, president of the Saratoga Springs Police Benevolent Association, who strongly urged the council not to make any cuts to public safety.
`We know a lot of people who vote, we have solidarity within our unions and we’re going to keep watching you,` he said. `We’ll see what happens in November.“