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thank you
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I don't know
anymore
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thank you
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again
everybody
else
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um yeah I don't know if I should
probably
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Michelle do did you want to uh be posted
to the city website or something you
could do that you could it's gonna it's
live right now okay yeah it's up to you
I mean you can do it after or whatever
okay
so do you want me to just send how do
you want me to just uh send you the link
or how do you want to do it
oh you actually put it on the website or
yeah or on the Facebook or whatever you want to do yeah it doesn't
matter whenever you want to do it it'll
be on the osm Facebook page the link or
YouTube
um
it's so we're live streaming now but I
have like a slate that runs and then
once it does I'll take
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Philadelphia
designers
you want to just check right here in the
office to make sure it clicks over
oh okay cool yeah I'm streaming I'm
streaming now
all right thanks man yep
see you
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again
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um
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shut up
I want to thank everyone for uh
coming out this afternoon and having the
opportunity to formally present to the
city council uh the proposed 2024 city
of Schenectady operating budget
uh again I want to thank council
president Porterfield the members of the
city council for your being here and
look forward to working with you on the
formal adoption of our operating budget
uh thank you to our department heads and
all the city employees for the work in
preparation of this budget and the work
they do on behalf of the residents of
this city every day specifically want to
acknowledge and thank Anthony Ferrari
Derek gukamuk and Liz Nelson from the
finance department and the time and
effort that they've put in this Michelle
Carr Brendan Savage and John coluccio
who's running a slideshow and will make
me look semi-good in this presentation
I want to thank our partners that enable
projects and initiatives to happen in
our city that makes us stronger makes us
more vibrant and adds a level of
excitement to Schenectady
you know we have a number of projects
that are underway or will be in 2024.
the upper left is the housing project on
Crane Street
the lower left is the Block House at
frog alley the SI group moved to Mohawk
Harbor Old World Provisions has moved to
Broadway the center photo is showing a
rendering of the rehab the old wedgeway
building it's state and Erie Armory
Studio has been host to the van Gogh
exhibit which brought approximately 130
000 people to the city of Schenectady
uh this will be pre replaced in this uh
coming roughly month by an exhibit on
Monet
uh in GE Verona announced a 50 million
dollar investment recently in the
production facilities for wind turbines
here in the city of Schenectady
we continue to develop affordable
housing the North Side village the rehab
of the old Elmer Avenue School the Old
Saint Mary's rectory or just to name a
few we have completed or have underway a
quarter of a billion dollars worth of
affordable housing projects in the city
of Schenectady and I want to thank Ray
Gillen for joining us today that
partnership with Metroplex our
relationship with the county the
business Community is really unique in
terms of how we come together and how we
provide services and actually make
things happen within this community
uh the construction continues at the new
Central Park Pool again that will be
completed next year and I hope everybody
will be joining us as we cut the ribbon
there and bring a facility that
complements the Investments that we've
made in the a diamond and music Haven
the partnership with the Rose Garden
committee
there are things that are happening
there all the time an exciting Adventure
last week we did a ribbon cutting at the
new pickleball courts in Hillhurst Park
in the new tennis courts across the
street in Fairview Park are also open
Monday we announced a 500 thousand
dollar Grant from assemblyman Angelo
Santa Barbara for the rehab of the
Central Park casino and I've included in
the budget I've submitted the council
today and a request for an additional
250 thousand dollars in our capital
budget to make sure that we are able to
complete the projected work on that
facility
again I'm going to
step off a little bit and spend some
time on cyber security
we need to defend the city of
Schenectady against cyber crime and
cyber security is everyone's job and
while this really represents a
relatively small portion of the budget
we pay about thirty thousand dollars for
insurance uh
malicious cyber actors aren't making the
same holiday plans as you and I uh
recent history tells us that they look
at these events and times
to uh
engage in persistent acts that are big
and small look to disrupt our critical
networks and systems where they're
really operating around the world and we
have to be cognizant of that every day
and so while we're
looking at some of the city operations
as members of the media here individuals
that are here part of the message when
you leave here today is you have to be
cognizant of it every day and spread the
words to your family and friends and
some of the quick points are slow down
scammers often create a sense of urgency
so that they can bypass your better
instincts take your time and ask
questions to avoid being rushed into a
bad situation do not click on links or
attachments from senders that you do not
recognize
spot check do your research to double
check the details you're getting if you
get an unexpected phone call just hang
up if you get an unexpected email about
your bank account then please verify by
calling the bank and make sure it's
legitimate do your spot check a red flag
or something fishy if you
spot a red flag or something fishy about
an email verify the suspicious email
with a sender through a phone or some
other mechanism
and don't send money stop and don't send
money no reputable person or agency will
ever demand payment on the spot
often scammers tell you to go off and
buy gift cards that are meant only to be
given as a gift not as payment under the
threat and so if you get these type of
requests or things don't hesitate to
call the police department or reach out
to some family member or somebody that
you trust
to avoid these just tragic set of
circumstances that all that happen all
too often
this slide Recaps the larger projected
changes in our revenue and I look
forward to going over these numbers in
Greater detail when the council holds
its budget review sessions and I won't
get into that tonight or today
again this slide talks about our arpa
funds uh that this will be our last time
to use arpa money for the general fund
in no arpa funds will be available for
2025 and this depending on the final
numbers we adopt and work with I creates
approximately a 7.4 million dollar issue
that we're going to have to deal with in
future years
this in the next slide recap projected
adjustments and expenses and again if
you look forward to going over with the
council and department heads in Greater
detail as we get into the budget review
sessions
the next one I have is I'm projecting in
this budget uh four million dollars in
sales through our homes program and
we've had a remarkable track record in
creating uh home ownership opportunities
for individuals within the community
some of those have gone up and down
covid we had a general Trend up covid
slowed things down we couldn't do
foreclosures that is now back in process
we've taken a little over a hundred
houses
that we have in the pipeline for sale
and I these numbers show that our
current Revenue in 2023 is down a little
bit I expect that to be up around a
million dollars when we close out the
year for homes that we have in the
pipeline and again appreciate the city
council working with staff as we go
through that process
and some of those purchases we know are
a little bit more complicated and there
are options that we weigh and try and
get the best value for the city as a
whole
again this Recaps property sales
historically it also looks at it
geographically one of our esri mapping
systems it shows that this is not
targeted to any one area in the city but
really across the whole city where we've
had foreclosures we've worked to with
our Realtors Bankers other real estate
professionals to Market home ownership
in investment opportunities
within the city of Schenectady
the next two slides this slide and the
other ones recap the departmental budget
summaries I'm not going to spend time
going through each one you know Public
Safety is a major expense major concern
I compliment Chief Clifford and the
staff in the police department
our crime in the city of Schenectady is
down approximately 33 percent
when you compare it to the 2022 numbers
if you do the five-year average which we
normally do to level it out so it takes
away from the anomalies that may occur
in any one year our numbers are up about
2.1 percent you wonder how does that
happen
and again it was the phenomenon where
Covent where our general Trend in crime
and other things were heading in the
right direction covid
stopped everything
there wasn't any commercial activity
there wasn't
we didn't sell houses we weren't doing
foreclosures people were staying in
their houses so crime dropped
really down to almost nothing in some
cases but when you then take the year
after covet as we started to come back
it looks like crime went up dramatically
but it really didn't it's when you do
the averages it Compares it against that
one year it looks abnormally low or it
looks abnormally high so we have to sort
through those and do an appropriate
analytic review so that we're telling
the real story of what's happening and
in terms of working with the council how
do we invest the money that we're going
to spend in the most effective way to
leverage the resources and while I've
just talked about the police department
the same thing is with the fire
department the office of General
services so that we're getting the
biggest payback for the taxpayer dollar
here
uh again those departmental numbers are
there and we'll go over it the uh
general fund I'm submitting is a little
over 111 million dollars this year
the assessed value the taxable value
within the city of Schenectady continues
to increase
it shows that our Collective efforts and
again I complement Metroplex our
partners County government in the work
that the men and women who are employees
of the city do every day that we're
creating real value
uh the tax levy
again for the last decade his remained
fairly stable
it's up a little bit down a little bit
the budget that I'm submitting to the
council today sees a rise of about 1.3
percent in the tax levy and that's the
amount of total tax dollars that we
collect via the property tax
uh the budget that I'm proposing would
keep the tax rate at
12.98
uh per thousand dollars of assessed
evaluation and that chart again breaks
out where your tax dollars uh go a
little under half goes to the school
district the city is a little over 30
percent and then the county makes up the
difference of that
uh this chart outlines where the tax
rate has been
we were
much higher in 2015 we had
systematically lowered the tax rate uh
coveted
again shifted everything we saw an
increase in 2021
2022 2023 held it
stable effect last year when I
recommended the budget to you I asked
for a tax rate of 12.99
which is what the council adopted in the
budget and it's when we do that final
calculation when the assessed value of
the property comes in
there's a lot of times there's a little
bit of variance in that number because
we don't get that information from the
county until
mid-november after the budget is adapted
so our tax rate even though the council
adopted at 12.99 last year the effective
rate was 12.98 so it went down a little
bit because of that growth in assessment
in other factors that play into the
formula but I'm asking again for the
council's consideration to continue that
tax rate at 12.98
cents
the cost of our trash collection and
Disposal continue to rise
uh and I am asking and believe it'll
require a fee increase to keep providing
this service at the level we do to our
residents I'm submitting for the
council's consideration uh increase of a
dollar fifty per week uh and keeping our
exemption process in place our Municipal
service is still very cost competitive
with private contractors in our
neighboring neighboring communities in
suburbs in what this will do is actually
bring the revenue closer to actually
covering the cost of garbage collection
so today the general fund subsidizes
garbage collection and looking to
equalize that and level that out and
again look forward to working with the
Council on ways that we could modify
that collection build efficiencies into
it better educate the public to again
appreciate the service we have and
continue to deliver it at a manner that
they appreciate and shows real value
our water and sewer funds looking
for a funding at the water level of 9.8
million in the sewer fund at
15.7 million dollars
we have made major investments in our
water and sewer system you know just the
force Main and pump station and North
ferry
the new wells that we're putting in in
our water fields in Rotterdam to keep
these funds balanced we need small rate
increases and I'm asking for rate
increases of what would be effectively
be slightly under five cents a day in
the water fund and approximately 20
cents a day in the sewer fund these are
Big operations they really affect the
dramatically the quality of life in our
community but we at the same time have
to pay for them
uh in The Proposal submitting to the
council I'm asking for uh 7.4 million
dollars in capital budgets again look
forward to the opportunity to go through
that with you in the department heads
and explain where these uh investments
will continue to allow us to deliver
Services build efficiencies in and again
hopefully create overall value for the
city of Schenectady detailed that prior
Slide the golf fund there's numbers
there but that fund is fluid and
actually will have zero effect on the
overall capital budget and again it's
treated as a separate fund
that uh
just one of the success stories in
Schenectady
Livingston energy has been a partner a
number of projects we've done here
they started a few years ago with two
employees today they have over a hundred
full-time equivalent employees and
installed over 2 000 charging stations
and they have 5 000 charging stations in
the pipeline
so they're now in 25 states in Canada it
is a robust in growing company and it's
just one of the many success stories
that we have within the city of
Schenectady talked about GE and their 50
million dollar investment there are a
number of entities like Livingston that
again Metroplex has helped bring in and
grow that the diversity and the vibrancy
of our economic base is really amazing
and so Livingston has been a partner in
those charging stations but also in
promoting the transition to electric
vehicles
this is National Drive electric week
our event on that will be Sunday
coinciding with the Schenectady Green
Market
we've been contenders in that for the
last three years last year we were
number one in the country in terms of
participation
we won't know until next week if we're
where we finish in this but we are in
line again to be number one in the
country
in this uh Endeavor and so if you're not
doing anything Sunday from 10 to 2 stop
down to the Green Market and swing by
the displays that we'll have out on
Liberty Street for the electric vehicle
week
our Smart City
uh
deployment continues through the cares
project it's providing for 304 access
points we've got a 193 wireless access
points deployed through the city for
Wi-Fi for public use and to support the
delivery of city services
again if you look at the utilization
it's steadily increased
we are seeing uh
in excessive 2.2 million dollar or yeah
I wish it was 2.2 million dollars 2.2
million hits a day website visits so
people are using this people are seeing
the value it's something that again
other communities have done very small
areas they do business districts they do
streets Schenectady we're building it
out city-wide again to create value to
create equity and improve overall
efficiencies within the city
uh
Thursday night uh had the opportunity it
was Wednesday night had the opportunity
to
participate in the uh 30th anniversary
of the center for technology and
governments uh Milestone at the
University at Albany they're the applied
Research Unit there they awarded the
city of Schenectady their outstanding
partner award for our work together over
the last 10 years so again we're getting
recognition for the work that we're
doing
it is humbling
from my perspective but again it
reflects on the Investments we're making
the budgetary decisions that the council
has made and it really creates real
value within the city of Schenectady
and uh with that I again look forward to
working with the council in a
thorough review as we move forward and
adopt a formal budget by the first of
November
I thank you and everyone enjoy your
weekend
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