Schenectady Mayor Gary McCarthy has submitted his fiscal year 2025 general fund budget.
The start of another budget season follows a drawn-out budgeting process in 2024 that prompted the Democrat to call on the city council to adopt new protections to prevent a repeat delay – something the city council did not act on.
The $116 million spending plan is about 6 percent larger than 2024’s adopted budget and carries a slight property tax increase. In addition to challenges from rising costs, the Democrat says this budget is not as buoyed by federal American Rescue Plan Act funding as last year.
We've had, like, seven years where we cut the rate, so it's actually going up about 2%. So, it's in the tax cap criteria set by the state. For a typical median house, it'll be a $19 a year increase.
So that's $19 per $100,000 of assessed value. You'd mentioned ARPA funding, the American Rescue Plan Act funding. The city has used these dollars in the past few years. That amount of money is dwindling. How much is being utilized in this budget proposal?
My proposal is to use approximately $3 million of residual money that's still out there from other programs that haven't been fully implemented.
Is there any money remaining of the ARPA awards after that $3 million?
No.
The budget also includes an increase in refuse and trash charges. This is something that city councilors have had disagreements with you in the past. Why is this necessary for helping balance the budget?
Again, it just reflects our actual cost of operations. We have a very open policy for trash collection, for basically anything that's put out to the curb, we pick up. The council has not chosen to modify what's in the code, and it hinders my ability to build efficiencies into that and encourage people to be more conscious of what they're putting out and promote recycling and sustainability.
Now, are there any projects or initiatives in the general fund budget that you are looking forward to and that you want to see clear the finish line?
Well, again, we have our traditional paving and infrastructure, and there's some capital things, so it's replacing some equipment. It's nothing out of the ordinary, what I would call is just more the normal course of business. Looking forward to working with the city council to get that adopted and put in place for the 2025 year.
Now, total assessed value is actually increasing in the City of Schenectady. What do you think that reflects, that a visitor or a resident might see in the Electric City?
Again, it's our continued Renaissance within the community. We're seeing, still, some major projects. We have the event center going up at Mohawk Harbor, where Union College’s hockey team will be the primary tenant. We're seeing people invest in their houses, buying property within the community, and want to be able to continue that, again, to have a budget that is fiscally responsible and allows us to continue to deliver the high level of services that people expect and become accustomed to.
Now, last year's city budget was delayed and delayed, and the city council could not come to agreement. And I know that you had pushed for some changes to how the city approves budgets and making sure that it's not held up. Are you expecting any similar delays this year?
I would hope that we'll be able to move forward and stay on the statutory timeline we had all made a commitment to the voters last year to make changes in the process. The city council president declined to live up to that commitment.
