City eyes 19% tax-rate increase
Budget proposal for 2018 does not cut any staff, services
WATERVLIET, N.Y. » Residents in the city of Watervliet most likely weren’t expecting to hear the city’s proposed budget for 2018 has a 19.21 percent tax-rate increase.
City General Manager Jeremy Smith presented his first proposed budget Thursday night during the City Council meeting, which had roughly two dozen residents in attendance.
As part of the proposed budget, residents will not see an increase to their sewer rate and their water rate would also remain flat.
The roughly $11.46 million proposed budget does not cut any staff or services. There are no raises for employees except for a contractual 1 percent raise for CSEA employees. The city also had a budget deficit for 2018 of over $700,000.
The proposed budget also places park counselors in the parks to operate the splash pads and children activities in the afternoons during the summer. The 2018 budget proposes having student summer help to work in public works to help with beautification initiatives, such as curb cleaning. Smith’s budget also plans for less overtime in Public Works and Public Safety.
“In 2017, administration has made significant changes as to how the city operates not only logistically but also financially, further placing controls over the finances to make sure that the city does not run into deficit again,” Smith said in budget presentation. “The 2018 budget is met with major challenges, both internal and
external.”
A recent report from the State Comptroller’s Office revealed the city faces the second-highest amount of “fiscal stress” of all municipalities in New York state. Only Monroe County in western New York found itself under more financial pressure than the Albany County city among more than 1,000 counties, towns, cities and villages in 2016, state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said in the report, with the city of Albany right behind Watervliet. Those three governments, along with Broome County in the Southern Tier, were the only ones to be classified in the report as being under “significant” fiscal stress.
“The State Comptroller’s office has requested that the city of Watervliet show revenues and expenditures in a different way moving forward,” explained Smith. “In the past, if the city was reimbursed for a service, it would be shown as a negative expenditure in the expense lines. Now the city will show the reimbursement as revenue. This will show further accuracy. The Comptroller office has requested that all shared expenses across funds be shown in that manner. Therefore the 2018 budget will look different than it has historically. Throughout 2017, city administration has worked to make these changes and they will be seen in the 2018 budget.”
The current city tax rate is $11.10 per $1,000 of assessed valuation.
The City Council will meet again in the Watervliet Senior Center on Dec. 7 at 7 p.m. for a public hearing on the proposed budget. The council is expected to vote on the proposed budget at 7 p.m. on Dec. 21.
After Smith finished his budget presentation, the council then moved on to other business on its agenda. One item on the agenda was a proposed special meeting to be scheduled for Dec. 6 at 10 a.m. Councilman Charles Patricelli had been pushing and requesting for the special budget meeting for several weeks without hearing back from other city officials about it.
Then on Thursday night, that resolution was shot down after Mayor Michael Manning voted against having the special meeting, while Patricelli voted in favor of having and the resolution was voted down due to the tie vote.
“For the past two months I have asked to hold a special meeting to discuss, line by line, this budget,” Patricelli read in a part of a prepared statement after Manning voted against the special budget meeting.
“Mayor you refused, and then said at our last meeting three weeks ago that you would check your schedule. I heard nothing and then sent a follow up email, and again you never gave me the courtesy to respond. This budget process is a shame and worthless. This process was in place before the state designated us as moderately distressed, and then the same process was used last year and now we’re severely distressed. You claim to have use reserves to lower the Stress of our residents is a complete farce. I have had little or no input into this budget; all discussions have been directly between you and the GM, a GMwith 3 years of experience in preparing budgets. I’m sure he is doing his best, but not including me, with 40 years of experience, is a grave and harmful mistake.”
After hearing Patricelli read from his statement, Smith said he wanted to give Patricelli some feedback.
“Things that are not factual I have to speakupabout, the mayor is much better at holding back on that, I guess,” said Smith during the meeting. “[Charles] you stated that the budget procedure is a sham and I certainly take that personally as I’m the one who puts together the budget and does the budget procedure, but since September, we’ve had budget workshops that have gone line by line in each of the departments that we’ve had budget workshops for. Specifically [going] line by line, was not done by any of the previous General Managers or previous Director of Finance… the feedback that was given by the public and the council were all considered and placed in the budget — so when you say you’ve had no say in it or no input, you’ve had input with 80 percent of the budget so far.”
Patricelli said he understands the budget process, but feels that all the discussions concerning the budget have to be done with both Smith and Manning together, and not just with Smith.
“I know where the decisions are made, [Smith] works very hard on preparing a budget and I understand that, but having discussions with Jeremy is mute, it has to be done with the Mayor…. it isn’t Jeremy’s decision,” Patricelli said after the meeting.