City Council

November 23, 2009 CITY OF SARATOGA SPRINGS City Council Meeting Agenda 6:00 P.M. – P.H. Proposed 2010 Budget 6:00 PM CALL TO ORDER ROLL CALL SALUTE TO FLAG PUBLIC COMMENT PERIOD / 15 MINUTES PRESENTATION(S) EXECUTIVE SESSION CONSENT AGENDA None MAYOR’S DEPARTMENT None ACCOUNTS DEPARTMENT None FINANCE DEPARTMENT 1. Budget Workshop 2. Discussion and Vote: 2010 Budget PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT None PUBLIC SAFETY 1. Discussion: Impact of Police and Fire Layoffs SUPERVISORS ADJOURN City Council Meeting 11/23/09 November 23, 2009 CITY OF SARATOGA SPRINGS 2010 Budget Meeting City Council Room 6:00 PM PRESENT: Scott Johnson, Mayor Ken Ivins, Commissioner of Finance John Franck, Commissioner of Accounts Anthony Scirocco, Commissioner of DPW Ron Kim, Commissioner of DPS PRESENT: Joanne Yepsen, Supervisor STAFF PRESENT: Shauna Sutton, Deputy Mayor Kate Jarosh, Deputy Commissioner, Finance Michele Boxley, Deputy Commissioner, Accounts Eileen Finneran, Deputy Commissioner, DPS Joe Scala, City Attorney RECORDING OF PROCEEDING The proceedings of this meeting were taped for the benefit of the secretary. Because the minutes are not a verbatim record of the proceedings, the minutes are not a word-for-word transcript. CALL TO ORDER Mayor Johnson called the meeting to order at 6:00 p.m. PUBLIC COMM IENT PERIOD Mayor Johnson opened the public comment period at 6:01 p.m. Dave Bronner of 5 Royal Henley Court stated he has a couple of concerns. This will be a tough vote. He has heard discussions since the last workshop that what may happen is no vote may be taken and the budget as written and presented to the Council in October will be the budget. He feels that is improper. Each member of the Council has a responsibility here and they each should explain why they are voting the way they are. He also would like to recommend not reducing the property tax from 7.81%. We are in dire financial straights and the 7.81% is a more realistic number. We are going to get into more deficit spending if we lower that number. We also need to consider paid parking at this point. He has been in other resort towns and there is paid parking there and people are paying it. If he was in the Council’s position, he would want to hear the impacts the Fire Department and the Police Department will face with the reductions from the fire chief and police chief. We should get their best professional opinion. Our City property taxes when you look around are not that high. What hurts us is the overall tax payment – the school tax. No one seems to want to wrestle that one. The school just hired 2 additional administrative people at $100,000+ each. Al Callucci of 9 Lexington Road stated it boggles his mind that if everyone votes against it, we have a budget and if everyone one votes for it, we have a budget. We need to look at the overall economy and Page 2 of 8 City Council Meeting 11/23/09 then how it trickles down to the community. He is on Medicare and is not getting a raise this year. His health insurance has gone up 14%, his deductible has gone up 50%, and his co-pays have doubled. We are being very aggressive in our revenue estimates for next year. He hasn’t seen a plan for paid parking, so he doesn’t know where or if it will be implemented, or if we can get $1.3 million out of it. Before the paid parking plan is adopted, they should be able to look at the plan. If we cut the parking revenues in half and change the revenue number on the taxes – we are adding another 8% to make it 15%. Is 15% realistic? When you look at goals and budgets, they are applied the same way. The budget needs to be realistic, measurable, and reasonably attainable. He reviewed the whole budget and can’t find anything that we can move one way or the other. His conclusion is the fire union president’s position may be realistic. We may increase overtime with the cut to the point where we eat up what we are saving with the cuts. He is uncomfortable with any tax number under 13 – 15%. Anyone who is asking for less hasn’t done their homework. We should bite the bullet this year, fix it and move forward and build revenues to offset the expenditures. He would like to commend the representatives of the different departments as they all acted in a professional manner this year compared to last year. Kevin Genier of 51 Hathorn Blvd and president of the firemen’s union stated he understands the situation the Council has. His department is understaffed and has been understaffed for 30 years. To propose staffing cuts is dangerous. The household cost of keeping 7 firefighters is $25.82 per year per household. They provide services 24/7 – in fire suppression, emergency medical, rescue operations, confined space rescue, ice water rescue, fire inspections, etc. The Saratoga Springs Fire Department had 55 firefighters in 1976 and 56 firefighters in 2009. The population has increased by 18.1% in 30 years. The firefighter to citizen ratio is 1/530; the capital region ratio is 1/390. The City is 29 square miles and has 2 fire houses – 1for every 14 square miles. The city of Glens Falls is 4 square miles and has 2 fire houses. The Fire Department has consistently come in under budget and call volume has increased 20% from 2004 - 2009. At this rate, our call volume will out number our available resources; however, they continue to meet the demands despite their understaffing. The threat is going up and the protection is going down. Vanessa Rose, a city resident and a police officer told the story of the first call she responded to when she first started on the police force. You have made an investment in the fire and police department and are so willing to throw it away. She can’t understand why they can’t find a way to save them. Is a life worth any amount of money you think you will save? Abby Temple of 16 Madeline Drive stated she just purchased a house in the City. She also owns a house in Schuylerville. The taxes in Schuylerville are more than her taxes in the City, yet the assessed value on the house in the City is more. In Schuylerville she has a volunteer fire department that does not provide medical support and police support from State Police and Sheriff’s Office. The City’s police force is proactive not reactive like Schuylerville. She is willing to pay out more in taxes for the services she will be getting from the City. Ed Lewis, president of Police PBA, and resident of Wilton thanked Mr. Callucci and Mr. Bronner for their comments tonight. He stated the union is talking with the City, although no offers have been made yet. If you lay people off you are going to set things into a downward spin. They are a proactive department. They have a drug unit that is very proactive. You don’t see people dealing on the streets because they are hitting the dealers. You don’t see big dealers because they keep them small. If you start cutting back on the number of people we have to work with, you will see a difference in how the City is and the type of community you live in is going to change. The officers aren’t going to care as much if they think they are going to get laid off. The way it looks right now, he would be concerned if he was near the bottom of the list. The way it looks now is this is not a secure budget. There could be more cuts in 2010. He asked for the Council not to take a vote tonight and put it off until next Monday night and put a little more time into it. Chief Cogan of SSFD, stated he would like to try to shed some light on some of the comments. Layoffs are the most inefficient way to save money. We have spent thousands of dollars training our people and you will never recoup those monies if you lay off the newest firemen. By 1992 the entire fire department was trained as EMTs. In the following 2 years they progressed to the paramedic level. The number of runs increased from 1900 to 3200 with most being medical. It is a requirement of the Fire Department to be a paramedic. If the firemen who are slated for layoffs are permitted to finish training, they will have 31 paramedics. Numbers mean safety. The City Council established a 9 man minimum. Fire members were Page 3 of 8 City Council Meeting 11/23/09 also serving as dispatchers. When you reduce the available people to respond, the danger increases. There is nothing efficient about a 3 man pumper crew. If there are layoffs and we retain our 9 man minimum, there will be overtime. As chief for 14 years, he has never exceeded budget. You can’t sustain this City and provide the essential services without paying for it. He doesn’t know how the families who are facing layoffs can stomach it. He doesn’t hear of layoffs in Troy, Schenectady, Albany, Cohoes, or Watervliet so how did we get here. He is frustrated with government and with this form of government. We have 5 little kingdoms that criticize one another. Chief Moore of Saratoga Springs Police Department stated he has spoken to the Council through his commissioner. There has been a 6% increase in staff in the Police Department in the past decade. They have not grown with the City’s population. If the layoffs happen, they will be at the staffing levels of 1995. If layoffs happen, he will have to put the traffic safety officers back to patrol. They never run with less than 6 officers on any shift. They are handling 30% more calls and have 40% less officers since 1975. There is a myth about overtime in the Police Department. Police overtime is down 25% this year. If the Council expects them to meet this budget in 2010, they will be placing their police officers at a greater risk of injury through unmanageable workloads and fatigue. He has concerns as a professional. There are 21 officers that are eligible to retire right now. We will be flushing $250,000 which was the cost for training of officers, equipment, etc. Assistant Chief Betor of the Saratoga Springs Fire Department stated he doesn’t have much that can be added to what has already been said. The SSFD overtime has decreased year after year. There is a cost benefit in maintaining these people. If there are layoffs, he will be dealing with the cost of that for years to come. Assistant Chief Cole stated the 2 chiefs, Mr. Callucci, and Mr. Bronner said it well. Losing these men and women are more than statistics. He read the oath of office and the police mission statement from their policy manual. Police officers come here because they love this City. They don’t believe the sky is going to fall, but over the long term there will be a decline in the quality of life. They have big concerns about being able to staff special events; these are the events that draw people to the City. They may have to take their DARE officer out of the schools and put them back into patrol. Without being able to use the officers for truck enforcement, those officers will lose their certification. When Civil Service gives an exam, there are hundreds of people that sign up to take the test. If we layoff people, who is going to sign up to take a test in Saratoga Springs knowing they could be out of a job in 6 months. We are going to be left with a candidate pool that is the bottom of the barrel. To the citizens of the City, he wants to make sure they understand that no matter what happens, they are always going to be there for them. Remaining employees will continue to remain professional and true to their oath and the mission of the department. All Callucci of 9 Lexington Road stated the answer to the question of how did we get to this, goes back 8 years to the union contracts and the $8.5 million they cost us. That is a big part of this. He comes from a family of police officers. He always saw someone with a stripe on the street. He has only seen stripped officers a couple times in the past 5 years in Saratoga Springs. If you need to fill a gap, we should utilize the ranked officers as well as the police officers. Chief Moore stated for the record their sergeants do go on patrol. Chief Cogan stated in response to Mr. Callucci, the unions didn’t cause this problem. There have always been 2 sides in the room and the contracts were approved by the Council. The contracts in the last few years have been in line with the industry. He recommended the reduction in salary, which Commissioner Kim took. There is also a retirement incentive (384E). It is a stretch to blame union contracts for what is going on now. Consent Agenda None Mayor’s Department Page 4 of 8 City Council Meeting 11/23/09 None Accounts Department None Finance Department Budget Workshop Commissioner Ivins opened the floor to the Council for comment on the current budget. Commissioner Franck put a graph up with numbers from the comprehensive budget, not the latest one Commissioner Ivins put forth. The graph is broken down into the 5 departments plus recreation. This graph shows 54% of the expenditures are in public safety; less than half of that is in public works; and if the rest are added together don’t equal public works. He is skeptical about using paid parking to balance the budget and is skeptical that the paid parking is going to get near the $1.3 million in revenue. That is one reason why he will not vote on this budget. He is also skeptical of the sales tax that is being proposed. He is not against paid parking – if we are going to have paid parking, something should come out of it like one of the High Rock proposals. This budget is NOT about having too many people; it is about not having enough money. If we can come up with a 5% decrease in the public safety budget, that is $1 million. If there was a 5% concession in all the departments, that would be a $1.8-$1.9 million. That would be equal to about half of what the VLT money was. He didn’t hear anyone come to the mic and say they are willing to go 5% less than what they had the previous year so that no one would lose their job and things would be the same. If we can’t do it by Monday, we will have the original comprehensive money. He believes we will be back here in May doing this all over again. The Council has an oath to balance the budget and they have a fiduciary responsibility to the tax payers. We can’t continually hit the tax payers. Schuylerville’s taxes are higher because they don’t have a commercial base. Bottom line is it is not about too much man power, it is about not having enough money. He spoke with someone in Gloversville who is going through the same thing there; they even mentioned they spoke with Mr. Betor. It is his feeling we are going to have a comprehensive budget. There is no choice – this budget is locked. There are going to be layoffs. This is no choice unless concessions are made soon. He is not union buster because he has nothing to do with it; it is just math. It is self preservation for the workforce. Layoffs are the worst way to do it, but it is happening all around. If this comes up for a vote he will vote no based upon what he sees now. Commissioner Scirocco stated there is no easy solution – Commissioner Franck is right, the money isn’t there. We lost almost $1 million a year by the City opting out of the sales tax formula in 2001. No matter what we do, we have to reach out to the tax payers for some help. Hopefully the economy will turn around in a few years. He is optimistic the City will prevail. In regards to his department, he will not support a budget like this. It takes the legs right out from underneath his department. You would see a totally different DPW – they will lose 25 positions because of it. You can’t function under these circumstances. If this passes, DPS and DPW will shut the City right down. He doesn’t know what the answer is. The services will be there but the level will decrease. They cut dispatchers out at the garage so he doesn’t know who the people are going to call when they have raw sewage running down the road because the alarms for the pump stations are at the garage. They are doing their best in DPW to keep costs down. He hopes they would come to a consensus that will help maintain a level of service. There are a lot of things in his budget that will affect the quality of life. He won’t vote for a budget that hurts his department and the tax payer. Commissioner Kim stated the 2 budgets remind him of the movie Dumb and Dumber. The comprehensive budget has errors that are frightening. There are over estimates of revenue. He can’t understand how they can go to the staffing levels that are being proposed here. They looked at the staffing levels in other areas and found Ithaca has a combined 149 people for police and fire, Poughkeepsie has 166, Elmira has 136, Auburn has 135, and Saratoga Springs currently has 129. When these cuts go through, we will have 115. The numbers are going to make a difference in the City in the next year or so. He doesn’t see how he can continue to provide the coverage they need with the cuts; they are already understaffed. We are going to Page 5 of 8 City Council Meeting 11/23/09 have to raise taxes. We will be reducing their levels to a level that will not protect the City. We have to look at revenue enhancements. The alternative budget looks at very impossible revenue targets. Not every police officer can do a truck inspection; they have to be trained. In the comprehensive budget, we will no longer have trained and certified people. The comprehensive budget strips the medical training for firefighters. Maybe there is a way for us to work together on this. They have a way to save some of these jobs, but no one has asked them. Mayor Johnson stated he will not repeat many of the points already made. He will not be supporting either proposed budgets because they rely on paid parking to balance the budget. This is not proper fiscal planning. The details of paid parking get in the way of finalizing it. Paid parking is as easy as you can make it – the variables out there are endless and make it user friendly. He understands the merchants have concerns about paid parking, but if the economy was good, we wouldn’t be hearing about their concerns. He understands their concerns and some of these concerns are well founded. They are what make downtown tick. He remembers the old Saratoga in the 60’s and 70’s where up to 30% of downtown was vacant. He has no desire for this City to return to that. We need revenue as a City. Until a consensus is drawn on paid parking, he cannot rely on it to balance the budget for next year. It is not a question of fairness of how we got here. We are here and we have to address the labor issue as the budget is so heavily weighted by payroll. The way we do that is through contracts, which are in process. Costs that continue include the City paying for health insurance. He can’t demand concessions from the unions, they have to come from the unions. If he were to demand concessions; that would be improper practice and a grievance would be filed. There is not enough time to solve the problem by the 30th of this month. He stated with one union, it was a good thing the union didn’t accept the management’s offer due to as time went on, the money wasn’t there and they have had to reduce the offer. He is not negotiating in bad faith, the money just isn’t there. It is a question of job protection – what can they do together to save the jobs of co-workers and essential services that are concerned here tonight. They don’t have enough information and things achieved to make those issues and items part of the solution. There are too many unknowns. He can’t support the budget this evening. Commissioner Ivins stated the amended budget was trying to fix some of the discrepancies that were in the original budget. He never said this was an ideal budget. We are looking at layoffs, no one wants that, no one wants tax increases. Seniors have had an increase in their health insurance with no cost of living increase. If we take paid parking out of the budget we are looking at either a double digit tax increase or layoff twice the number of employees. He is tired of people saying there is no plan – he put a plan out last March. The plan he put out is a starting point and he would have to work hard to get it done by May 1st. He tried to put a budget together that would spread the burden. He is happy to entertain another amendment. We can adjust the budget right after the first of the year for things like mortgage tax – but it is a very short window. At this point he will entertain any amendment from the table for changes to the comprehensive budget. Commissioner Scirocco stated he has an idea to consider getting a consultant in to tell us how much we can generate in paid parking to dispel myths. If we educate the people who are against it, maybe they would understand. We got dealt a bad hand with previous City Councils. Commissioner Ivins stated it is a good idea as long as we don’t break any bidding rules. He also stated he didn’t pull the number out of the air. He is basing it on the 2 RFPs we got for the High Rock lot. Commissioner Franck stated he would do the research but he doesn’t believe it will happen by May 1st. He believes this budget is overestimating revenues. Commissioner Kim stated they should focus on the human dimension. There are a number of people who would appreciate knowing if they will be losing their jobs or not. He doesn’t want to create any false hopes. It will help them make their plans. This Council should have the decency to advise if we are going to try to change this by Monday. Commissioner Franck confirmed that Commissioner Ivins is looking at revenue adjustments. Page 6 of 8 City Council Meeting 11/23/09 Commissioner Ivins stated in his amended budget he was restoring 1 position to the Fire Department, but that is being shot down. It could change January 1 by Council decision. Commissioner Kim stated anything we are talking about right now is on the margin of 1 or 2 people. We need to be upfront about these peoples’ lives. Mayor Johnson stated unfortunately the only way to balance this budget at all is to have layoffs. Adjustments after the 1st of the year will be a job here or there. He doesn’t see them being able to generate enough revenue to offset the cuts that need to be made. They can’t raise the revenue to prevent the cuts. The majority of the budget is labor. No one wants to lay anyone off. The reality is to make this thing work it is going to have to be the greatest impact on labor. Commissioner Ivins asked if anyone has an amendment to the comprehensive budget. Commissioner Franck stated he had no amendments. Commissioner Scirocco stated he had no amendments. Commissioner Kim stated he had no amendments. Mayor Johnson stated he had no amendments. Discussion and Vote: 2010 Budget Commissioner Ivins moved and Commissioner Franck seconded to approve the comprehensive budget as presented on October 6 th. Roll Call : Commissioner Franck – Nay Commissioner Ivins – Aye Commissioner Scirocco – Aye (he clarified he is voting on the October comprehensive budget) Commissioner Kim - Nay Mayor Johnson – Nay Public Works Department None Public Safety Department Discussion and Vote: Change Order for Wolfe Security Contract Commissioner Kim advised this had been addressed previously in the meeting. Supervisors None ADJOURNMENT Mayor Johnson moved and Commissioner Franck seconded to adjourn the meeting. Ayes - All There being no further business, Mayor Johnson adjourned the meeting at 8:13 p.m. Page 7 of 8 City Council Meeting 11/23/09 Respectfully submitted, Lisa Ribis Clerk Approved: 12-1-09 Vote: 5 - 0 Page 8 of 8