According to the numbers bandied about at Garden City’s second of several planned public budget planning meetings on Feb. 12, it appears that the village is well on its way to crafting an effective spending plan for its 2015-’16 fiscal year.
The meeting started with a quick recap of the previous budget planning meeting; it was confirmed that the village’s current 2014-’15 spending plan is slated to come in under budget, despite increased overtime payouts, while projected revenues are currently $100,000 over the previous estimated amount; this is partially thanks to an increase in grant money, according to Mayor John Watras.
Challenges in this year’s budget process, Watras noted, are the current tax cap as set by New York State, which comes in at 1.68 percent, increased legal costs and other issues, while maintaining the high level of services that residents have come to expect.
Watras presided over a panel that evening comprised of members of Garden City’s library, police, fire, and recreation and parks departments. Each representative, in turn, held an update on their respective department’s budget plans for the upcoming year, giving an idea how each of them will be contributing to the stability of the village’s overall budget plans as a whole.
Since the budget across the board is currently a work-in-progress, most final figures were not yet available.
Garden City Library Director Lisa Paulo was up first. She noted that expenses are projected to be approximately 2 percent higher than last year, as a result of the hiring of additional part-time employees, whereas revenues are lower due to less funding needed from the general fund.
“Basically, my budget is not very different from last year,” she said. “I was tasked by my board of trustees to increase the number of Sundays open, and the number of hours a day we are open on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We needed more part-timers to achieve that… it could not be done with existing staff.”
Police Commissioner Kenneth Jackson spoke on behalf of his department’s budget plan. He said that its 2015-’16 spending plan is essentially flat to the prior year, with expenses coming in under-budget and the revenue budget at 9 percent over the current year’s budget.
“Our total budget this year, without fringe benefits, is $9,548,376, which is approximately a 1.82 percent increase from last year’s proposed budget,” he said. “94 percent of the total budget is personnel costs…we will also be purchasing some new vehicles, including four-wheel drive vehicles to use in emergencies.”
The Garden City Police Department currently employs 52 sworn positions, 13 civilians, and 11 part-time crossing guards.
Next up was the fire department, and Chief William Castoro confirmed that the budget is coming together well, noting that expenses were favorable to the budget due to decreased salary due to the reduction of two firefighters as well as lower overtime costs. However, he noted that this was subject to change due to current contract negotiations.
“We’re reducing our full-time staff by two positions, from 24 to 22,” he said. “This because they were sick long-term…firefighters are pulled off the payroll due to being out for over a year. Also, our overtime budget is down, but that might change if we have any extended absences.”
The evening’s final presentation was given by Kevin Ocker, director of the department of recreation and parks. He reported that both projected expenses and revenues for 2015-’16 are flat to the current year’s budget and approximately 1 percent higher than the current year’s forecast.
“The reason our revenues are down is because part of our revenue is generated by issuing permits in December for events that take place from June through August,” he said. “However, this year, two of our major permit holders had to cancel their events, so we lost a lot of revenue there.”
The department currently employs 45 full-time positions along with various part-time and seasonal employees.
After the presentations were concluded, Mayor Watras expressed his confidence in his administration and staff and its ability to use the most effective resources available in order to produce a spending plan for 2015-’15 that is efficient and fiscally responsible.
“We felt pretty good…absolutely, we felt good about it. I always feel good about it,” he said. “I mandated that a lot of things be done in terms of technology and in terms of analysis as well, so I feel very good about our budget creation process.”
