Schenectady City Councilors will meet again this evening to consider the overdue city budget.
Newly re-elected Schenectady Mayor Gary McCarthy and fellow Democrats who control the city council have been at odds over the $111 million spending plan, blowing past the November 1st deadline.
Trash, water and sewer fee increases remain sticking points, along with $1.1 million in cuts the council proposed to public safety overtime funding. McCarthy calls the situation unfortunate.
"It's the nature of these things sometimes... people lose sight of the bigger picture and wallow around in some of the minutiae," McCarthy said.
After several failed attempts to approve the budget, Councilor Doreen Ditoro says the finance committee will try again.
"We have not been presented with anything that we will even vote on this evening other than the mayor's balanced budget, which he presented back in the end of October," said Ditoro. "So there's been nothing new presented to the council. There was talk of some increase in some commercial trash rates. It wouldn't be acceptable to me to move forward with that because of the 200% to 500% increase on commercial trash to the city. And I'm just not in favor of that."
The last time Schenectady's budget deadline was missed was some 30 years ago. Councilor Carl Williams is optimistic an agreement will be reached, just maybe not today.
"Conversations are beginning. I think as you heard during our last council meeting, Councilman Porterfield and Councilman Mootooveren, to include the mayor, said that they were able to engage in some really productive dialogue. So I know that there was a request out for some information with respect to corporate fees increases. So looking to receive that. I just looked at my email to again today. I don't know if it came through. But I'm confident that we'll be able to move forward. I don't know if they're going to be meeting again. I imagine so. But definitely, I think everyone has the understanding of, I think, if the numbers read well, and we're able to minimize increases for the general public, I think we can get closer and closer is better than where we've been. But I'm confident that we'll have a very productive meeting today," said Williams.
Councillor John Mootooveren, who is on record saying he won't support a budget that carries a tax hike, did not respond to a request for comment in time for broadcast. Council President Marion Porterfield says nothing has changed since the last meeting. But she'll be there for tonight's discussion and vote.
Ditoro says in her opinion, policy, not personality, has been holding everything up. She believes McCarthy is willing to work with the council, but she's not certain an agreement is at hand.
"So we have our council meeting, which is tonight at 7 o'clock. So we only have two hours to work on this. Am I confident tonight? No. I'm hopeful. Hopefully we can make some ground tonight. And I'd be confident that tomorrow we should be able to get something to start thinking about moving forward," said Ditoro.
The finance meeting is scheduled for 5 p.m.
