Albany weighs how to use $85M
Fed relief funds may be spent on code enforcement, hiring youths
Mayor Kathy Sheehan said a task force will help decide how $85.2 million in federal relief funds will be allocated, but she’s already thinking about restoring funds for parks beautification and strengthening the enforcement of the city’s building codes.
The $1.9 trillion plan signed by President Joe R. Biden, Jr. on Thursday delivers relief for national needs, including child care, restaurant aid, and an expansion of unemployment, rental assistance and eviction prevention programs.
“We need to ensure that we’re equitably and strategically maximizing the resources
that are available to residents, to our businesses and our communitybased organizations,” Sheehan said. “This task force is going to work with every sector in our city to ensure that we are getting those resources to where they need to be.”
Sheehan delivered comments on Friday flanked by city officials and neighborhood leaders at Washington Park’s Park Playhouse.
Since the virus hit the U.S. last year, state and local officials sought relief for municipal governments. But such relief failed to materialize when Republicans controlled Congress last year.
The event on Friday had an air of bittersweet jubilation, with Sheehan pointing out it was the one-year anniversary of the first two diagnosed COVID-19 cases in Albany County.
Since then, 361 county residents have died after contracting the virus.
As part of the task force, the city will work with organizations to identify gaps and flag funding streams for which they may be eligible.
The group will be chaired by Michael Whalen, administrative vice president of M&T Bank, and Jahkeen Hoke, executive director of the nonprofit Business for Good.
“Now that we have some resources and tools for our toolkit, and our paintbrushes ready to go, I think we’re in for a big surprise for the city to bring it back and make everything equitable and just,” Hoke said.
The city also aims to use the relief package as the springboard for broader civic engagement and is urging neighborhood leaders and community organizations to launch spring clean-up initiatives.
“With this funding, we will restart Albany,” Sheehan said.
Belt-tightening moves to reduce costs, like scaling back park cleanups, reducing enrollment in summer youth programs, will be eased. The city is also launching a renewed push to enforce code department issues and is urging residents to report violations on problem properties.
The city will also begin to immediately hire employees for its Department of General Services to spruce up the city as well as recreational aides for a fully restored summer youth employment program.
“If you want a job, we want you,” Sheehan said.
All frontline city employees will be able to access the vaccine beginning Wednesday, said Sheehan, who praised city staff for continuing to provide services throughout the pandemic despite the specter of “unimaginable” layoffs and cuts in services.
The mayor projected a revenue shortfall of $10 million, and the city ended the year with an estimated $4.2 million budget deficit, drawing on its current $14 million fund balance to fill it.
“We used half of our fund balance and our debt reserve is gone,” Sheehan said Friday.
Altogether, the state is to receive $12.5 billion in funding as part of the American Rescue Plan Act.
Sheehan said while the windfall marks a new phase in the city’s recovery, the city must also brace itself for revenue shortfalls projected to last another three to five years and be able maximize funds to ensure a balanced city budget, which is $180.8 million in 2021.
State aid is critical, she said, to ensure shortfalls from a wobbly commercial tax base are not passed off to residential property owners.
The city is concerned that the state may decide to reduce its annual aid payments to local governments because of stimulus money rather than give them their typical amounts.
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo initially withheld 20 percent of that money last year as part of the state’s own budget tightening but said in January that number might be reduced to 5 percent if the federal government passes another aid package.
Albany typically gets around $25 million in direct state aid between two programs, including a $12 million payment the city annually relies on state legislators to help secure.
While Sheehan hopes it won’t happen, the city is bracing for the possibility that money will be withheld.
“I think the state has received a significant amount of money,” Sheehan said. “It should fill those gaps, and now is not the time to be holding back as we seek to rebuild.
“We continue to make the case that the relatively small amount of funding that cities get, particularly when you compare it to school districts and other pots of funding that are there, that money is essential for cities, towns and villages across the state,” Sheehan said.