Archive: News

Legislators acting as an Expanded Budget Committee heard from seven more County departments Tuesday, as they held a fifth night of review of County Administrator Joe Mareane’s recommended County budget for 2015.

Presenting Tuesday were the Mental Health and Youth Services departments, the Assigned Counsel Office, Office of Human Rights, the Legislature Office, Solid Waste Management Division, and Workforce Investment Board and Workforce One Stop Career Center.

Some highlights from Tuesday’s presentations:

For the Mental Health Department, $25,500 in over-target spending, paired with a Contingency request initiated by the County Administrator, would shift funds from the Contingent fund to the Mental Health budget to enable the department’s contract with Suicide Prevention and Crisis Service to attain the living wage standard.  Commissioner Sue Romanczuk said that agency has been working for years to bring all employees to the living wage level; the allocation would increase the pay for part-time staff.

Among challenges for Youth Services is coping with the effects of loss of federal funding supporting the Community Coalition for Healthy Youth, a major grant program that is ending—among the effects the loss of 1.5 staff positions, including the Youth Services Planner, a position Director Amie Hendrix told legislators is necessary, but that her department does not have the money to support.  Administrator Joe Mareane included in his budget the more than $76,000 (salary and fringe) for the position, but half of it through one-time funding—an approach he told legislators was intended as a transition strategy from the current situation to what may be needed in the future, since a full-time position might not be sustainable.  The Administrator did not support a department request to use department rollover to fund training for Youth Services agencies, saying that, considering limited resources and the reductions many county departments had to make for travel and training, he could not justify that request for agencies.

For the Office of Human Rights, the Administrator’s budget funds a $5,000 one-time over-target request (reduced from the $8,750 requested) to support travel and training to national and regional trainings, as the office seeks to build and reestablish relationships with civil rights administrative agencies, seeking to attract outside resources for local enforcement and outreach efforts.

Solid Waste Manager Barbara Eckstrom told Legislators that a reduction in debt service costs will permit a $4.00 decrease in the residential Solid Waste Fee—from $56.00 to $52.00 per household in 2015.  With garbage collection declining, disposal fees for haulers will increase by $5.00 to $85.00 per ton.  Among the revenue challenges the Division faces are the continued erosion of the recycling market—much of that affected by China’s dominance of that sector—and many years of outstanding grant funding (about $700,000 worth) due from the Environmental Quality Bond Act, now not expected for at least two more years.  Eckstrom called the food scrap recycling program one of the greatest successes the Division has had, and said one of the goals for 2015 is to extend food scrap recycling to all residents, through additional drop spots.

The Expanded Budget Committee will next meet Thursday, October 2.  All Expanded Budget sessions begin at 5:30 p.m., and are held at Legislature Chambers in the Governor Daniel D. Tompkins Building, 121 E. Court Street (Second Floor).

The Recommended Budget, with total expenditures of $180 million and local dollar spending of $83.3 million, would increase the tax levy by 2.34% (below the County’s projected property tax cap) and would increase the tax bill by $6.34 for the owner of a median-value $165,000 home—an amount of increase that would be returned by the State under the new State property tax freeze law.

The 2015 Recommended Budget, along with other budget-related information, is posted on the budget page of the County web site.

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