Elimination of the ambulance service in 2009 means the city will be spending less money overall in 2010/11, according to City Manager Jason Molino's annual budget message.
The overall expense -- all budget lines -- for the city will be down $1.2 million, or 5.48 percent.
However, the General Fund expense will increase $183,116. The city must also continue to build its fund balance in order to be able to handle unanticipated events and put the city on a sound financial footing.
So a property tax increase of 3.07 percent is necessary, Molino wrote. It would raise the rate to $10.50 per $1,000. That works out to about $25 per year more for a home owner with an average valued house of $80,000.
Increased expenses for the city include:
- New York State Retirement Costs: Up $200,000 because the state's pension fund losses have exceeded more than $44 billion. All municipalities in the state are being forced to make up the difference.
- Police: The police department budget is up $74,000 following this summer's arbitration settlement.
- Fire: The fire budget is up $412,000 following the severance/settlement agreement related to elimination of the ambulance service. Overtime is down $35,000, but a big part of the increase is making up for increased state retirement costs.
- Contingency: Up $100,000 to plan for an unknown settlement with three of the city's unions currently in negotiations on new contracts.
- Health Insurance Reserve: The city is self-funded for now, but there is no reserve for an unexpected critical expense. Add, $60,000.
There are also some notable cost reductions for the city:
- DPW's budget is down $240,000, but there is still apparently money for required equipment replacements. The average age of DPW equipment is 24 years.
- The city is no longer paying back prior years' deficits at a rate of $250,000.
- The 2009/10 fiscal year was the first time in three years that the city wasn't engaged in temporary borrowing to pay bills. That means the city won't be making $33,000 in interest payments for a prior year's loans.
The proposed budget includes a 1.5-percent raise for 10 management employees.
Molino's budget notes that, "Over the course of the past three years the City has faced a lingering $2.2 million general fund deficit, significant cash flow deficiencies and deficits in all other operating funds."
This led the city to layoff 23 staff members and not fill 15 other staff positions. During those three years: there were no wage increases for union members or management; temporary borrowing was necessary to pay bills; and the ambulance service was eliminated, dispatch was consolidated and maintenance deferred.
"City staff has sharpened their pencils, adapted to crisis management and tapped into their creative and innovative minds to maintain service levels at reasonable costs," Molino writes. "As a result, the City of Batavia over the past three years has, by a slim margin, eliminated its prior fund balance deficits and begun to plan for what improvements and investments will be needed in order to maintain a sustainable community for our citizens."
"there were no wage increases
"there were no wage increases for union members or management"
See the Fire Department.
"tapped into their creative
"tapped into their creative and innovative minds to maintain service levels at reasonable costs"
Creative things like another tax increase.
Innovation by adopting the plans of the Fed here in Batavia.
Reasonable is relative.
Peter, What is your
Peter,
What is your suggestion? What would you cut?
Peter would cut everything.
Peter would cut everything.
Peter is right everything
Peter is right everything needs to be cut. Anyone really think a batavia firemen is worth over a 100k? How do you justify having city, county, and state law enforcement agencies for a "city" (small village) the size of Batavia.? Why can't government cut services in line with the population decline. Fewer people + Unemployed Peopled = Less Tax Revenue should = reduction of goverment services.
As I have said over and over.
As I have said over and over. Kill the city cops. Bring in the sheriffs that are in town anyways. Privitize the fire dept or at least scale it back to 2 fire houses and 4 trucks.
Nursing home - Sold
At large seats - Gone
Garbage - Privitized
Unions - Gone (not sure how, not my area of expertise), reinstate Merit Pay.
Ice Rink - Sold.
Contingency went up 33% I think 300K is enough.
Council on Arts- Gone
Rec programs run at a surplus or are cut
Find a utility company to run the water
Mall sold City Hall moved to one of the vacant store fronts on Ellicott
And since I can't comment
And since I can't comment about it in the water thread.
Shouldn't the prices we've been paying cover the normal maintenance that the system needs? Why do we all of a sudden need to rush to repair this?
Sounds to me like water funds went to fund something other than what they should have been used for.
I have lived in communities
I have lived in communities where departments were privitized, worked great for the first term of the contract. Then ofcourse when it came time to renegotiate the rate the provider was at a huge advantage, reestablishing a working fire department is expensive.
If you doubt just wait til it's time to go to the table with Mercy.
Peter, We only have one fire
Peter,
We only have one fire house, on Evans St. Where did you find the 2nd one?
The Nursing Home is owned by the County, not the City.
The people want to keep there Police Dept and are willing to pay for it.
Garbage is privatized. It is bid out to ARC. The city does not run it (the public supports ARC having the contract also).
Good point on the Ice Rink
I agree, cut out funding for the Arts Council/Go Art
Merge the City Youth Dept with the County Youth Dept.
Water is already a utility, and there is a contract with Monroe County to run it that we are stuck with for another 8 years.
We don't own the Mall, so how can you sell it.
Who would buy City Hall. Moving City Hall to an empty building that we would then have to buy does not make any sense.
Peter, You're right about the
Peter,
You're right about the water fund money being taken for the general fund. That was under then Council President Chris Fix, and helped lead to our huge debt we had.
Problem was there was no wording in the water funding to prevent what they did. This new proposal recommends wording that would stop a future council from raiding the fund again.
And this is not a new problem. Proper maintenance has not been getting done for a long time. You should know from your Navy days what happens when you stop doing maintenance.
And since I can't comment
And since I can't comment about it in the water thread.
Is the link to comment broken?
Who cares what the people
Who cares what the people want, if they did taxes wouldn't be raised. Why is the mall in the budget at all if the city doesn't own it. So all these old firehouses I have seen around are vacant then? Seems there are alot of them around. I'll take pictures. They should also charge for services rendered. You get called to a fire you charge the people needing it after its out. If its called automagically by an alarm, the charges should go to the alarm company if its a false alarm.
What is the giant building on the southside of Main ST where it meets ellicott?
There is no need for city hall to be that big. Move it to a small store front, save on utilities.
Brenda its the same advantage unions have over the city when they negotiate.
DPW can do street sweeping too. Doesn't need ot be separate.
Peter, 1) What old
Peter,
1) What old firehouses? There is one on Ellicott Street that was sold to a private company. What other ones are you talking about?
2) The city has a contract, in court right now, over maintenance of some parts of the Mall. By now, you should know the stores are all privately owned. That court case is part of the reason we need to shift money to the legal account.
3) As far as charging for fire calls: what if there are none? Who pays for the department then? You don't make sense.
4) "South side of Main St where it meets Ellicott". You mean the old building that had once been a firehouse, then sold as a restaurant, and is now used by the County for storage, building and grounds maintenance and other things? It is not owned by the city.
5) Again, what possible sense does it make to buy another "City Hall"? What do you do with the one we have now? True, it is too big, and we should not have built it there at all, but we own it now and owe on it.
Now, if you could sell it, then you could get rid of the ice rink and move City Hall over there for only the cost of rehab. Why is it you want to buy another building?
Posted by Peter O'Brien on
Posted by Peter O'Brien on January 12, 2010 - 2:34pm
So all these old firehouses I have seen around are vacant then? Seems there are alot of them around. I'll take pictures.
Will you post those pictures on this site so we all can see them?
DPW can do street sweeping too. Doesn't need ot be separate.
What separate department sweeps the streets now?
Bea, Peter is just wrong
Bea,
Peter is just wrong again on the DPW. They do the street sweeping. Who knows who he thinks does it.
John is right about every
John is right about every single item he referenced.
Peter, there is very little that can be done to reduce the size of city government without eliminating services and the people that provide them. The people in the city have spoken very clearly; they are unwilling to reduce the services they receive any further. The public wants a paid fire department, police force, GOArt!funding, street cleaning, sidewalk plowing and the ARC to handle trash collection.
There is also only one firehouse, we sold the one on Ellicott. AS for GoArt! they are only getting about $2K a year down from almost $15K. A lot of people in this city support that group and want that funding increased as well.
I love that loud street
I love that loud street sweeping truck. You can hear that thing coming from blocks away. How old do you suppose that monster is?
City Departments need to be
City Departments need to be trimmed or eliminated, services cut and positions eliminated.
Richard, Which ones? Police?
Richard,
Which ones? Police? Fire protection? Snow plowing?
Ya know I don't like tax
Ya know I don't like tax increases any more than the next guy. I think I've made that point very clear in this forum.
However, I'd like to know why every time tax increases are mentioned in the next breath someone says "sell the ice arena".
Why is the ice arena always the whipping boy??? Why is it OK to have a baseball stadium (that was bought and paid for by city taxpayers at a cost of well over $3 million and is used maybe 60 days a year) but it's NOT OK to have an ice arena (that didn't cost city taxpayers one nickel to build and it's used ALL YEAR LONG)?
I'm so sick of this sell the ice arena crap. Why don't we sell Dwyer stadium?!?
For the un-initiated, the Ice Arena (I like to call it the Batavia Ice Arena) was paid for by a federal community development grant in the early 70's that was arranged for by our very fine congressman Barber Conable.
Given that, I'm not sure it's even LEGAL to sell it.
That building and the activities that occur in it have a SIGNIFICANT ECONOMIC IMPACT on city businesses in case you didn't know it. People who travel to Batavia to participate in hockey games stay at hotels, shop at local stores, purchase gasoline and eat at local restaurants. I'll put that economic impact up against Dwyer stadium ANY DAY OF THE WEEK.
If we can have city parks and a baseball stadium for a minor league baseball team then I think we can have an Ice Arena.
David, Maybe you missed it,
David,
Maybe you missed it, but people have said sell the baseball stadium also.
But everyone has their favorite sacred cow. Some want to keep the ice rink, but sell the stadium. Some want to keep the stadium, but get rid of the Fire Department, or the Police.
Some want to drop ARC for the garbage contract and take the lowest bid.
Everyone has a sacred cow.
moooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
moooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
moooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
moooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
I like the sacred cow at the
I like the sacred cow at the Osier :)
Bud I like mine Medium Rare
Bud I like mine Medium Rare with Horsey-sauce. Yum
Bud, I painted that cow at
Bud, I painted that cow at the Osier. It's actually a steer. I'm glad you like him. :)
Lorie, while your artwork on
Lorie, while your artwork on that steer is beautiful, I was referring to the one brought tableside and served medium rare :)
and don't forget the horseradish