May 29, 2024
The Community Digest is TIMBER’s newsletter on recent news impacting Troy and surrounding communities.
PIPE DREAMS
In a CBS6 interview earlier this month, Mayor Mantello announced that Troy replaced about 200 private lead service lines in 2023 and plans to replace twice as many in 2024. In the March 21, 2024 Public Utilities meeting, Mayor Mantello shared that 101 private lead service lines had been replaced in 2023. Either the city has a dynamic definition of “lead service line replacement” or “about” is putting on a clinic under the squat rack. Regardless, we have been assured that 400 lead service lines is the administration’s real 2024 target. This is disappointing, because the Mantello administration has repeatedly promised to replace 100% of the city’s lead service lines in four years, and this rate would actually be less ambitious than what the math looks like for Chris Wheland’s proposed 7-year target under the previous administration.
Troy has a little over 12,000 private service lines. As of late April, 50.1% of those service lines had been inventoried, and roughly 1,500 of them were lead (approx. 24.4%). Until the city looks at the other 49.9% of service lines, it is impossible to know the exact number of pipes that will need to be replaced. We can nevertheless use the data that is currently available to us to project the average number of lead service lines that would need to be replaced annually over the next four years for the city to hit its 100% commitment by December 2027.
At 400 pipes in 2024, the Mantello administration would need to average somewhere between 750 and 1,150 lead pipe replacements every year in 2025, 2026, and 2027. We truly begin to lose sight of the 100% replacement goal if that massive correction is not made by 2025.
If the Mantello administration were to instead shoot for about 800 lead service line replacements in 2024, we would most likely be able to hit our 100% replacement goal by holding steady at more or less the same clip all four years – even if a slightly higher percentage of unreported lines turn out to be lead. This would be a much more sustainable and responsible pace for lead service line replacement, and it is financially feasible with a healthy margin for error thanks to the federal and state assistance that Troy has already received. We strongly urge the city to reconsider its current goal for 2024, since it would require a heroic effort from the boots on the ground in 2025 and onward. We have all of the resources we need to get it done faster and not many other communities can say that.
BALLING OUT: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS
Since the start of the year, the Troy City Council has approved bonding for a cumulative total of $11.3 million across 10 different resolutions. Those resolutions are, in order:
Resolution 27: Fire Pumper, $950,000
Resolution 28: Ambulance, $375,000
Resolution 70: Street Reconstruction, $7,500,000
Resolution 77: Construction & Maintenance Equipment, $850,000
Resolution 79: Police Vehicles, $440,000
Resolution 81: Computer Equipment, $260,000
Resolution 83: Police Department Building Renovations, $280,000
Resolution 85: Central Fire Station Curb, Sidewalk & Gutter Repair, $75,000
Resolution 87: Fire Station Carpet, $45,000
Resolution 98: Congress & Ferry, $500,000
Having observed that 8 of those resolutions passed in May, an encouraging number of readers and supporters have asked us whether Troy is completely balling out right now. Comparing the pace of bonding so far this year against 2017-2023… short answer: yes, with an if; long answer: no, with a but.
Between 2017 and 2023, Troy only passed more than one bond resolution before June twice (topping out at 5 in 2017) so — in terms of volume — 10 is quite a lot. The cumulative dollar amount that we have bonded for at this point is also higher than in any year between 2017 and 2023, and there are sensational ways to spin that, but it honestly should not be very concerning on its own. Bonding happens when it happens, the literal number of bond resolutions is trivial, and Troy had to tighten the belt to get its finances under control, so it makes sense to borrow a bit more now to get the house back in order. It is important to not lose sight of that. We can speculate, separately, about what the current rate of bonding portends, but that is speculation.
The genuinely noteworthy part of Troy’s bonding spree is what we are borrowing for. (Over)broadly, bonds are meant to provide liquidity for major projects like purchasing buildings, making major utility improvements, demolishing buildings, and things of that nature. With only the limited information available to us, several of these bond resolutions — particularly Resolution 81 — seem to play footsie with operational expenses and equipment, which is not what bonds are supposed to do. This is particularly strange given that Troy’s bond counsel has reportedly taken a firm, idiosyncratic, and implausibly cautious position against bonding for lead service line replacements despite assurances from multiple state and federal agencies that it would be above board. Far be it from us to knock somebody for having an uneven tolerance of risk, but we really should replace the lead pipes if we are willing to stretch for desktops and monitors.
A wealthy Victorian family.
THE ABCs of PERB
The Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) regulates labor relations in New York State’s public sector. The law that guides and establishes PERB is the Public Employees’ Fair Employment Act, which is better known as the Taylor Law. Because the law is very complicated, and because many of our readers work in and around the public sector, we will occasionally give a brief overview of general labor concepts and how they specifically apply to PERB. For example:
The Taylor Law requires bargaining units to correspond to a community of interest, which means that employees within the bargaining unit must have (more or less) similar incentives when it comes to contract negotiations, grievances, and so on. If an employee does not fit within a bargaining unit’s community of interest, that employee should not be permitted in the bargaining unit. This is most often the case with supervisors and managers.
The duty of fair representation is a legal obligation of public sector unions to represent their member’s interests competently, equally, and unencumbered by considerations stretching beyond their duty as the employee’s bargaining agent. If a public sector union breaches its duty of fair representation, that is likely an improper practice.
Changes in a workplace’s rules or practices falling outside of the scope of a union contract are almost always subject to bargaining. If the employer attempts to change workplace rules or practices unilaterally, or if they ask individual union members to agree to those changes without first bargaining with the union, that is likely an improper practice.
Employees should contact New York’s Public Employment Relations Board at 518-457-6410 with questions.
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