The city of Schenectady has a new budget in place after the city council narrowly passed it Friday. There may be a few bumps in the road ahead.
When Schenectady Mayor Gary McCarthy presented his $86.8 million budget proposal October 1st at City Hall, he noted the "no surprise" package would keep spending on track without imposing sacrifices. "The budget that I'm submitting to the council, has a tax rate of 13.08 per thousand. This is 5.8 percent less than it was in 2015, and this is a little over half a percent reduction from the current budget."
The budget did reduce some police and fire department spending, filled a few vacant positions and avoided layoffs. It came in under the tax cap. The second-term Democrat also pointed out that under his spending plan, taxes would go down for the fourth consecutive year.
The council's Finance Committee conducted three public forums in addition to traditional budget hearings on McCarthy's spending plan. The budget passed 4-3 on Friday.
Marion Porterfield is one of three councilors who voted against it. She cited "some significant raises” that she could not support. Under the new budget, Public Safety Commissioner Michael Eidens is to receive a $36,000 raise. The heads of General Services, Finance and Administration, and the Solid Waste Department will receive raises around $5000. "There was no real process or system to come up with those raises. And then some people got raises and some people didn't, without any explanation of why. Additionally, there was a particular position that was taken out of the budget, it was a support position that was taken out, and the person who it was supporting was also given additional duties, so that made no sense. I would have preferred to have seen the additional money that we spent in salaries go towards our seasonal workers, who are paid at a very low rate, and as a result we have difficulty hiring and then keeping seasonal workers, so that means that our grass gets overgrown, our parks get overgrown, our properties are not taken care of well, the ones that the city owns. I felt we should have put money towards that and those salaries."
Porterfield is also concerned about $1 million allocated for a sidewalk improvement program because she says there isn’t a plan in place for implementation.
Spectrum News spoke with City Council President Ed Kosiur, who voted "yes" on the budget and defended the raises, which he characterized as "fair." "Regarding Commissioner Mike Eidens, he's taking on an entire department. He originally was a Public Safety Commissioner for both police and fire, but now he's overseeing our entire codes department as well, so that is a big initiative for him and thus the hefty pay raise that the mayor included in his budget. But again we cut that pay raise by $5000."
Porterfield says the mayor and the council will have to handle testy budget issues as they come up... "In terms of making sure that things get done, that people who do a lot more things, giving them more money to do it, but when they're falling short we're gonna have to look at how do we remedy that?"
Mayor McCarthy did not return a call for comment.
