Plattsburgh Mayor Chris Rosenquest has released his 2024 budget proposal, which he says is balanced and remains under the state-mandated tax cap. The $62 million total budget includes a $26 million General Fund. Rosenquest worked extensively with each city department head to craft the fiscal plan. The Democrat tells WAMC North Country Bureau Chief Pat Bradley most taxpayers should see a reduction in their bills:
The state mandated tax cap is a calculation and I think that's pretty important for people to understand. And it includes things like PILOT payments and some loans and payments towards loans from the General Fund. It's actually a very complex calculation. So when we say under the tax cap, but you look at our tax rate, our tax levy increase is at I think it's like 2.06%. It's still, even though it's above 3%, it's still falls within the mandated tax cap limitation.
So down to the basics here, how does the proposed budget affect city taxpayers?
Well, it depends. Like if you had a reassessment last year, you'll see a decrease in your annual tax bill. But again, like what one thing, the reason, one of the reasons, major reasons why we were able to deliver a sub-$10 mill-rate is because we went through a significant amount of commercial reassessments this year to the point where our assessed values in the city of Plattsburgh rose a little bit more than 11%. We have not seen an 11% increase in our assessed value since 2004. Some of our commercial properties hadn’t been reassessed in 20-something years. And so when we looked at adding those updated assessed values, we do see a significant increase in the assessed values, the total assessed values in the city of Plattsburgh, some 11% or $121 million, I believe it was. And so that allows us to reduce our tax rate and then also deliver the same valued services that people come to appreciate. Now, if you, again going back to depending on when you got reassessed, if you hadn't been reassessed in the last couple of years, as a residential, you were probably under a $10.86 tax rate. Now you'll see a little bit less than that, an 89-cent reduction in the current tax rate. You should see a little bit of savings on your tax bill.
Mayor, I briefly spoke with some of the counselors who really hadn't had a chance to really dive into this at that point in time when I talked to them. But they said one of their concerns that they would be taking a look at as they looked at the budget was the borrowing and debt factors. And I'm curious, how does city borrowing and debt factor into your proposed budget?
Yeah, it certainly is a factor. It's a significant factor. When we look at debt service, even with debt service and the percent of the debt service that's paid by the city of Plattsburgh we're well within our means to borrow money. That's the reason why our debt service agency makes these recommendations for borrowing money. I wouldn't necessarily say we're overly extended from the borrowing, as well as looking at several years out, even in 2025 we should shed about 25% of that total debt service considering that a lot of our loans, a lot of the debt that we do carry is short term, it’s considered short term, meaning it would be resolved within 10 years. I mean, like, I think it's fair to be concerned about borrowing and debt. But I also think that concern should be applied wisely and not just hey, we're borrowing too much money without any quantifiable justification for what quote-unquote too much means. Again, when we go out to borrow on the open market our bonding agency says hey, look, you should be at a certain percentage of your expenses in terms of how much you're paying towards that service. We are well within that range.
Although the budget’s now out of your hands as you pass it over to the council. Are you worried that the issue of borrowing and debt will become a factor as they review the budget?
There's a number of concerns that I have with people cutting services, you know, cutting hundreds of thousands of dollars out of the budget and then expecting for the city to deliver the same quality of services that again, people have come to appreciate. People have been demanding that the city take care of the resources that we have, which is built into a lot of the projects and a lot of the process that we've been implementing over the last couple of years. Looking at this budget and saying, okay, we're extending that work. We are taking a look at our parks. We've created projects to improve our parks. We've created projects to improve our green space. We're adding some staffing to help support the increased green space, right. So when we look at this budget and we have counselors that are saying well we want $200,000 cut out of this budget, okay, well, then that means that not only are those resources that many members of this council have been saying we need to take care of, that comes under jeopardy. And the cost of doing business is going up and it has gone up. And like I’ve said before the city of Plattsburgh and municipalities like ours, we are not immune to these environmental and economic increases. So when we look at what is increasing, it's completely in line and appropriate to how we do business and the kinds of services that we deliver to our residents.
Mayor, before I forget, for a few years the ARPA funds have been a factor in the budget. Are they still a factor at all?
When you look at the application of ARPA funds that we used, a significant amount went to parks improvement and then a portion of it went to demolish the Crete Center. And so those monies are accounted for. They are applied appropriately in my mind and in my justification to improve our parks and to improve the green space that we are managing. It's a great application of that grant fund or that quote- unquote free money from the federal government based on the COVID impact. So when we look at the use of that money, I think we didn't get that much, but whatever we did get I think we've spent properly and we're spending wisely.
Anything else you want to make a point about the budget on?
You know overall it's a great budget. And again, just like we did last year after the departments submitted their budget to this office I worked hand in hand with the department heads and the appropriate staff to make sure that whatever changes that I was proposing were in line and that could be in line with their goals and objectives. And then also made sure that the council had a say as well. And you look back historically I think I would challenge anybody to look back and say, hey, when was the last time a mayor opened the mayor's budget process to include council to contribute before the mayor's proposed budget was released? I think you'd be hard pressed to find any example of that being done historically. Most of the time the mayor's budget was done behind closed doors and then released and then it was just handed off to the council. That was the approach. I think my office has been trying to incorporate council concerns, council suggestions, having public work sessions with members of the council that could come as well as taking suggestions and incorporating those suggestions into the proposed budget before it gets released to the council. The whole goal is trying to be a collaborative approach. Whether council takes that approach, you know, I can't speak for them. I think a lot of people on the council do appreciate that approach and that'll be a continued approach that I take.
The city charter requires the mayor deliver the budget on or before October 8th and a public hearing then must be held within 28 days. Mayor Rosenquest is planning the hearing for November 2nd. The budget then moves to the Common Council, which must approve or revise it on or before January 15th. If the council does not take action on the budget by then the proposed budget is automatically adopted.
