The Saratoga Springs city council has passed the 2025 budget, but not without some lingering tensions.
The $62.6 million spending plan is up about $100,000 from the initial proposal, but Finance Commissioner Minita Sanghvi says lower-than-expected insurance costs equated to $1.6 million in savings.
There are no tax increases in the budget, which was approved at Tuesday’s meeting.
The initial proposed capital budget was roughly $7 million. The $2.2 million capital budget passed unanimously along with $935,000 for the water and sewage line.
“I’m going to vote no for the amended budget, just so you know, because we still have critical needs in the fire and police department that have not been addressed,” said Coll.
Public Safety Commissioner Tim Coll protested that his department was coming in severely under budget, but acknowledged that Sanghvi has been supportive of the department throughout the budgeting process.
“I’ll start with the fire department. They are down about $100,000 in vehicle maintenance lines. They are down $100,000 in firefighter equipment which will need to be replaced because it’s in accordance with the National Fire Protection Agency. The police department had a clerk that was defunded out of the police department. We have two people that are responding to discovery obligations for criminal cases. At the last city council meeting I was directed to take money out of my overtime budget which would have then reduced my overtime budget to less than it was last year,” said Coll.
Coll said his department would need an additional $400-500,000.
“We also have no money in our budget for vehicles, for police cruisers, we have 21 police cruisers with no money in our budget and we have an investigative sergeant that has a span of control problem with 10 to 12 investigators and the industry standard is six,” said Coll.
The Public Safety Department accounts for roughly 58% of the budget, up more than 40% over the past four years.
Sanghvi said the department actually received an additional $1 million through the budgeting process since the comprehensive budget was first drafted.
“If you had a $29.9 million budget in 2021, and you have a $36.4 million budget in 2025 and you are still not able to manage? And keep in mind when we were hiring people we were told, ‘once we hire all of these people we will be fine.’ Then we were told, ‘no, no, once they are trained there will be not as much overtime.’ We have hired them, we have trained them, there’s still overtime. And I think what we need here is a better management of the Public Safety budget,” said Sanghvi.
A number of sources are expected to bring in additional revenue over the next year including two new cannabis dispensaries, a more fleshed out paid parking program, and short-term rental regulations at both the state and local level.
Sanghvi has been reluctant to account for state-level short-term rental regulations, as Governor Kathy Hochul has yet to approve them.
“There are lots of possible avenues that are available maybe in the future but we can’t plan for it because we don’t know if it’s going to happen. So, I would recommend that in June we can revisit the budget and do public hearings and amend the budget with the new revenues,” said Sanghvi.
Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran chimed in with another potential fix.
“Supervisor Veitch over here is going to stick me in the ribs now for saying this, but, there’s also speculation that the county may finally do something about the closing times of our bars. And that puts out the potential for a reduction in overtime. And so that, again, another kernel of information to put in that pile and I feel like it’s there in front of us,” said Moran.
For years, local officials have discussed the possibility of pursuing a county law that would allow Saratoga Springs to require bars to close earlier, following a number of violent late-night incidents.
The budget was approved in a four-to-one vote.