Council trashes garbage fee
City has 8 days to fill $3 million hole in budget
TROY, N.Y. » The City Council blew a $3 million hole in Mayor Patrick Madden’s proposed 2018 budget Tuesday, rejecting a sanitation fee included in that spending package.
After a 75-minute discussion, the council’s General Services Committee rejected the Democratic mayor’s proposed $190 annual fee to cover the estimated $3.4 million cost for municipal garbage collection and disposal. By doing so, however, they left that budget proposal out of balance and property owners facing the possibility of a double- digit
tax increase for a second consecutive year.
Though she did not have a vote at Tuesday’s meeting, council President Carmella Mantello led the opposition, calling the fee a “hidden tax” that doesn’t address the Madden administration’s stated objective of encouraging city residents to reduce their waste and, subsequently, help the city reduce the amount it spends to dispose of that trash in ever- decreasing — and increasingly costly — landfill space.
Madden has said the fee would be a temporary measure while the city develops a comprehensive solid waste management plan
that would explore a host of other options, including a so- called pay-as-you-throw system Republicans said would better encourage recycling by proving a direct benefit to residents. The legislation considered by the council included a provision for the fee to expire in three years if no plan is produced.
“This does not incentivize recycling,” Mantello said. “What I want to see is an actual plan before we vote.”
In a statement issued after the meeting, Madden challenged the council to fill a hole that would still approach $2.9 million even after removing about $ 385,000 in new spending included in the budget to fill vacant city engineer and commissioner of general services positions and restore seasonal parks
and recreation positions removed from the current budget, as well as to create two new positions to deal with the new fee and help to educate the public on recycling, composting and other ideas that could reduce the city waste-stream.
“The City Council must move swiftly to resolve this significant budget deficit … that now exists as a result of their failure to approve the city’s proposed solid waste management program and recent budget review meeting, where the council majority presented no amendments,” Madden wrote. “We will await the City Council’s charter-mandated amendments to the budget for presentation ahead of their final approval on Nov. 28. I strongly urge the council to act quickly to resolve the $2.9 million deficit ahead of
the budget deadline.”
With just eight days before the charter-mandated budget deadline, the task is complicated further by the state-mandated cap on property tax increases. That cap limits any tax hike to less than 1 percent unless six of the nine council members agree to exceed the cap.
A similar situation delayed final approval of the 2017 budget until mid-December in 2016 after the GOP majority refused to go over the tax cap unless Madden cut a proposed 24.5 percent tax increase into single digits. A compromise was finally approved at 14.5 percent after District 2 Councilman Mark McGrath gave Madden the necessary sixth vote for approval.
The three Republicans who did vote against the fee — Democrat-Robert Doherty,
the legislation’s sponsor, was the lone affirmative vote – offered differing reasons for their opposition. Committee Chairman and District 1 Councilman Jim Gulli echoed Mantello’s assertion that the management plan should precede the fee.
“I just can’t be positive about a fee without something to back it up,” Gulli said.
District 6 Councilman John Donohue said he simply could not pile a new fee on taxpayers still reeling from the tax increase in the current budget.
“To me, $190 is too much a bite after last year,” he
said. “I just know that we can’t do that.”
District 4 representative Dean Bodnar borrowed from both arguments, saying he not only would be more comfortable seeing a management plan first, but was also uncomfortable with simultaneously adding new spending in the budget that is unrelated to sanitation.
“The $ 3.4 million is needed to cover a lot of spending increases,” Bodnar said. “I want to get back some of the things we cut from the budget last year, but this is not the way to do it.”