They Play. You Pay
December 3, 2023
Troy’s budget process began with the October 6 release of Mayor Madden’s 2024 Neighborhood Reinvestment Plan and ended with a special meeting on November 30. Over the last month and a half, the City Council held eleven public hearings to discuss various aspects of the city’s budget. The hearings were not well-attended. Several officials expressed frustration that the public appears disinterested in civic affairs. We encourage officials to ask what they can do to solve problems before instinctively blaming residents. In this case, the public would need to look at page 6 of an October 10 agenda to know that any of this was happening, so the call is probably coming from inside the house.
Six major items were proposed at the November 30 meeting:
Adjusting Frear Park’s fees to generate an additional $70,000 in revenue;
Raising the water rate by 40 cents per one thousand gallons;
Budgeting $125,000 for a City Engineer;
Budgeting $30,000 for Legislative Council;
Providing health insurance to members of the City Council;
Increasing City Council salaries by $5,000.
The proposal to raise golf fees passed 5-2, with Council President Mantello and Councilmember Sorriento voting against. Council President Mantello’s rationale for opposing the measure was that it would be unfair to golfers if Troy raised fees in two consecutive years. Minutes later, she voted in favor of jacking up the water rate despite having also raised it last year.
As we have already demonstrated, Frear Park loses quite a lot of money. Every dollar that is not raised through fees is covered by ordinary taxpayers, the overwhelming majority of whom do not golf. It is also worth noting that golf is a leisure activity for people in funny pants, whereas water is the basis for all life on planet Earth. It is revolting that someone could believe that, of these two things, golf is the one that ought to be protected under this arbitrary fairness doctrine.
The proposal to budget for a City Engineer passed. The addition of Legislative Council for city lawmakers passed with amendments. The bulk of the meeting was then devoted to the final two proposals, a fiasco that is not well-suited to a bite-sized summary. Ultimately, City Councilmembers walked away with no health insurance and only a $2,500 raise.
Broadly speaking, TIMBER found reasonable success influencing Troy’s budget for a year in which major pivots were not on the menu. Part of that success was because the administration and several councilmembers were very receptive and attentive to sensible ideas. Another major reason for our progress was that, in one way or another, we engaged with every single hearing.
If you would like to join TIMBER’s policy and research team, please contact greg@timbercorp.org. You do not need to have any particular skills or background to deserve a say in how the city spends your money.
