Budget makes spending cuts; no increase in property taxes
Mayor Bill Keeler said his $24.5 million budget passed by the Cohoes Common Council, was designed to guide the city through the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The $24.5-million budget includes:
• 2% cut ($424,000) in spending from the general fund adjusted 2020 city budget, ∙ no increase in property tax rates,
• no increase in sewer and water rates.
• no layoffs of city personnel
“Just like every city across New York and around the country, the City of Cohoes and our residents are facing severe fiscal stress due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore we must not shift the city’s budget burdens to households in the form of property tax increases or water and sewer rate hikes,” Keeler said in a recent news release.
“We are confronting this problem by operating with a leaner budget with improved efficiencies,” Keeler explained.
Cohoes is facing a $1.4 million+ COVID- 19- related drop in revenue in 2020, with equivalent revenue declines anticipated in 2021. This includes a 20% shortfall in New York State aid payments equaling $550,000 and an $800,000 decline in County Sales Tax receipts. The city is also experiencing a significant decline in user fees, permits, and other revenue.
The city also incurred unexpected costs due to eight city employee retirements resulting in severance payments in excess of $500,000 in 2020.
Steps taken, beginning in April 2020, to offset anticipated revenue losses in
cluded reconstituting contracts for management of the Cohoes Music Hall for a savings of $250,000; reducing payroll costs via attrition, furloughs, and layoffs; and containing overtime costs in all departments.
The budget accesses
nearly $950,000 from the city’s $ 4- million unassigned fund balance account – the so-called “rainy day fund” – in 2021 to offset the anticipated ongoing historic declines in Federal, State, and local revenues.
“If ever there was an appropriate time to tap the rainy day fund, this COVID-19 pandemic is it,” City Comptroller Michael Durocher said, noting that an average of $550,000 per year has been accessed from the “rainy day” fund in each of the last five fiscal years.