Charter plan lacks financial accounting

At the excellent panel on charter change presented by the Saratoga County Young Democrats, I asked a question about the Charter Commission’s plan to eliminate four Commissioners and their full time deputies. According to the Commission’s printed materials the elimination of these positions is the main basis for their claim that the change to a city manager will save the taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars (the exact number has varied significantly depending on which Commission member is speaking). Who, I wanted to know was going to do the work of all these people?

While I never got a satisfactory answer to this, as it turns out my concern was premature. Commission Chairman Bob Turner admitted in his response to another audience question that these positions are not actually eliminated in the proposed charter. In fact section 8.09B states “The existing deputy commissioners ... shall serve at the pleasure of the City Manager.”

So what happens if the city manager, unlike the Charter Commission, actually looks at what these deputies do and decides their positions are necessary? That would seem to eliminate the main basis for the promised savings.

We have yet to see any sound financial accounting of what the dramatic transition to a new form of government will cost. Now their promise to save hundreds of thousands of dollars when the new government is in place may turn out to be just wishful thinking and an unpleasant surprise for taxpayers. — Dennis Bouchard Saratoga Springs