Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan revealed her proposed 2016 budget last night at City Hall.
A new trash pickup fee and a $12.5 million chunk of state aid that has yet to be considered, let alone granted, are being counted on to oil the gears of the city treasury. "We will continue to provide one free pickup at every homestead unit in the city, so every homestead property will receive one free garbage pickup every week. But for those homestead properties that are between two and four units, we will be charging $15 per month for each of those additional units. And we are expecting that this will generate $1.5 million in revenue."
Sheehan emphasizes the trash tab is not a tax. "This revenue covers the cost of that service, It does not exceed the cost of that service. So it is a fee."
Sheehan wants to hold the line on taxes, justifying her stance by noting the amount of tax-exempt property in Albany has grown to 61 percent. The $180.6 million budget proposal formally requests that the 2016-17 New York State Budget include an additional $12.5 million for Albany, that would make up for all of Albany's state-owned tax-exempt property, which would be a recurring payment, and without which, the mayor says her budget can't be balanced. "Our tax levy, the amount that we raised in our property tax levy in real dollars, is higher than the cities of Rochester and Syracuse. And per capita, it's a hundred percent higher than the tax levy in the city of Buffalo. And the profile that the state uses to determine need for the city of Albany is comparable to these other cities. Our poverty rate, the home ownership rate, our high school graduation rate, all of our measures of need, place us squarely within the same measures as these other cities. Yet our aim is 69 to 79 percent lower than Syracuse, Rochester, Yonkers, Buffalo and even, we're not that much lower, than Utica. As a matter of fact, if we received the same amount of aid as Utica, we would have $12.8 million in additional revenue annually."
Sheehan says her request for more state aid is "unique, compelling and undeniable." Albany Common Council President Carolyn McLaughlin agrees. "What would it look like for the Capital City of New York, Albany, New York, to go under? And we sit within a stone's throw of the capitol. And the numbers, they don't lie. If you look at the comparison that she showed tonight of Rochester, Syracuse, and even Utica, they get more money than we get per capita! That's a story that we have been telling for years!"
A call to the governor's office was not immediately returned.
Former city council member Dom Calsolaro says state aid formulas are in dire need of "adjustment." "A lot of these aid formulas were established back in the 40s and 50s when the suburbs were growing and they needed the money. Well now the suburbs have most of the people that have more of the money because they have much more financially sound residents living in the suburbs, so the state really needs to look at the formulas, not just for local aid but also for school district aid. It's always amazed me that suburban schools get 80, 90 percent."
The mayor says the budget was challenging, because the city faced significant cost increases for health insurance and other expenses, but it held the line and stays within the 2 percent tax cap.
Again, Carolyn McLaughlin. "There's no mystery to what she put out tonight. We knew that things were not going to be pretty, as I call it. And what it calls from all of us as different leaders and different voices, we've gotta be a part of that team that has a commitment to making sure that we get some assistance. We've gotta go out and advocate on behalf of our city."
