The Albany Common Council is considering changes that would require the city treasurer to notify them — or seek council approval — before issuing short-term loans.
The move comes after the City Treasurer's Office announced it would issue $10 million in short-term loans to cover expenses through the end of the year as the city faces a shortage of cash. The treasurer's notice to potential investors surprised some members of the Common Council, who say they weren't properly consulted.
"We absolutely want to ensure that the treasurer is able to do his job and have the the liquidity needed to pay the bills, and we are supportive of that," Albany Common Council member Ginnie Farrell said at a Common Council Finance Committee Monday. "But I also want to make sure that we are getting the notice that we should be getting."
The treasurer is required to get council approval before issuing bonds for public works projects, but the question of whether the treasurer needs that approval for short-term loans is an "open question," according to a Common Council staffer speaking at Monday's meeting.
The Common Council may retroactively approve the issuance short-term loan to "dot all of our I's, cross all of our T's," Common Council Finance Committee Chair Meghan Keegan said Monday.
A day after Common Council member Deirdre Brodie took to social media to criticize the city for not announcing the debt sale to the general public, City Treasurer Darius Shahinfar said he could've communicated more clearly — but he said he notified council leadership about the loans "a couple weeks ago."
"I was under the impression that it'd be taken back to the body and that they would know this is coming," Shahinfar said in an interview Monday. "Going through this process is where you put it out a notice of sale and it's on a public website, but I did not send an email to the council about it last Thursday. So that's my mistake, but this was no surprise to anybody."
Common Council members confirmed at their meeting Monday that Shahinfar told them verbally that the city "might" issue a short-term loan, but they argued that fell short of the formal notice they would've expected.
"There is not a world where having a closed door meeting and mentioning this might be a possibility should be equated to a discussion with your peers in City Hall and the public about when you will be borrowing, the dollar amount we need, when it will be repaid, and how," Councilmember Deirdre Brodie said in an interview ahead of the meeting Monday. "Those are very different things."
