The Town of Colonie released its preliminary budget on Wednesday, Sept. 29, cutting more than $1 million from overall operating costs due to an influx of town employees taking advantage of a new early retirement incentives. The $93 million budget also includes pay raises for several town employees.
The town’s deficit as of Dec. 31, 2009, stood at nearly $16 million, according to Town Deputy Comptroller Chris Kelsey, who said due to the current state of the economy, the town was not able to reduce that number. He added that if the sales tax comes in higher than expected, it will eat into the deficit.
In the year 2010, the town will have eliminated nearly 55 positions through a combination of attrition and early retirement as compared to 37 positions in the 2008-2009 fiscal year. Examples such a defunding the Youth Bureau Service Director’s budget line, a total of $84,761.
Other positions, such as the director’s position for the Colonie Landfill, formerly held by Joe Stockbridge who retired last month, were not filled, although Matt McGarry has filled in as acting director of the landfill.
Stockbridge’s salary of $104,770 does not appear on the 2011 budget line.
Kelsey said that while this budget currently reflects the number of known town employees who have opted for early retirement, he said that there are still some employees who are considering retiring, a decision that must be made by Dec. 29.
`There are still a number of positions that may be effected by early retirement so we don’t know those numbers officially,` said Town Supervisor Paula Mahan’s Spokeswoman Sara Wiest.
She added that reducing the town’s overall workforce is a short-term way of trying to reduce expenditures while planning for the long term.
The new incentive plan, signed into law by the State Legislature in May this year, has two different categories town workers can fall under based on age and years of service.
Part A states that if you are 50 years old and have only 10 years of service, you can retire with a month added to every year of service you have completed, a number that can only go up to three years.
Part B allows that if you are 55 years old with 25 years of service, there will be no penalty for taking early retirement, a penalty that usually costs up to 27 percent if a worker leaves with less than 30 years of service.
`Our anticipated increase in 2011 for the town’s contribution to the state’s retirement system is 39 percent for about $1.5 billion,` said Kelsey. `This is what the town must contribute for the cost of paying into the pension plan.`
He added that a municipality’s contribution to the state’s retirement system usually goes up when the state’s fund are down. He attributed the rise of contributions a city must make to the retirement system to the decline of the economy.
`It effects how much we have to pay to the system,` he explained. `We’ve built those increase costs into our expenditure lines and other areas we have to cut.`
Through early retirements, some positions will be left open.
`It may leave a lower level employee position open,` said Kelsey, `but that lower position would not be filled, and that’s where the savings come in.`
He also said with the addition of an upgrade to the town’s telephone system, there will be only one person to answer the phone within three different departments.
`Really, we’re looking at things in a creative way and to a degree possible, allows for growth of existing employees,` said Kelsey. `We’ve spent since the middle of June working and think we’ve come up with a budget that allows us to maintain the quality service we currently provide.`
There are several town employees who would be seeing pay raises under the proposed budget, including Mahan, who will see her salary increase from $118,104 to $118,229, Comptroller Craig Blair’s salary will go from $103,105 to $104,276 and the civil engineer of the Engineering and Public Works department will see a bump in pay from $82,876 to $85,680.
When initially asked about the supervisor’s pay raise, Kelsey said that it could possibly a typo, but then said that the number could be revised in the tentative budget back down to its 2010 levels.
Wiest assured that the supervisor had not accepted a pay raise since coming into office in 2008 and said that the Town Board had actually reduced the salary of the supervisor before she came into office.
`Symbolically that looks terrible,` she said of the numbers. `If everyone has to do more with less and make a sacrifice they don’t want to see people at the top not deal with that.`
Other employees such as Town Attorney Michael Magguilli will see a reduction in pay from $108,695 to $107,640 and Director of the Building Department Mike Rosch will see a pay cut from $100,495 to $85,000.
Kelsey said that the Town Board passed a clause stating that whatever union workers in the town received, those who are a part of non-bargaining unions would get the same raise. He added that non-bargaining department heads will get an increase.
`The longer you’re here, the longer that longevity payment is,` said Kelsey.
Wiest said this year’s budget will also have an affect on housing assessments, leading to a small increase.
`On a median house in the Town of Colonie assessed at $150,000, right now we are working with an increase of between $2.50 to $3 per month,` she said, `which is significantly less per month than in surrounding municipalities.`
Other revenue figures show that the general fund for the 2011 preliminary budget will see increases in real property taxes from $14,730,032 to $15,125,482, an decrease in overall sales taxes from nearly $21,1000 to $20,175,000 and a decrease in overall salaries from $26,134,794 to $25,395,705.
Councilman Dan Hornick said that while it was his first year working on a town budget, he understand this current preliminary budget is still a work in progress and there are still changes to be made.
He added that he was most impressed with the cuts McGarry made to the landfill’s budget, reducing it from $7,969,042 to $6,949,966.
`It seemed to be a lot of padding of the budget, and he was able to do a lot of things in house,` said Hornick.
He said there is still more work to be done and that this administration will not work the same as years past.
`We can’t exist in the era of smoke and mirrors as previous administrations have,` said Hornick.
The budget will now be reviewed by the board members in the upcoming weeks to make any changes necessary, said Mahan.
A public hearing will be held on November 4 where the tentative budget will be presented to the public.“
