October 21, 2024
The Community Digest is TIMBER’s newsletter on recent news impacting Troy and surrounding communities. Because the city’s financial situation has required more attention than we originally anticipated, this issue will focus on the proposed 2025 budget alone. A second Community Digest covering a much broader range of issues will be published in a few weeks.
On October 10, the Mantello administration released its 2025 annual budget proposal. This is one of several critical financial documents that administrations are expected to routinely produce. It stands out as the most captivating because it plans for the future rather than summarizing the past. Our summary of the 2025 budget proposal will focus primarily on the items most relevant to TIMBER. A fuller budget brief will be released if necessary.
Although we want to focus on 2025 revenues and expenditures, it is important to note how far off-track the Mantello administration’s expenditures appear to have strayed from this year’s budget: in just the first six months, the administration seems to have overspent on more than 60 budget lines, with a cumulative total approaching seven figures for things like comp buyouts, overtime, and out-of-grade pay. This is particularly alarming because the Mantello administration has repeatedly insisted that expenditures have been easy to track all year, and this year’s budget still has not been updated to reflect these figures. Budgets are only useful planning documents when they are adhered to or amended in real time.
PERSONNEL
During the first budget hearing, Mayor Mantello stressed that the Comptroller’s office has been hobbled this year in large part due to its top-heaviness: because the previous (previous) Comptroller did so much with such a lean office, their departure was extremely destabilizing. This is a valuable and lucid insight, and we would love to see it generalized to all of the other departments – similar to how dogs learn that none of the rooms are for peeing in. Workers with specialized and unique knowledge of city operations exist in all departments of the city.
With 48 current vacancies – up from 30 in April – now would be a good time for the city to invest in them. Instead, the proposal neglects to budget raises for most employees, including the members of CSEA’s 214-person and UFA’s 117-person bargaining units, both of which have upcoming contract negotiations.
Additionally, the budget proposes eliminating several important positions, replacing some with similar positions that pay slightly less. If the city’s inability to attract and retain talent in general services is impacting operations, this is neither a sustainable nor sensible cost-saving measure. We are particularly concerned about the proposed elimination of the Federal and State Grant Coordinator position. It took a massive bipartisan and multi-agency effort spanning several months to clarify how the administration could access free money to replace lead service lines, so it is hard to imagine how this skillset could be considered dispensable.
Due to the city’s significant contract agreement with the PBA this year, law enforcement now accounts for 38.2% of all personal services expenses in the General Fund. This creates an even bigger gulf between the city’s investment in public safety personnel and employees in all other budget categories over the last 25 years.
CONTINGENCY
In lieu of budgeting for specific anticipated raises or contracts, the 2025 proposed budget allocates $1.5m to contractual services in the contingency account while putting nothing towards contingency itself, reversing the city’s budgeting practices since 2011.
Contingency funds are generally intended to serve as reserves for unforeseen or emergency costs. Per two city officials, the $1.5m is expected to cover anticipated contract negotiations in 2025, including CSEA, UPSEU, COATS, UFCA, and UFA’s expired or expiring collective bargaining agreements and a likely $1m 911 contract with the county. Doing back-of-the-envelope math for argument’s sake: if the remaining $500,000 was divided evenly between all personnel with expired or expiring contracts, each employee would receive a salary and benefits increase with a combined value of about $1,400 next year. This is not likely to be palatable.
TAXES, FEES & RATES
The proposed budget includes a $254 garbage fee, which is the same as it was in the 2024 budget. We agree with the Mantello administration that it is unrealistic to eliminate the garbage fee at this time.
Although the 2025 budget proposal includes a $.10/gallon water rate increase, growth in water rate revenue is not reflected in the budget. While this is not an extraordinary increase, the city consistently budgets a $1.5m transfer from the Water Fund into the General Fund. A casual observer of Troy’s finances might infer from this that the water rate is set above the cost-of-service. This would be inappropriate. It would also be unfair to the least fortunate among us, since water rates are generally considered to be regressive. We encourage the City Council to scrutinize this practice in the budget hearings.
The mayor’s proposed 2025 budget includes a property tax increase of 1.89%. While politically attractive, this is probably not realistically sustainable unless the city is able to generate more revenue in other ways.
There is a common misconception that the Frear Park golf course is a “big money maker” because it generates revenue. The confusion seems to stem from a failure to consider that it also costs money to operate and maintain (appropriations). As a previous Comptroller stated in last year’s budget hearings, the golf course belongs in an enterprise fund and is in a six-figure hole. Even if we ignore the $1.1m in 2025 facility improvements and all expenses obscured by housing Frear Park in the General Fund, the golf course is yet again projected to lose more money than it makes.
We also want to quickly note that the city has not published an updated 2023 Annual Financial Report, which was due to the Office of the State Comptroller on April 30. A corrected 2023 Annual Financial Report was expected to be published “on or about” September 30.
PARTING NOTE REGARDING THE SUSPENSION OF UFA’S PRESIDENT
The Troy Uniformed Firefighters Assocation Local 86 is challenging the Mantello administration’s decision to suspend the union’s president for 15 days without pay. Eric Wisher was suspended for refusing to comply with job requirements that were imposed without bargaining with the union. Since a collective bargaining agreement’s entire purpose is to formalize the terms and conditions of employment, and since unilateral changes are legally prohibited, we are confident that Eric and the firefighters union will prevail in this matter – as they should. We unequivocally support Eric and UFA in this matter, and we hope that this prompts members of every city bargaining unit to expect their union to advocate for its members and enforce their contracts. Unions exist to protect the interests of members, not managers.
