Jamestown could receive $28 million in COVID relief.

The first budget Jamestown Mayor Eddie Sundquist created may not look like the same spending plan by the time the Jamestown City Council is done with it today.

At 7:30 p.m., the council will be holding its regular monthly voting session meeting with the approval of the 2021 city budget being the highest priority on its list. Following last week’s special budget meeting, it’s highly likely several amendments will be made to Sundquist’s executive budget, which he first released on Oct. 8.

One of the amendments will most likely be not including the proposed change in health insurance coverage for Medicare-eligible city retirees. Earlier this month, Sundquist and the council publicly discussed the proposed change that could save the city $1.1 million in health care costs. Sundquist said the change to his original proposal, which was going to be a Medicare supplement plan, is to move Medicare-eligible retirees from the city’s self-insured plan to a fully-insured plan with United Health Care.

He said city retirees over the age of 65 would have the same medical, vision and dental coverage, with some additional coverage the city’s plan currently doesn’t offer. He said the only aspect that will be different is the personal insurance card would no longer have the city of Jamestown logo, but would have the United Health Care logo.

Last week, Kim Ecklund, At-Large councilwoman and Finance Committee chairwoman; Marie Carrubba, Ward 4; Tom Nelson, Ward 6; Tamu Graham-Reinhardt, At-Large; Jeff Russell, At-Large; and Anthony Dolce, Ward 2 councilman and president; said they don’t think the proposal should remain in the budget, with one reason being that the change was not negotiated with the city’s six collective bargaining units.

“Given that we have to vote on a budget in a week, I don’t think it’s the right time,” Dolce said last week. ‘The last thing we want to do on a budget this important is just push it through.”

Another amendment could be how much revenue is in the proposed budget because a majority of the council is not in favor of doubling the cost at downtown parking meters. The proposed budget included $69,000 in revenues for increasing parking meter costs and a proposal to increase the cost of fines.

Vickye James, Ward 3 councilwoman, said the proposal to possibly give people a free 20 minutes is exciting, but because of the unknowns surrounding the pandemic, she doesn’t believe it’s the right time to make a change.

“If it wasn’t COVID time and it looks like we’re getting ready to have a second wave,” she said.

Additional budget amendments could include using $200,000 less in the contingency fund; adding $200,000 to projected sales tax revenues; eliminating new hirees; and no new equipment purchases.

During the special budget meeting, Ecklund said even with all of the proposed changes to the executive budget, about $500,000 in fund balance will still need to be used to balance the spending plan. Ryan Thompson, city comptroller, said the city at the end of 2019 had an unreserved fund balance of $3.9 million.

Dolce said the council for many years has been conservative and cautious in using the fund balance, but he doesn’t see any other choice.

“We’ve been able to build it up through the years,” he said. “I don’t want to have to use it.”

The council has a Dec. 1 deadline to pass a budget or the mayor’s proposal becomes the spending plan next year. The mayor has five days after Dec. 1 to propose any vetos to the council’s approved budget. The council then has a veto override deadline of Dec. 20, which would require two-thirds vote of the council to overturn any mayoral vetos.

In other business, the council is slated to vote on a shared municipal services agreement with the Chautauqua County Emergency Medical Services for paramedic and advances life support emergency services within the city. Sundquist said earlier this month if the agreement is approved, the county’s fly-car emergency services program would be able to start billing for services they provide in the city. Currently, there is no billing mechanism in the city for the fly-car emergency services program. He said the system would only respond to an emergency when ALSTAR EMS is unable to answer the call. The agreement is similar to the ones the county has with Dunkirk and other municipalities in the county. According to the resolution, 40% of the revenue collected from the emergency services call would be paid to the county while 60% would be retained by the city.

The council is also slated to vote on possibly entering into an agreement to install speed violation monitoring systems in school zones to ticket vehicles exceeding the speed limit. Sundquist said Jamestown could be included in a pilot program to use the monitoring system to capture video or photo of anyone exceeding more than 11 mph in a school zone, with the speed limit in school zones being 20 mph. He said the enforcement technology would only be used during school hours.

Russell said the way the resolution is worded is that the owner of the vehicle would be fined. He asked what if someone is borrowing the vehicle and the owner is not the one exceeding the speed limit. Sundquist said there will be an affidavit process so people can fight the fine to say that they weren’t the ones driving at the time. He said the technology is a high-quality photo or video so it will be effective in determining if the owner was driving the vehicle at the time.

Sundquist said this is the first step of the process, which needs to be supported via home rule legislation by both state Sen. George Borrello, R-Sunset Bay, and Assemblyman Andy Goodell, R-Jamestown. Sundquist said if Jamestown is accepted into the program, it will start next year.

The council also discussed a corresponding resolution to hire Sensys Gatso USA of Beverly, Mass., to install the speed violation monitoring systems in school zones at a rate of $18 per a paid violation. According to a staff report provided to the media with the council meeting agenda, the city’s share of a $50 ticket would be $32.