Adopted city budget has 22 new jobs, raises
$46.7M spending plan maintains city's current tax levy, includes $10K raise for mayor
KINGSTON, N.Y. » The city’s $46.7 million budget for the coming year includes funding for 22 new full-time employees and raises as part of a recruitment and retention plan for others while maintaining Kingston’s current tax levy.
The Common Council on Tuesday voted 8-1 to adopt the $46,721,659 spending plan for 2022. Voting against the budget was Alderman Douglas Koop, D-Ward 2, who had earlier in the evening expressed opposition to changes the council made to budget as originally proposed by Mayor Steve Noble.
Koop said the mayor, along with the city comptroller, has done an “outstanding job of leading the budget objectives without raising the tax levy.
“They know how to manage a budget,” Koop said. “They do a good job. I don’t think it’s incumbent upon this council to micromanage everything that the mayor does.”
Other aldermen initially indicated they would vote against the budget as a protest over raises Noble included for management confidential employees. They said they had no idea how the mayor arrived at those raises. However, they changed their minds when they realized that if the budget were defeated then the mayor’s spending plan would be adopted, erasing all the amendments the council had made.
Majority Leader Reynolds Scott-Childress, D-Ward 3, said he was conflicted because there were a lot of good spending items in the budget and it held the line on the tax levy.
“At the same time, as we’ve talked about, we have looked at the question of salaries and pay,” Scott-Childress said. “And part
of the problem with the management confidential increases that we’ve seen is we’ve seen no clear justification for a large number of them.” He said some were clearly instituted because a department head took on additional duties, so the increased salary was warranted. Others, though, seemed completely arbitrary, Scott-Childress said.
Scott-Childress said he also heard over and over from employees who did not receive a raise and how it felt “like a slap in the face” to them.
The budget increases spending $3,600,974, or 8.35 percent, over the 2021 adopted spending plan that totaled $43,120,685. The tax levy, which is the amount to be raised by taxes, is to remain at $17,650,940 for the seventh consecutive year.
Noble’s proposed 2022 budget was slated to increase city spending by roughly 8.3% from the adopted 2021 budget. The council adopted a series of changes that altered the mayor’s proposal, including removing a chief of staff position he had looked to add to his administration.
Additionally, the council moved money for raises for members of the city’s Civil Service Employees Association into a contingency fund until a memorandum of agreement is reached with the union.
The council also added $10,000 to fund repairs to the Rondout Docks, and $7,109 to increase the hours the part-time zoning enforcement officer could work. Aldermen also added $14,500 to provide themselves with computers and phone plans so they would no longer have to use their personal devices to conduct city business.
Mayor gets $10,000 raise
One proposed change that failed to receive approval from a majority of the council was a proposal to reduce a $10,000 raise for the mayor’s position to $5,000. The measure had passed the council’s Finance and Audit Committee but failed by a 4-5 vote, with four aldermen in favor of the reduction and five against. Since the reduction measure failed to pass the council, the $10,000 raise was included in the budget instead.
Voting in favor of the $10,000 raise were aldermen Koop, Don Tallermen, D-Ward 5, Tony Davis, D-Ward 6, Patrick O’Reilly, a non-enrolled voter who represents Ward 7, and Michele Hirsch, D-Ward 9. Those who had sought to cap the mayor’s raise at $5,000 were Scott-Childress and aldermen Jeffrey Ventura Morell, D-Ward 1, Rita Worthington, D-Ward 4, and Steve Schabot, D-Ward 7.
As part of the budget process, the council also adopted a resolution to make a shift in the amount of the total tax levy to be paid by residential, or homestead property owners, and commercial, or non-homestead, property owners.
Residential properties will go from paying 55.18267% of the levy to 54.78658%, while commercial properties will go from paying 44.81733% to 45.21342%.
Tax rates are expected to decline from $8.98 per $1,000 of assessed property value for residential properties to $8.82 per $1,000, while commercial rates are expected to decline from $14.24 per $1,000 to $14.14 per $1,000.
The council also adopted a $1,540,500 capital plan to purchase equipment for the city, including four new police vehicles, pick-up trucks for various departments, a sewer camera and equipment, and a snowblower. The capital plan will be paid for through borrowing.