WPCNR COMMON COUNCIL CHRONICLE-EXAMINER. By John F. Bailey. May 28, 2009 UPDATED 3 P.M. E.D.T.: The Common Council this morning at11:17 A.M. voted 5-2, with Mayor Joseph Delfino and Councilman Glen Hockley opposed and Councilpersons Boykin, Lecouona, Malmud, Power and Roach in favor to enact a $158.2 Million budget for fiscal year 2009-10. The council also voted to eliminate the funding for the payment of David Birdsall as Acting Budget Director, and enacted an unspecified number of job cuts of full and part-time personnel.
Melissa Lopez, of the Mayor’s office reports to WPCNR that 55 part-time jobholders and 25 full-time employees of the city have been cut beginning July 1. WPCNR asked for a list of the jobs being cut by department, and for a list of the names of the individuals. Lopez issued this statement: “The Mayor’s Office wishes to respect the privacy of these individuals. If you would like their names, I would recommend you file an FOI request.”
Ms. Lopez said a list of the positions by department was being worked on but it “would take awhile.”
The members of the Common Council voting in favor of the cut, trimming the Mayor’s budget $2 Million from his proposed budget of $160.2 Million, spent two hours telling the morning television audience how hard they had worked on the budget to begin to repair the city finances and keep the city fund balance at the $5 Million level. Councilman Tom Roach, Rita Malmud, Dennis Power described the Mayor’s original budget as “unbalanced,” “unacceptable,” “impractical,” because it proposed using up $11.4 Million in undesignated fund balance. The Council-enacted budget today, keeps the fund balance at the $11.9 Million level by adding new revenues, cutting expenses, and borrowing $2 Million for undetermined “settlements or court-ordered expenses.”
Councilperson Tom Roach commented that a long term structural financial plan was needed to repair the city’s finances going forward, bringing expenses in line with revenues, and he predicted substantially more “pain” in developing the 2010-11 city budget. He described the cuts the council made as “turning the battleship around.”
Councilperson Milagros Lecouna said she looked forward to a new Mayor where the council would be a part of the budget process.Lecuona also noted that if the council were to consider raising the sales tax another 1/4%, part of the increase should be spent on creating affordable housing and acquisition of open space.
Dennis Power, promised the council would do much more next year (in terms of financial adjustment). He said the council might have to look at raising the sales tax, and alluded to the council having to look at the White Plains Performing Arts Center (which filed papers with the IRS this month, disclosing it was $700,00 plus in debt as of last June), and seeing what it could do to keep the WPPAC a “viable organization.” Power said separate commercial and residential tax rates for White Plains was a legislative priority, that he hoped would be passed. Mr. Power also suggested that the city might revisit the possibility of developing the railroad station area in the future
The council members, criticising in turn, this morning the “one-shots” the majority of members at this morning’s table had voted for in past budgets to balance the Mayor’s spending that lead to the current year deficit, did not allude at any time to projected union settlements to come that will affect city budgets the next few years in these revenue-challenged times.
The lone councilman in support of the budget was Glen Hockley who said he was not in favor of any job cuts that hurt families. He also quoted Commissioner of Public Safety Frank Straub as saying downtown safety would be compromised, considering that during the summer, according to Hockley the city averaged 30 arrests on both Friday and Saturday nights in the downtown. Hockley also quoted Straub as saying and fire response time to the southend of town slowed by inactivating two pieces of equipment.
Mayor Joseph Delfino defended his budget as “balanced,” and noted that had the Common Council enacted the 1/2 per cent sales tax he had asked for two years ago, (the council would only go for a quarter per cent) the 1/2 per cent would have brought in the $12 Million which the Mayor said was equivalent to the $12 million gap the council was now closing.
Delfino in a bitter close to the meeting, often appearing on the verge of tears on television, said the revenues of the city were not broken, but “splintered,”: and said his budget was an attempt to fix that. He saluted his Acting Budget Director, David Birdsall for his terrific efforts. He cut off shouts from the floor over the restoration of $50,000 to the library budget. He called the restoration of the $50,000 to the library a political move.
Delfino in his final soliloquy accused the council of laying a 33% tax increase on the citizens. Councilman Tom Roach interrupted the Mayor’s speech pointing out it was not a 33% tax increase, but a 6.5% increase, and the increase in the tax increase was a third, not an overall 33% increase.
Delfino closed saying to White Plains he has always been “a servant,” not a politician.
