During the Common Council meeting Thursday evening, Plattsburgh’s mayor broke a tie to pass a revised five-year budget plan for the city.
In early June a five-year budget plan through 2029 was put before councilors to consider. They requested more time. Two weeks later, Ward 3 Democrat Elizabeth Gibbs and Ward 6 Democrat Jeff Moore raised objections to the plan including lack of council input and fiscal forecast accuracy. The plan was voted down at that June 15th meeting.
At Thursday’s meeting a revised five-year plan drafted by the Finance Committee was presented for approval. Gibbs questioned the numbers and again raised objections.
“All these other categories have changed and I don’t understand why. Surplus deficit columns wherein 2024 the original plan says we were going to be in a deficit of $451,000, now we are not. And then the surplus continues to go up even though the tax rate goes down. I mean there are a number of things like this. So just I wondered if we could get come answers about why there are changes in almost all these other categories aside from the tax rate.”
Councilor Moore said the five-year projections were overly optimistic.
“I mean I would love my household expenses to only go up by these tiny numbers over the course of the next five years, but I know that’s totally unrealistic. In my experience in municipal government there’s always things that happen that you didn’t expect. I think the expenses are way underestimated. I just can’t believe that we would use numbers this small.”
Ward 2 Democrat Mike Kelly countered the objections noting answers to their questions are in the document.
“These expenditure changes are explained quite well on the second page of the General Fund sheet. This is a good plan, I think. It does paint a good picture for the city’s finances but I don’t know why we shouldn’t celebrate that and I don’t really see where the problem is with what we have here. We’ve all had numerous opportunities to change this or add input in any way and some of us have done that.”
Mayor Chris Rosenquest, a Democrat, reminded councilors that the five-year plan is a guideline.
“Keep in mind it’s a projection. We make adjustments as we go, use it as a guiding, one of the guiding, principles for creating budgets and planning for the future as well as the other factors that we use. So it changes. Again, I’ve asked multiple times for feedback on making whatever changes y’all wanted to make on this.”
Rosenquest broke the deadlock as the budget was approved.
During new business councilors debated a suggestion by Councilor Gibbs regarding a waterfront hotel development agreement.
“I would like to call for an independent feasibility study to make sure that the project as proposed would be successful in the city of Plattsburgh and that would require an outside vendor. I think we owe it to the taxpayers before we go through on a really large project like this to call for a feasibility study.”
Reaction was mixed. Ward 5 Democrat Caitlin Bopp noted several studies have already been conducted and another would be redundant.
“Once this deal is moving forward there is not a risk to the taxpayers. The developer is taking on this financial responsibility. We are not a partner in this project. It’s not our problem. That’s their problem to make sure that it’s financially solvent and feasible. When we have over the course of twenty years three consistent studies and a combination feasibility study from 2019, I think that that’s pretty solid data to work forward from. What would be a risk to the taxpayers would be spending this unbudgeted money to do something that’s been done ad nauseum.”
Mayor Rosenquest noted that the development agreement includes protections for the city and its taxpayers. No action was taken on the initial proposal.
