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City Receives $2M From State Financial Restructuring Program

City of Jamestown officials have received more than $2 million from a state program aimed at helping municipalities fund cost-savings programs.

Since the creation of the state Financial Restructuring Board for Local Governments program in 2013, city officials have been granted $2,363,000 to fund financial and operations programs to cut costs. The city has received $1.5 million for the incentive and new health care subsidy for Medicare eligible city retirees; $555,000 for street and parking ramp LED light conversion project; $250,000 for debt service; and $58,000 for the creation of a fleet management report.

In December 2013, council voted to participate in the state’s volunteer program, which has up to $5 million per municipality available for cost-savings initiatives. The city was approved by the state in March 2014 for the program.

Sam Teresi, Jamestown mayor, said with more than $2.5 million still available, city officials continue to talk to state officials about funding for more cost-savings programs.

“We are in conversation with the state on a variety of other initiatives for use of the remainder of the funds,” he said. “We are looking at a variety of things, which includes possibly another round of funding for the street light program.”

In 2016, city officials were told they would be receiving $555,000 the Department of State Division of Local Government Services, which was approved by the state Financial Restructuring Board for Local Governments, to converted 1,142 high-pressure sodium bulbs to more energy-efficient LED fixtures and lights. Along with the street light change, city officials also changed to LED lights at the Main Street and Cherry Street parking ramps.

With the new Medicare subsidy program for Medicare Eligible city retirees, Teresi said sign-ups started slowly, but now they are going well, with more than 30 people enrolled.

“Many folks have signed up and people can see the value in it, and I expect that to continue,” he said. “We’re still working on the logistics on how the money will be released to the city and establishing the health care funds for the alternative Medicare insurance.”

In October, Jamestown City Council approved accepting the $1.5 million state grant to use toward authorizing Northwest Financial Services to offer a Blue Cross Medicare plans and Arcade Financial Services to offer United Healthcare Medicare plans to retirees that are on the city’s self-insured health care plan. There are around 300 retirees are on the city’s plan, which costs the city government $2.2 million a year. The current health care benefits for retirees was originally put in place, and largely still in tact, through legally approved and protected collective bargaining agreements with the various city employee unions dating back to 1987.

Teresi said in October the new health care program is similar to a health care savings account, which will pay the premiums on the new supplement programs. No checks will be given directly to retirees who select to participate in the program, but instead their Medicare subsidy premium payment each month will be subtracted from an account with an allotted allocation for each retiree. Once the allocation is depleted, the retiree would then pay for monthly premium costs.

How much of an allocation for each participating retiree depends on the union they belong to and how old they are, Joseph Bellitto, city comptroller, said in October. City officials believe that 25-30 percent of retired former city employees will participate in the program, which will be first come, first served. City officials have estimated if they reach their estimated number of participants, they will save around $600,000 in health care costs in 2018.

In September 2015, city officials passed a resolution to accept $250,00 from the state program to pay for debt service for a $3 million capital bond project. One aspect of the capital bond project was to fund energy-conservation improvements in city buildings.

In October 2016, it was announced city officials would be receiving $58,000 to hire Mercury Associates to conduct a consolidation analysis and develop an implementation plan for fleet management services.

In January, the council accepted the report from Mercury Associates. The report indicated that under the new fleet structure, city officials could eliminate the underuse/duplication of vehicles; share more nonspecialized vehicles and equipment, which includes light-duty vehicles; implement a new vehicle and equipment turnover program; and increase leverage with original equipment manufacturers for after-sales service and support.

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