WPCNR Quill & Eyeshade. By John F. Bailey. February 1, 2007: The Budget and Management Advisory Board met Tuesday evening for only the second time since the end of last year’s budget season. The meeting disclosed the Budget & Management Board whose purpose is to advise the city on budget preparation, will not have too much time to do much advising: two weeks at most before the budget is presented to the Common Council.
City Budget & Management Advisory Board Meets Tuesday. They are, clockwise from lower left: Tim Sheehan, Eleanor McDonald, Larry Delgado, Arnold Bernstein, the Mayor, Chairman Benjamin Boykin, Joseph Lenchner, Gina Cuneo-Harwood, Patrick Austin. Not pictured: Ted Peluso, Anthony Cucciarre. Photos, WPCNR News
Veteran Budget Management Advisory Board member Patrick Austin questioned how much time the Board would have to make any constructive changes to the budget and succeeded in getting a commitment to have a copy of the budget done by the second week in March.
Patrick Austin raised the reaction time issue when Chief Fiscal Officer, Gina Cuneo-Harwood said she would not have the preliminary budget ready until mid-March. This is two weeks before it was to be presented to the Common Council for approval by the end of May. Harwood originally said it would be closer to April 1 when the budget was delivered to the Budget Committee. (Last year the big budget book without cover made its appearance for the first time at the April Common Council meeting, and the city charged the public for copies of the budget.)
Austin pushed for an earlier time to see the proposed city budget so the committee could make some recommendations. The best Harwood could promise was the second week in March.
(The City School District, by contrast, has already submitted two detailed preliminary expense budgets in the $175 Million range, prior to its Annual Budget Committee process which begins Tuesday evening at 7:30 at Education House.)
Austin said the committee would have precious little time to supply its input. Harwood, (who is getting paid an additional $20,000 for assuming duties of Budget Director through June, said she was in the process of collecting expense budgets from the city departments. She expected those to be in by January 15 and to begin projecting revenues February 15, and expected a preliminary budget by “the second week in March.”
Austin complained in a respectful manner that in the past the committee was given projections of future budgets for the next year’s budget, and expressed a concern that the Committee has had no long range out look on budget trends.
Boykin asks for ideas.
Budget & Management chair, Councilman Benjamin Boykin, said he wanted input from the members on their ideas for the budget, so he could get them any information they wanted. He asked Joseph Lenchner if he had any ideas. Lechner, said he did not at this time, but would get them to Boykin.
However, this was apparently the first time Boykin had advised the committee he wanted their input. Last year, Joseph Lenchner and Patrick Austin complained the Budget & Management group was not convened early enough to have an impact on the budget. This year the committee has met by this reporter’s recollection even less, this being only the second meeting.
Committee member Tim Sheehan raised the issue of benefits as being an area the city had to negotiate more aggressively with the unions. Ted Peluso, agreed this was an area for action, too. Mayor Joseph Delfino said negotiating benefit givebacks was very hard to do, and he would need the Common Council support in order to take that to the unions.
Hockley chips in.
Councilman Glen Hockley, not an official member of the committee, commented from the “observer’s circle” that a management study of the Department of Public Safety to assue as he put it that officers now executing desk jobs within the police and fire departments be replaced with civilian hires so police officiers could “be on the street,” (his words). Sheehan also supported this management study idea
(Generally, when committees meet, no comment is tolerated from any common citizen or official for that matter, by the Mayor from observers, unless he or the Chairman invites them to do so. WPCNR did not think at the time to inquire if work sessions and future committee meetings would now be open forums for citizens to make suggestions.)
Sales Tax Figures May Be Higher: Harwood
The committee meeting began with Fiscal Officer Harwood distributing the official first half of fiscal 2006-2006 sales tax figures, noting that the holiday season was incomplete only containing figures through November 30, and was calculated by estimate by the state for the rest of the month.
Gina Cuneo Harwood (Center), city Chief Fiscal Officer expound on the sales tax good news.
She said the major sales tax payers would file actual sales tax returns by April 1st making for a possible movement upward in the sales tax which would be reflected in the 3rd quarter figures. She reported sales tax revenues was up 7.4% through the first half of the year, despite being down 3.2% in the first quarter.
“This is not the entire Christmas season, it’s only through November 30. We’ll see more of it in March,” Harwood said. “I’m very optimistic for the rest of the year that anticipated (sales tax) revenues ($42.5 Million) will be realized and have every reason to be believe we’re going to exceed it.”
Schedule for Budget. No automatic cuts asked for. What do you want us to do?
Harwood informed the committee she was getting expense and salary information from the departments by January 15 and revenue projections by February 25 with a budget expected to be ready for the committee by April. Harwood reported the city had not asked departments to make any mandatory percentage cuts in their budgets.
Tim Sheehan asked “What kind of process there was for figuring the new budget, whether it was a 1-way (city dictates to committee) or a 2-way (give and take) there was a need for ideas on “how to streamline.”
At this time, Pat Austin spoke up on the Committee’s role: “What do you see the Budget Committee’s role in this process?”
Boykin, the Chairman said, “Until we get data (preliminary budget), we can be talking and thinking about items.”
Lenchner observed in the past the committee had met a number of times to discuss the actual budget before it was submitted to the council, (which did not happen last year).
Boykin said, “You raise the issue and we’ll get information and we’ll have the meeting to discuss it.”
He invited all members to submit areas of concern so they could discuss them the next meeting with data available.
After discussion of the water fund, the need for a management study of the Public Safety Department and possibly other departments, and the PILOTS issue – which Mayor Delfino described as being the same taxes developers would pay if they were not paying taxes – Austin raised the forecast issue, saying “We used to get forecasts on how trends were going – what you expect to to and where you’re going in the future years. We should look at that (kind of) forecast.”
Austin alluded to how little time the committee had to comment on formulating the construction of the budget and budget police last year, saying, “We were late in the process last year. We had no time to give input before it (the budget) went to the Common Council.”
Mayor Delfino said, “by all means” he wanted the committee input. Austin politely requested the complete budget be submitted to the committee for comment before it went to the Common Council.
Railside Land Sale
The Mayor, addressing the Railside issue brought up by Joseph Lenchner repeated his comment made at the Greico Property News Conference Tuesday that the sale of the Railside Properties was ongoing and that he “expected to be completed in time to contribute the full $2.9 Million the sales was assumed to contribute to the present 2006-2007 budget.
PILOT ISSUES
In discussion of the PILOTS, the committee was given the following list of the “Payments In Lieu of Taxes” in effect at this time. The amounts below represent the city share which represnts 16% of the total PILOT being paid. The School District receives 66% (not of this sum—these are actual city revenues from PILOTS), and the county 19%.
CITY OF WHITE PLAINS P.I.L.O.T.s Fiscal Year 2006-2007
City RECEIVES
57 Ferris Avenue $22,765.94
WP Housing Authority $40,300.00
Power Authority of
State of New York $283,468.00
NINE WEST $355,022.20
COHEN BROTHERS $304,992.42
360 Hamilton Avenue $318,336.00
Clayton Park $ 99,480.00
Bank Street Commons $406,276.32
Fortunoff $252,016.00
City Center (1 & 10
City Place $528,744.43
TOTAL CITY REVENUE FROM PILOTS $2,611,401.31
