The Cohoes Common Council has received the city's proposed $28.4 million budget proposal.
Second-term Democratic Mayor Bill Keeler says the 2025 plan is the fifth consecutive budget without any increase in property taxes. It includes a 20-cent per 100-gallon increase for the city’s sewer fund.
"We're well in the black, and there's no need to ask taxpayers, property taxpayers, for any additional money," Keeler said.
Keeler notes that the Albany County city's rainy day fund is near a record level of $6.5 million. And $4.5 million is set aside in a capital fund for street paving.
Keeler says his budget proposal fully staffs all departments, with public safety representing a significant portion of spending. General fund spending is down by 4.65% from the 2024 adjusted budget.
Common Council Vice President Sean Higgins of the second ward says a public hearing on the budget was held during the panel's October 8th meeting.
“Most people were happy about it," said Higgins. "There was a 0% increase of taxes, which is always a great thing, you know, trying not to raise taxes. There was a couple items that, you know, we were looking at, some having to do with the library funding, some other line items, you know, manpower and stuff like that. But I think, all in all, we really haven't sat down to discuss it as one, but from my personal opinion, I think there's a lot of good things in the budget. I think there's also some things that we need to look at and just make sure that we're prepared for the next few years.”
With the document now in play, Council President Adam Biggs of the fifth ward agrees that there are components of Keeler's plan that may need a deeper dive.
“Library funding is something that, as a council we've been chatting about," Biggs said. "We're very excited that we have a new library coming to Cohoes as part of the DRI process, we want to look at the day to day funding through the budget. We're anticipating at least one retirement that we're made aware of early in 2025 so we’re concerned about the funding of that line item for city engineer, thinking it may need a little bit more money as we move forward.”
Higgins says the budget process will follow protocol.
“We will bring the budget to committee, which is chaired by first ward councilman Nick Izzo. Once we have a couple meetings with him, we'll review everything in the budget, talk to the department heads to see you know, if there is any need to move anything, and then from there, we will go on and either pass or not pass the budget at the next council meeting,” said Higgins.
Biggs adds councilors have to act within 45 days of receiving the budget estimate from the mayor.
“We're using November 12th, sort of, as our date, to pass a budget, whether that's the budget was presented to us, or one that is modified by the council," said Biggs. "We will take a vote, at least right now the plan is for November 12th. In between, there will be finance committee meetings. Those are headed by three council members, open to the public. Those will be announced, but during those meetings, we'll do what we typically do, which is listen to department heads, make sure that we captured all of their needs, not necessarily, their wants, in the budget to the best of our ability. And we just want to hear from them as we go through the process as well.”
Biggs and Higgins encourage all residents to attend and participate in the meetings.
