Critics of mayor pan 2020 city budget

KINGSTON, N.Y. >> A public hearing on Mayor Steve Noble’s proposed $43.9 million city budget for the coming year drew only five audience members, two of whom are frequent critics of his administration and are running in the current election against the mayor and a Democratic alderman.

The Common Council held the public hearing Monday evening as part of its review of Noble’s proposed 2020 spending plan. The budget totals $43,922,220, a decrease of $54,257, or 0.12 percent, from the 2019 level of $43,976,477. It calls for the property tax levy, the total amount of anticipated revenue from property taxes, to remain at $17,650,940 for the fifth year in a row.

Ellen DiFalco, one of Noble’s two challengers in the mayoral election, said she was concerned about the proposed $5,000 increase in the mayor’s salary that is included in the budget. She said she believed the increase will be followed by others in the coming years.

The mayor currently is paid $75,000 per year.

“This should be decided by the voters as a referendum,” DiFalco said of the raise. She also said she noted “excessive overtime” again in the Kingston police and fire department budgets, as well as what she called unrealistic anticipated revenues that are being used to offset expenditures.

DiFalco, a registered Democrat running for mayor on the Republican and Independence Party lines, also said the “participatory budgeting” process in Kingston that allocates $60,000 to be spent in the city’s three business districts is flawed.

“Guidelines and rules for transparency are paramount,” she said. “The online ‘Survey Monkey’ is not an adequate way to decide where $20,000 for each business district is spent.”

DiFalco was referring to the online survey the city used to solicit feedback for how the funding should be spent in each of the business districts in 2018 and 2019.

DiFalco said anyone could respond to the survey without having to show they were residents of the city or of legal age. She also said the program should be suspended until the city can properly document how the funding was spent and the background of the groups and agencies that received the money.

Noble, a Democrat, is running on the Democratic and Working Families Party lines in his bid for a second four-year term. Another challenger, Vincent Rua, is running on the SAM Party line.

DiFalco’s husband, Joseph, also addressed the council Monday, noting some positions in the budget that he felt were unnecessary and did not contribute to the city. He said the budget calls for hiring a new clerk, which he said was for the city’s new municipal ID program even though that program was not supposed to cost the city any money and, in fact, was supposed to bring in revenue.

Joseph DiFalco, who is running against council Majority Leader Reynolds Scott-Childress for the council’s Third Ward seat, also said the city does not need the expense of a director of communications and community engagement to serve as Kingston’s spokesperson. He also said no one wanted the city’s environmental educators when those positions were created several years ago, stating they were “rammed down our throats.” Those positions went to Noble and his wife, Julie.

Following Monday’s hearing, the council’s Finance and Audit Committee held the first in a series of budget meetings to review spending for specific departments. Up first were the city’s Department of Public Works and wastewater treatment plant.

The public works budget includes the addition of three employees, as well as some contractual increases in salaries and benefits, and an increase in costs for vehicle maintenance. Some of the savings reflected in the department’s budget come from a project to replace the city’s streetlights with LED bulbs, as well as decreased tipping fees from the Ulster County Resource Recovery Agency. There also were some increased revenues noted in the budget, such as from additional refuse and garbage charges.

Under Noble’s proposed budget, the property tax rate for residential, or homestead, property owners is to decrease from $9.73 to $9.05 per $1,000 of assessed value, while commercial, or nonhomestead, properties would be taxed at a rate of $14.24 per $1,000, down from the current rate of $15.59.

The budget proposal calls for $915,190 to be used from the city’s fund balance to offset expenses.