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City budget hearing set 7 p.m. Monday

    SCHENECTADY — On Monday, the public will be able to chime in on the budget that had city leaders shouting at each other last week.
    The Schenectady City Council will hold a public hearing on the proposed 2009 budget at 7 p.m. at City Hall.
    As written by the mayor, the $76.5 million budget raises taxes 2.9 percent. But council members have proposed a variety of cuts, including a hiring freeze (saving $600,000 including benefits) and holding the paving budget to its current plan (saving $90,000); and cutting back on a variety of smaller expenses that are rarely spent in full, including postage and other supplies.
    The council may also cut $250,000 in insurance costs, thanks to a new program for Medicare-eligible retirees. In addition, it could insist that the surrounding suburbs or the county reimburse the city for all of its hazmat team expenses, since the team responds to calls throughout the county. Other proposed cutbacks include a new heating policy for all city buildings that is estimated to reduce winter utility bills by 5 percent.
    Mayor Brian U. Stratton threatened last week to veto the budget if the council makes “undue” cuts to eliminate the tax increase. Council members have said that their goal is to pass a budget with a zero percent tax increase. They must cut the budget by $309,000 for every 1 percent drop in taxes.
    If the tax hike goes through as proposed by the mayor, the average homeowner in a house assessed at $80,000 would see a $67 increase in next year’s tax bill, most of it in fees. The tax increase itself would add $28, but the homeowner would also pay $13 more for trash pickup, $11 more for water and $15 more for sewer service. The total bill would come to $2,393 before school and county taxes.

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SCHENECTADY
Public blasts budget plan Stratton faces critics angry about proposed tax hike
BY KATHLEEN MOORE Gazette Reporter

    They weren’t carrying pitchforks, but residents made it clear that they are more than just angry about the proposed 2.9 percent city tax increase.
    Speakers said Mayor Brian U. Stratton is living in a fantasy world where he’s practicing “voodoo economics” that will force seniors out of their homes. They said he never should have been elected — and predicted he’d lose instead of winning in a landslide if his re-election was held this year instead of last.
    “This is Schenectady, not Utopia!” said resident Pat Zollinger, one of seven irate speakers at Monday’s public hearing on the proposed 2009 budget. “Hello, we are in a depression. The time has come for all of you to get a backbone and say ‘Enough!’ Let’s all come back down to earth and start managing the city properly.”
    She complained that under Stratton, the city budget has risen $21.3 Share your million in five years. Of that, $20.5 thoughts on million had been drawn from new, this story at non-tax revenues, Stratton said, www.daily  but Zollinger wasn’t impressed. gazette.com
    “Every other city, town and village is cutting,” she said “They’re not hiring. And you know why? Because we’re all hurting.”
    The city has one of the lowest proposed tax increases in the area, at 2.9 percent. But hikes in fees more than double the total increase.
    If the budget goes through as proposed by the mayor, the average homeowner in a house assessed at $80,000 would see a $67 increase in next year’s tax bill. The tax increase itself would add $28, but the homeowner would also pay $13 more for trash pickup, $11 more for water and $15 more for sewer service. The total bill would come to $2,393 before school and county taxes. Resident Rich Rheingold said the council should take the fees as seriously as the tax increase.
“You add those up, it’s 23 percent,” he said. “You’re not counting them as taxes, but it is.”
Resident Carol D’Elisiis praised Councilman Mark Blanchfield for proposing cuts to the budget. She went on to say that the mayor’s budget proved he was out of touch.
“I’m not sure you’re aware of the total picture since your budget doesn’t help the city residents at all. This is not the time to focus on hiring, on paving,” she said. “This suggests the city of Schenectady is living in an economic fantasy world.”
Others agreed with that sentiment.
“It’s voodoo economics,” said resident Vince Riggi. He said some seniors won’t be able to afford a tax increase, even though it is essentially the tax bill they paid in 2006. The non-fee portion of the bill went down in 2007 and 2008 due to tax cuts, but the total remains unaffordable, he said.
Resident Harry Brand appealed directly to the mayor to demonstrate fiscal restraint.
    “Give up the car!” he shouted, referring to the mayor’s cityowned SUV. “There’s so many ways you could cut back, and you don’t do it.”
    He went on to say most of the council and the mayor should never have been elected.
    “It’s terrible, really and truly, the way you’re running the city. I’ll bet if there was another election tomorrow, a lot of you wouldn’t be here,” he said, before lamenting that residents had no better options than to vote for the Democratic slate that has easily coasted to a win in recent years.
    “We didn’t have much of a choice,” he said. “I don’t think your chairman did a very fair job in putting up candidates for election. You can’t cut back on the budget! I’m wondering if you’re qualified to hold the offices you hold.”
    Stratton did get one vote of support during the hearing.
    Richard Antokol, a city businessman who is also one the mayor’s appointees to the Downtown Schenectady Improvement Corp., said the mayor’s tax increase was reasonable. “Sixty dollars to $70 is the price today of a tank of gas for a pickup truck. We’re not talking about a lot of money,” he said. “If we can keep it to a tank of gas, that’s a pretty good job.”
    But Riggi challenged the analogy, saying, “There are people who aren’t driving because they can’t afford the gas. We can’t afford any more taxes.”
    Blanchfield seemed to agree, saying he is dedicated to producing a budget that has no tax increase.
    “We will do this in a way that minimizes the effect on services and also on the people who work for this city,” he said.
    Other council members publicly said they would support him, despite the mayor’s strong criticism last week. The mayor said Blanchfield would cut the budget unwisely just so he could win votes for his hotly contested Assembly race. Blanchfield is trying to unseat Assemblyman George Amedore Jr., R-Rotterdam, in the 105th Assembly District race.
    Stratton seemed to regret those comments Monday. He offered a speech praising Blanchfield, specifically saying he had “great admiration” for him and respected the council’s role in reviewing the budget.
    But he defended his tax increase as the best way to continue essential services in an uncertain year. He warned that if the state reduces city aid at its special session on Nov. 18, the council will need to search for emergency cuts.
    “We may be back here again, amending, cutting, slashing,” he said, adding that he wouldn’t support cutting those items prematurely just to reduce the tax increase.
    He described some of Blanchfield’s proposed cuts as “clearcutting” and “scorched-earth” policies, citing in particular the proposed cut of $90,000 in additional road patching.
    “Our infrastructure is crumbling around us. We must maintain a diligent schedule to repair and replace. If we let it go, those streets will get much worse,” he said.
    He agreed that residents seem willing to sacrifice road patches to avoid a tax increase, but said they aren’t taking the long view.

Bravo to Pat Z, Harry and Vince Riggi, who were all on fire last night. Unlike the horrible County Democrats, at least some on the City Council are listening to the oppressed taxpayers. Yes, we know that Mark is getting an earful from residents but at least he is looking line by line for budget cuts.

     At the County Krats are all looking the other way trying to hire buddies before the barn door closes. They have deluded themselves into thinking that they will run unopposed and people will forget. Anyone at the City or County that votes for raising property taxes in a recession is finished in politics. Here's another place to cut in the City, eliminate all payments to the idiotic DSIC "parking authority". That should shut up the one cheerleader.

Quoted from benny salami

Yes, we know that Mark is getting an earful from residents but at least he is looking line by line for budget cuts.

Paaaleeeezzz don't patronize Blanchfield for doing what he is not only paid to do, but what he should have been doing all along. And may I mention that I watched part of that city council meeting last night on SACC TV and was taken back by the way Blanchfield and his 'supporters' used their political seats to further Blanchfield's political career. Mark Blanchfield's back should be sore today from all of the pats on the back he got last night. It was a disgrace! And I am lead to believe that one is not to use their present political seat to further their political career. Which clearly is what was happening last night. It's a little too late for Mark Blanchfield. He has created a tax spending resume that he can't wash away with a few months of pandering.

these people are trouble makers over there filled with the hate speech. I am not a fan of this STratton but he is doing what he can and you people better not be so angry since it is showing the violent side and I tell you after this here attempt to hurt senator Obama the people are even twice as mad at you repubs now. It is wrong that you go over thee and act this way in public

I have been for George from Day One. This has nothing to do with the Assembly race. George will be easily re-elected.

     Mark B had been a rubber stamp for Stratton all long. He got an earful about the proposed City tax increase. Unlike the horrible County Legislature he is doing something about it. If it is political motivated=so what else is new? Mark gave a brilliant speech on simple City spending cuts. Mayor Stratton turned purple. Nobody especially the Mayor and horrible Silent Peggy was patting him on the back. Remember, Schenectady is a one party Krat town. I will work with anyone who is cutting pork and helping the oppressed taxpayers. Finally somebody is standing up to this spend and tax Mayor. I could care less about motivation. Yesterday, the City turned a corner. So far it is still talk but critical mass has been reached. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the horrible County Democrats. They refuse to make any cuts and continue failed Metrograft schemes.

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SCHENECTADY
Mayor pay raise may be rejected Eliminating tax increase will mean trimming $900K
BY KATHLEEN MOORE Gazette Reporter

    The mayor may be asked to sacrifice along with the city residents in the 2009 budget, City Council members said as they prepared for one last marathon session of budget cuts.
    They said they were stunned to learn that the mayor wanted a $2,900 raise on top of the $36,000 raise they approved last year. He has also asked them to hike his travel budget from $3,500 to $10,000.
    Council members have been poring over the $76.5 million budget for two weeks in search of roughly $900,000 in cuts, so they can erase the mayor’s proposed 2.9 percent tax increase. From their reaction to his raise — which is exactly 2.9 percent — it looks like the $2,900 will be added to their long list of cuts. That would leave his salary at $96,706.
    “I think sacrifice begins at the top,” said Councilman Mark Blanchfield, the finance committee chairman. “That raise is just inadvisable.”
    As for the travel, he expressed disbelief that the mayor had spent nearly $10,000 this year. He was budgeted to spend $3,500 and has been praised for making his department heads stick closely to their budgets.
    “It seems to be a lot of money to spend on travel,” Blanchfield said.
    Other council members agreed. But they emphasized that their focus will be on other cuts — like the $20,000 in unspent postage in the code department, the $40,000 addition to the paving budget, and other large expenses.
    “We’re not going to balance the budget on the mayor’s raise,” Blanchfield said, but added that he’d thought about eliminating the mayor’s $10,000 travel budget.
    “We could bring it to zero,” he said.
    Mayor Brian U. Stratton defended his raise as a sensible way to avoid the large jumps in salary that led to his $36,000 raise that took effect year.
    “It really was catching up for many years in which nothing was done. It’s important the salary line keeps pace … otherwise invariably it will become an election-year issue,” he said.
    He added that his 2.9 percent request would not take effect im- mediately, even if the council approves it.
    “It only takes effect if there’s an adjustment for the CSEA and AFSCME [unions]. It’s really just part of the overall adjustments that have been put in for non-union people,” Stratton said, adding, “Going into this economic climate, it may turn out to be zero” if the unions agree to go without a raise next year.
    The council may make its fi nal decision on the raise and a host of other possible cuts today at a budget meeting scheduled to begin at 7:30 a.m. at City Hall.
    “We’ll pull it all together, I hope,” Blanchfield said.
SATURDAY MEETING
    Blanchfield asked the council to meet Saturday, rather than Friday, for a final vote. The vote is set for a meeting at 10 a.m. on the very last day that the council can adopt a budget.
    “I think we’ll need to go right up to the weekend,” he said. “We’re going to need the time on this one.”
    His goal is to eliminate the proposed tax increase. That would still leave city residents with a hefty increase in fees: they would pay $13 more for trash pickup, $11 more for water and $15 more for sewer service.
    If the tax hike goes through as proposed by the mayor, the average homeowner in a house assessed at $80,000 would also pay $28 more in taxes. The total bill would come to $2,393 before school and county taxes.
VETO PROOF?
    Stratton has threatened to veto the budget if the council approves some of Blanchfield’s proposed cuts, which the mayor describes as “clear-cutting” and “scorchedearth.”
    But council members appeared unmoved by the threat.
    “We’re veto-proof, aren’t we?” Councilman Joseph Allen said. “We’re all supporting Mark.”
    The city, meanwhile, has taken the unusual step of denying a Freedom of Information request from The Daily Gazette for a copy of its proposed budget. Although the city provided a paper copy, the Gazette asked for an electronic copy to post on its Web site. The site already includes proposed budgets for the cities of Albany and Saratoga Springs as well as Albany County and Schenectady County.
    Finance Commissioner Ismat Alam said she had an electronic version of the proposed budget, in Excel spreadsheet format, but that she would not give it to the newspaper because readers and reporters could edit the spreadsheet and change the figures.
    “I’m not saying I don’t trust you, but …” Alam said.
    The newspaper offered to convert the document to PDF form, which cannot be altered, but she said she would not release any electronic version until after the proposed budget is adopted.
DISCLOSURE MANDATORY
    Robert Freeman, director of the state’s Committee on Open Government, said the Freedom of Information law is clear on the topic of budgets, even spending plans that have not yet been approved.
    “They have to be disclosed,” he said. “If they have the capacity to e-mail it you, they have to do it.”
    As for the concern about altering the document, he said, “So what? You could always alter anything you got. They don’t have to worry, because they have the original and could point out any discrepancies.”

Mayor Stratton is finished. He got caught by Mark B trying to sneak a phony pay increase and padded travel expenses. Mayor Spending refused to put the City Budget on line.

     Both the stooge City treasurer and Mayor should be resigning in disgrace today. Mark B deserves all the credit for doing what the terrible press and other City Councilmen refuse to: ANALYZE THE BUDGET!

Well, there's two sides to the coin.

Stratton thinks he doesn't earn enough for the job he does.
Taxpayers think he does't work hard enough for what he does earn.

The only solution is to vote accordingly during the next mayoral election - and the City Council seats too.  That is, IF the Republicans/Independents/Conservatives can actually PUT someone on the ballot rather than running blank slates.

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EDITORIALS
No raises for mayor during current term

    The raise Schenectady Mayor Brian Stratton penciled in for himself in next year’s budget was a modest 2.9 percent — the amount he anticipates that 42 nonunion professional employees will get. But after the 60 percent he took for himself at the beginning of this year, and given the global economic environment, he had to have been kidding himself if he thought the city council was going to accommodate him. And yet it almost did, deciding only yesterday, after numerous budget sessions in which the raise never even came up, that the mayor would have to make do on $96,706 for at least another year.
    Of course the mayor does way better than $96,706, what with a free car and gasoline, and $20,000 worth of “discretionary” funds in the current year’s budget, among other perks. So he doesn’t need a raise quite the way some of the city’s nonunion professional workers — with whom he compares himself — do.
    The mayor argues, not very convincingly, that he should get annual raises because that’s the only way to keep the issue from becoming politicized (as it did when he raised it during the middle of his first term). The problem is, the mayor’s compensation is inherently a political issue because he’s a political figure; there’s no way around it. The way to handle mayoral (and council) raises is the way the state Legislature handles them: They shouldn’t be approved by legislators for their current term, only for future ones.
    The city charter says something like that, but Stratton claims there’s some kind of contradiction which asserts that mayors are entitled to the same annual raise as the city’s nonunion professionals get. If that’s the case, the council should deal clarify, once and for all.
    In the meantime, the council should raise the mayor’s relatively meager ($3,500) travel allowance by $6,500. He’s proposed halving his discretionary fund (which he used this year to cover business-related travel that exceeded his allowance), producing a net savings of $3,500.

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SCHENECTADY
Scary stories told in budget battle
Officials fight to keep funds
BY KATHLEEN MOORE Gazette Reporter

    As the city’s department heads told it, next year will be like no year ever before.
    More fire trucks could break down, buildings may fall apart in new and entirely unexpected ways, windstorms might knock down scores of trees at once and every large builder in the area will stop work for an entire year.
    The department heads offered more and more ghastly scenarios Thursday morning in a desperate fight to keep the Schenectady City Council from cutting $1 million from the $76.9 million 2009 budget. The ongoing theme was “you never know what might happen.”
    Eventually Councilman Mark Blanchfield flung up his hands in disgust and said, “We don’t know when the apocalypse is coming, but we don’t budget for that.”
    The council was still scheduled to adopt its version of the budget at a meeting at 10 a.m. on Saturday at City Hall. But Mayor Brian U. Stratton wants the council to hold off until late November — past the legal deadline for the city’s budget — in case the state Legislature changes the city’s aid during a Nov. 18 special session to address the fi - nancial crisis.
    Blanchfield repeatedly cited the crisis Thursday as his reason for cutting “fat” from the budget. He demanded realistic figures, rather than “guesstimates” from each department head, and castigated Buildings and Grounds Supervisor Edward Montgomery for claiming he had “no idea” how much he would need to spend on building repairs next year.
    “It’s your job to know!” Blanchfield shouted. “Repairs for facilities, it’s gone down for several years. When we have experience like that, it’s time.”
    He proposed cutting the repairs budget line by $35,000 from the total of $110,000.
    As of the end of September, Montgomery had spent just $43,600 of that line. But Montgomery produced records showing that he had quickly spent $48,400 in the past three weeks.
    “Due to the age of the facilities we have here and the neglect we have inherited, it’s hard to predict what will break,” he said.
    Other department heads echoed the plea.
    Commissioner of General Services Carl Olsen said he might need his full $50,000 park contractors line even though he’d only used $4,000 of it this year. The line is used if he has to hire contractors for parks maintenance and could pay for improvements in the smaller parks if it’s not needed for emergencies.
    Olsen argued that he might need it for tree-trimming — but Blanchfield countered that the council had authorized a full-time tree-trimmer.
    So Olsen said he might need more than one lumberjack.
    “If we have a storm that knocks down several trees, I will have to hire outside contractors,” he said. “That’s unknown. There could be one windstorm that takes out large trees.”
    Also citing the unknown was Fire Chief Robert Farstad. He argued that his repair line for fire trucks couldn’t be cut from $150,000 to $110,000 even though he has spent only $67,000 on repairs so far this year.
    “Our fleet is aging,” Farstad explained.
    Blanchfield dismissed that, saying, “They were old last year. They didn’t suddenly get old.”
    But Farstad insisted that the $40,000 cut would place the fi re budget in jeopardy.
    “Regardless of the budget, we’re going to fix those trucks,” he said, describing the proposed budget line as a “comfortable” number.
GETTING REAL
    Blanchfield said he didn’t want comfortable numbers in an economically shaky year.
    “That’s what’s so frustrating looking at some of these numbers. I’m hearing, ‘Oh, we never know what will happen,’ but that’s not true,” he told Farstad. “We have to look at current experience. I’m not hearing anything about why, when our experience is very likely to be $100,000, why it will suddenly be $150,000.”
    He then told the council that he thinks the cut is realistic.
    “We’re trying to take advantage of the repair savings that has been the fruit of our replacement policy,” he said. “We are seeing savings in these lines, and we need to reflect that.”
    Blanchfield also proposed increasing several revenue projections, saying the predictions are lower than what the city has already received this year. But there, too, he heard more predictions of the doom to come in 2009.
    Code Inspector Keith Lamp said that although he’s on track to collect $225,000 for building permits this year, he’ll only collect $165,000 next year.
    “The $8,000 to $10,000 permits aren’t coming in the way they used to,” he said.
    Two major projects — condos and the Schenectady County Community College dorm — delayed construction this fall because of the economic crisis, he said.
    And although he said they are scheduled to start in the spring, he’s budgeting for just one big project next year: the Golub headquarters being built on Nott Street.
    “The large projects are not there,” he said. “Even the $5,000 to $10,000 projects, my bread and butter projects, are not coming in or they’re coming in smaller.”
AID CUT FEARED
    Finance consultant John Paolino also told the council that there may not be a surplus at the end of this year and said he’s “petrified” that the 2008 budget will end up in a deficit. The state Legislature may cut the city’s annual aid, which is due in December, leaving Schenectady with a gaping hole and only weeks to fill it.
    The Legislature will meet on Nov. 18 to decide what to cut from its budget — including, possibly, aid to cities. Stratton proposed that the City Council hold off on adopting the 2009 budget until after that meeting, even though the council is required to finalize the budget by Nov. 1.
    “This is an extreme circumstance,” he said.
    Council members Barbara Blanchard and Thomas Della Sala said they were willing to support Blanchfield’s proposed cuts in a vote Saturday. But Councilman Gary McCarthy said he wouldn’t support a $136,000 reduction in police holiday pay, even though that portion of the line goes unused each year when officers choose to take comp time instead of full overtime pay for holidays.
    If all of Blanchfield’s cuts are approved by the council, he could turn the 2.9 percent tax increase to a 1.3 percent tax cut. But he said he would reconsider some of the cuts in light of arguments made by the department heads Thursday.     

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SCHENECTADY
Raise for Stratton proves unpopular
BY KATHLEEN MOORE Gazette Reporter

    The mayor’s proposed raise didn’t even last five minutes before the Schenectady City Council tossed it out.
    City Council members gave the mayor’s $2,900 raise request just two minutes of discussion Thursday before dismissing the idea — and almost all of that time was spent listening to one irate resident. Thursday morning’s 2009 budget
review began with a speech from resident Pat Zollinger, who begged the council to reject the mayor’s raise and threatened to take the issue to a public referendum if they didn’t kill the proposal at once.
    “This is an illegal pay raise that he put in this budget for himself,” Zollinger said, objecting to the idea of a politician receiving a raise mid-term.
    Councilwoman Barbara Blanchard, who did not receive this year’s budgeted council member raise because she is in the middle of a term, heartily agreed with Zollinger.
    “We’re following the rules. That’s why I don’t have the raise,” she said. “He can’t get a pay raise in the middle of his term — it doesn’t make sense.”
    Corporation Counsel L. John Van Norden said the council could legally choose to give the mayor a raise. Zollinger leapt back up to insist that it would be illegal but was reassured by Councilman Mark Blanchfield.
    “Jaywalking’s also illegal, but the sense I’m getting is we’re not even crossing the street,” he said, using the analogy to say that the council wouldn’t support the raise.
    Councilman Gary McCarthy said the council had never intended to give the mayor annual raises. This year’s $36,000 raise was supposed to last through 2011, he said.
    “I thought the agreement was it would be for his term of office,” he added.
    Blanchfield agreed but noted that the agreement was never written down.
    “What we want to do is look at it at the end of the term,” he said.
    Afterward, Mayor Brian U. Stratton indicated that he wouldn’t fight for the raise, which would have brought his salary to $99,607. He wasn’t present for the council discussion.
    “If they want to cut it, fine, but it’s not a lot of money,” he said after the meeting, calling the cut a symbolic act.
    But he argued that it would be best to raise the salary every year rather than debating it every four years.
    “I think you need to do something on a regular basis to make sure the salary keeps pace with inflation,” he said. “Otherwise you go into 2011 with candidates arguing about whether they’re going to take a pay raise.”
    Blanchfield has also questioned the mayor’s travel budget — which Stratton overspent by nearly $6,000 this year — but the council did not discuss cutting it.
    Stratton said he covered the unbudgeted expense by using part of his $20,000 discretionary fund. For 2009, he proposed reducing the discretionary line to $10,000 while increasing the travel line by $6,500 and his salary by $2,900. The shift would result in his spending $600 less overall next year.
    Stratton stressed that all management raises would be withheld until the council signs a deal with the CSEA and AFSCME unions. If city officials ask the unions to accept a zero-percent raise because of poor economic conditions, Stratton said, managers won’t get any raises, either.
    “The least fair thing to do would be to give our management raises and tell the unions they have to accept zero,” he said.
    In total, $90,000 has been budgeted for management raises.

Ya know what's scary is if the budget cuts the payola that goes out to those plebs who feed and vote at the DSS trough,,,,,,the plebs will get restless and
aggitated at the decrease in their sustenance.....what happens then.....increase in court visits, busy police dept and cost increase else where etc......

Those who dont feed at that trough already have their knickers in a bunch......

The City has nothing to do with DSS rates. Mayor Stratton was caught by Pat Z with both hands and feet in the cookie jar. After a $36,000 raise and free gas/JEEP, he wants more! Only the broke City residents need to belt tighten. Stratton's horrible budget proposal is DOA. His circle to nowhere is DOA. Straaton's re-election is DOA. Even lifelong Democrats have had enough.

You're right benny,,,,but, the plebs cant tell the difference as long as the bread is buttered.....however, the effect of the restless plebs has a local effect.....