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What Will Happen Next With The City’s Budget Plan?

Mayor Sam Teresi’s proposed 2020 budget is much the same as his last two budgets.

It spends what they city can spend to pay for services that have to be provided. There are no sexy new programs, unless one counts the Smart Cities Investment Plan the mayor unveiled a few weeks ago. There are no new positions included in the budget because there is no way to pay for them. There are no new programs to get people excited because the city has precious few resources to pay for those, either. There will be money to provide basic city services.

Thank goodness for New York state’s commitment to continue appropriating $1 million to the city to help balance the budget. The logical question, then, is what happens next?

Right now, Jamestown has a $3,439,689 fund balance built largely on the generosity of Gov. Andrew Cuomo. The city has eked out surpluses the last three years because it received the additional $1 million each year from the state as city officials worked to find room to work under the state’s constitutional tax limit. The city is now in its third year at the tax limit, and the major transformational change needed to reduce spending or appreciably build the tax base hasn’t yet come to fruition.

At the same time, the city has two millstones that could be tied to its neck at any time. The city is likely looking at an $880,000 bill to pay for its Public Employee Relations Board-imposed contract with the Kendall Club Police Benevolent Association unless a New York state court surprisingly rules in favor of the city’s appeal of the arbitration award. A similar settlement is likely for city firefighters once they formally file the necessary paperwork to move the process to arbitration. Assuming the cost to settle the firefighters’ contract is about the same as it could be for police officers, Jamestown’s $3,439,689 surplus will be cut in half simply by writing two checks.

How far will $1.5 million go moving forward? Not far, especially if Cuomo’s generosity or patience with the city’s slow-improving finances runs out.

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