Press release:
Batavia City Manager, Jason Molino, spoke to approximately 75 attendees at a roundtable discussion on Tuesday during the New York Conference of Mayors (NYCOM) 2013 Fall Training School that took place this week in Saratoga Springs.
Molino addressed the group as part of a discussion about budgeting and finance, a topic which Molino has been asked to speak about before. Molino shared Batavia’s budgeting process and outlined the way in which it has been successfully linked to the City’s Strategic Plan the past three years. He also shared Batavia’s achievements in developing a progressive employee wellness plan, successful water loss program and cost-effective sewer infrastructure improvements.
Last year Molino was invited to address attendees at NYCOM’s 2012 CFO Summit about Batavia’s Wellness Initiative.
“Our wellness initiative has resulted in higher employee and spouse participation as well as aggressive pursuit to minimize future healthcare costs for the City,” Molino said, “and after the summit last year, I received multiple phone calls from other cities and villages requesting more details about our wellness initiative.”
“One of NYCOM’s core functions is to educate and train local officials, and the September conference is our largest conference of the year,” said Barbara VanEpps, NYCOM’s deputy director. “During this conference, it’s important that our members walk away with a wealth of knowledge. We keep inviting Jason (Molino) to speak to our members because he has provided many good ideas regarding initiatives that the City of Batavia has undertaken that not have only helped Batavia to reduce expenses and function more efficiently, but that can also be replicated in other cities and villages across the state.”
“We are thrilled that Jason has been asked to represent Batavia on the state level for three years in a row,” said Batavia City Councilwoman Patty Pacino. “Jason is constantly pushing the envelope seeking to make Batavia a better, more viable place to live and work, and he is also an excellent teacher. The fact that NYCOM continues to invite Jason to help educate others clearly demonstrates the respect Jason has earned from other city, village and town leaders. This kind of recognition is important for Batavia, because while we realize that the programs we are doing and the decisions we are making are effective, being recognized by the state serves to reinforce the quality of those decisions.”
NYCOM, founded in 1910, has 1,579 members which include counties, cities, towns and villages across New York State. NYCOM’s mission is threefold: to serve as an advocate for city and village governments and their taxpayers before the state’s government; to serve as a readily accessible source of practical information for every area of municipal activity; and to serve as the preeminent provider of training for local government officials.
