County Executive Dan McCoy is proposing to hold the line on property taxes next year and is projecting the county’s fund balance will close this year at its highest level in more than a decade.
McCoy released his 2015 Executive Budget on Friday, Oct. 10. In it, he proposes a $597 million spending plan well within the county’s tax cap because there is no property tax levy increase. The budget includes projected savings of $4.2 million from the county negotiating new contracts with unions representing nursing home employees, along with other operational efficiencies. The budget doesn’t include any layoffs, but cuts 49 vacant positions, with 42 having been eliminated in the current budget.
McCoy said his budget proposal doesn’t use any “one shot” solutions or tap reserves to balance it.
“We had to start looking at things differently,” said McCoy. “I got criticized from certain people saying you can’t treat county government as business. … We have to treat it like a business, strive to make a profit, and the shareholders, meaning the taxpayers of Albany County, are the ones that get the rewards.”
The operational deficit of the nursing home has been reduced from $12 annually, according to McCoy, to $6.3 million in next year’s budget. McCoy remains hopeful the county legislature will hand off the nursing home to a Local Development Corporation next year.
He also credited unions representing nursing home employees for helping to lower operational costs of the facility and services.
“The unions rolled up their selves, and we signed major contracts with them that have a lot of concessions in it,” said McCoy. “The progress we’ve made with working with the unions this year has been significant and will have a lasting impact on operations in the future.”
County legislators and McCoy have clashed over the nursing home and his push to privatize the facility, but he claimed that struggle spurred more efficient operations.
“If I didn’t fight back, we wouldn’t be talking about savings at the nursing home,” said McCoy. “We have this result from the hard work from my staff, the people out at the nursing home, and we are finally on a road to recovery.”
Sales tax revenue growth is also helping ease the increasing costs of county services, with this year forecasted to be up 2.5 percent this year. This increase yields an additional $3.5 million to municipalities within the county. Next year, municipalities are slated to receive more than $100 million.
McCoy also touted his administration’s focus on rebuilding the county’s fund balance, which has helped the county received a lower fiscal stress designation from the state Comptroller’s Office.
Since 2012, more than $14 million has been added to the fund balance, and it’s projected to end this year with $42 million. In 2009, the fund balance had approximately $16.6 million, according to McCoy.
“We haven’t been in the $40 million range since 2007,” he said.
McCoy said the difficulty of crafting a budget below the tax cap stems from the growth in mandated costs.
“We only control 20 percent of this budget,” he said. “The other 80 percent is from the federal government and the state. The only thing they capped was our budget, which they don’t control. They need to cap their unfunded, mandated programs.”