Common Council - Regular Meeting

Bingo. Where do we do bingo? funded one of his films for Hello.

The Jensen memorial this morning. That was beautiful. It was really beautiful. Yeah, sometimes it's hard. Well, it's just I have three dogs, not two kids, and it's hard.

When it rains, it pours, right?

Good morning, everyone. We have some handouts for you. Oh, this is done. It's already all spread out. Yes. No idea. 95. Helen, where are you? Helen, join the club. Helen, I'll start from and work our way down. Thank you.

I didn't even see you, Jenny. Hi. One more. Good morning everyone. Before we begin today, I just want to take a brief moment and acknowledge what today is. I know councelor Moore was there as well this morning. April 14th is not a uh is not a kind day in the history of the city of Syracuse. This is the day that we lost uh Officer Jensen and I I could open it formally. How about that?

Okay. Thank you. Um welcome everybody. We've got our 10:30 session. Um our our hearing with the office of the state of the auditor. I'm joined by a whole bunch of my colleagues. We have councelor Hudson, Aaron Reichmore, NAV, Jones Rouser, Montto. We've got President Kanyagua. Um, and we have our city auditor, Alex Marin. And I I apologize. We have not met yet. Yes. Um,

oh, everyone, this is Matthew Cutney. Matthew is the newest addition to our office. Joined us just a few weeks ago, and he is the new deputy city auditor. Uh, Matthew comes to us from Albany where he was working in the New York State Senate for a while doing policy analysis. Prior to that, he worked in the District of Columbia budget office. He has a masters in public administration from George Washington University. So, we are we are really bringing in the big guns to do thoughtful policy work here in this office. And I could not be prouder to have my uh very uh longtime friend. we are uh know each other from our days doing political work in college together, but I'm so proud of everything he's accomplished and really pleased that uh we've had him here today. And as I as I started saying, you know, April 14th is not a day that we um remember fondly in the city of Syracuse. That's the day where we lost our our friends, Officer Michael Jensen and Deputy Lieutenant Michael Husach. So, I just like to ask everyone to keep them and their families in their thoughts and prayers today because this is a very hard anniversary for all of us here in the city of Syracuse.

Thank you.

So, in front of you, you should all have and counselor Williams, if I could have those two extra copies cuz I made I think we gave you our copies, too. So, in front of you, you have our annual report, which is the full annual report document, as well as this nice one-page summary that walks you through all of the work that we've done in the Department of Audit in the last year. You also have in front of you a memo that details um the work that our office does as well as our proposed budget request and this document. So what you'll see is on one side it is the administration's proposed budget. On the other side it is our proposed budget. So as you know um we have we like other departments have to submit our budget to the mayor's office and the department of budget for consideration. They decide what goes in the book but that is not necessarily what we have put forward and are advocating for. So what you have in front of you with the yellow highlights are the additions and changes that I am requesting that you all make. So I think you all know our office is busy. We keep very busy. I'm really proud of the work we've done. Last year we were able to put uh three really thoughtful audits out into the world and a a handful of other impactful policy reports. We've seen results including the city updating its um updating its vehicle and traffic laws to include blocking a bike lane as an ordinance. We've seen increased firework permit fees which we've called for as a result of our licensing audits. You recently passed an update to the city's licensing laws which models much of what we put in our licensing audit two years ago. We continue to advocate for improvements to our housing stock.

We continue to ad advocate for important tenant protections and ways to update our payment processes and claims processing to put more transparency and light into there. So, I look forward to the work that we're going to do going forward. I want to work again. It's something I've long been discussing and will continue to talk about addressing the taxexempt property crisis facing the city of Syracuse. We need to do more to make it possible so that our infrastructure is up to date. We need to be doing work to make sure our public safety forces are operating efficiently and thoughtfully. And I am here to continue doing much of that work going forward. So with that, we're happy to take any questions. I will take the easy ones. Matthew will take the hard ones

unless you have none. Officer, yes. All due respect. So, I'm I'm looking at your annual report. I'm looking at the annual report and there's two things I want to point out. Keeping cyclists safe. You did not work with me at all when I advocated for safer bicycles with VO. We've had a lot of discussions. We brought VO in here. I seem to have been the lone advocate. I wish you had had I had your back when I was advocating for the ve

that we need safety. That's very very important. Bicycling is fine, but the veil bikes is where I really needed your support because of we've had a lot of issues and I still need your I need your support. Number one. Number two, I do want to point out about the firework fees. Yes, you did advocate for that and I appreciate it, but it was the council. We voted on it. We secured that though. But I I do some I I acknowledge what you're doing for our community and how you you do push for a lot of things, but I just wanted to point out that we as a common council, we are the ones who have to vote whether we're going to renew a ve bike uh or firework fees or any other thing. And we work harder, but I did I wish I had your support on those veil bikes. So, councelor, I'd love to talk. I I could be here all day talking about those VO bikes. Um, if I may be I am a firm supporter of improved micromobility. I think micromobility and access to additional transit is very important for the city of Syracuse. And that's something we looked at in the report that we did at the end of 2024 on bike infrastructure. What I called for was opening up the bidding process for micromobility vendors and taking away their exclusivity agreement because I don't think that VO alone should have the exclusive rights to operate in the city of Syracuse because I think that there are more impactful I think that having competition in that market hard to believe uh councelor Aaron Reich and I may agree it's hard to always talk about competition in the markets but I think more competition in the market here would make a difference because I don't always know that VO is the best partner. I I'm glad in the newest

iteration of the VO contract, something else I have called for which was the increased fees that I know councelor Williams and I worked together on. We are now going to be getting a share of the revenue from the VO bikes. I think that we can be using that revenue. A smart way to use that revenue is try to dedicate that to pedestrian and cyclist improvements, including more dedicated bike lanes. I don't know that VO is necessarily always a good partner though and I think that's something you and I agree on. Always happy to work on that further and build on the record of work that we have put forward. But I think that having micromobility options and safe spaces for cyclists very important. VO is the lone corporate partner here. We I think we can and should be doing better than just VO as it stands now. I would like to point out that um in this that you just gave us um about the city auditor office, it states that the city auditor office is known as department of audit. Uh the charter requests that the auditor annually audit city operations, review cash and investments, audit licensing revenue, the issues and issue audits and reports making accommodations to the improvements of mun municipal administration as they see fit. They being you. Correct?

Yes. Okay.

In the previous um program responsibilities, it says that the responsibilities of the city auditor are the specifics of the city's charter ordered by the common council or the mayor. And I just wanted to point out because we just had a a minor conversation that uh a few common counselors have asked you um to do specific audits um in which they one was met with microaggression. Um another may not have received what they requested at all. Um, and so as they see fit seems to be like the the running uh thing where what you want to do is is takes top precedence versus what's requested.

Well, first of all, that's the language that's in the charter. It is and I'd refer you to the language in the charter. It is to make make recommendations for the improvement of municipal administration as they see fit. I I do not understand or I'm not familiar with what you mean by microaggression and I I'm not familiar with that request. I know when people have reached out with requests for information. I considered it microaggression. I don't know what you're referring to. Okay. If could you please explain for the group? We can we can talk offline.

No, I' I'd like to have that conversation in open transparent form. So please what do you mean by microaggression? So when m when councelor Moore requested a audit, you replied to her saying that you couldn't do that audit and that you didn't have the the um resources to do so. Um as well as the um time frame you couldn't do it in the the letter that counselor Moore sent me asked for I wasn't done.

Oh, I apologize. You also stated you also stated to her, I don't know if it was in the letter or verbally, that you um requested specific um job additions last year and you weren't funded that. That's where I felt the microaggression came in because you were holding that we didn't um budget for whatever you requested last year, so you were holding that against the request of the council.

So, let me say two things to that. Number one, it is a fact that I requested additional positions from the council last year, and it is a fact that they did not put additional positions in my budget. I am not going to stop advocating for the continued support and independence of this office and making sure it is properly resourced. That is something I've done since the moment I got elected, the moment I walked in the door of this building, and I will continue doing as long as the voters of the city of Syracuse will have me. needs um additional staff requit and I will be uh asking for the resources I need to do the work that I need to do. I think it is especially appropriate if the common council would like to make requests of this department that they should be providing the additional resources. As you will see in the memo I just gave you, I have the smaller I have a smaller headcount than I had when I came into this office. And the last time someone in my role, my immediate predecessor was asked to undertake a special project by the council when there were two examples of that. One was the redistricting initiative to which additional staff was supplied to the office. And second, at the time of the previous police staffing study, they were given a $300,000 budget for outside consultants. That's just that is just the history here. When I received councelor Moore's letter, and I think all of our conversation happened in writing. We have not I had the opportunity for a face-to-face meeting since February. We had what I responded to her letter. So it is clear in that letter I was asked to do an audit of five years worth of police and fire department spending in six weeks that would violate the standards of the government accountability office that I have to follow when performing an

audit. So that was not going to happen because I'm not going to do an audit that violates auditing standards because that would jeopardize the independence of this office and the integrity of our findings. And did you relay it to her in the letter? Yes, that was the second paragraph of the letter that you could do it in a specific time frame, not that time frame or that you just couldn't do it. I said that I could not do what was asked of me in that time frame because it would be a violation of our offices chartermandated responsibility to follow auditing standards when performing audits. I also proceeded to respond by the yellow book standards.

Those are yellow book standards. Yes. I also said I also provided in that response which was about five pages in length a it was two pages I what two pages it was two p front and back one two pages

I sent someone a five-page letter I apologize um I sent a a respon response at length which went through the previous work I have done on public safety matters that I believe should merit a discussion before we proceed with new large undertakings of that topic. My office led the police staffing study. We spent a tremendous amount of time and effort and resources, including $150,000 of taxpayer funds on an outside consultant to do the police staffing study. I did not get a committee meeting on that. I did not get a response from the council on that. After that was published, not one person from the council reached out to me to discuss the findings or the recommendations from it. I have had a number of conversations with the police department on that. I look forward to working on implementation work with them, but I have not had that discussion with any member of the common council since we did that and I anticipate we would be getting the same response on another audit. But I think that it is important that we are focused on delivering results in our office and that's why we put so much time and effort into the previous police staffing study and again I am not going to violate the rules that I am compelled to follow to do something on an abbreviated time frame just to say that we have done it. We are going to do things slowly, methodically by the literal book to make sure when we produce findings and recommendations, they stand the test of time. They are tested, they are correct, they are accurate, and they are defensible.

Did you inform counselor Moore that you had already done the police study and that she could come in and I have given her copies of it twice? We spoke about it um before she uh assumed office. Well, since we're talking about me, let me just jump in here. Um, when I asked for the audit, I was asking to really take a deep dive into overtime and what was driving overtime. That was part of my request. When you came back, your response was you could not do it because of reports you did two years ago. So, I sent you another letter asking you to please complete it in 6 months to which I received no response. I didn't receive a second letter from you. That was the resolution. Okay. The resolution.

Well, that was not a letter. the resolution happened and we did a resolution and no one called me ahead of the resolution coming to this body and no one discussed the resolution with me. I found out about it when I opened I guess my point here. Um, can I say something out of fairness? I'm sorry, Council Moore, but Alex, I've known you for a long time, so I'm gonna say this respectfully. We don't have to call you before we put a resolution on the table. So, don't sit here and talk to us like we're doing something wrong. And certainly don't sit here and talk to us like you're scolding us cuz I'm going to take offense to that. You know as well as I do, you've been in city government for a long time. We can put a resolution on the table without calling a single person because that is our jobs as a 10-elected body. You are certainly welcome to do that.

Okay, we need to get back to the budget discussion. But I will let finish.

I just want to finish because I think it's important that one of the biggest drivers of our budget is police and fire and to look at a 2-year-old report is not helpful to me as a new counselor going forward to understand what is driving our overtime with the police and fire as well as their take-home vehicles. It was an honest request as someone new as a chair for that committee to ask for that information and you as the auditor that's who I asked it from. Um I did read your report from 2024 which was helpful but it doesn't give me all the information I need to make a good budget good sound decision on the budget for this year. So I just want to say that is that is where that is at. Um I don't want to get into an argument about it. It was a, you know, a request for something that I felt we needed as a council to be able to make informed decisions on our budgets this year. That's it.

Thank you. End of story. Let's continue with the budget discussion, please.

The two yellow lines in here. Yes. If if I'm reading it correctly, you are asking for an additional or you did your request to the mayor was for an additional 30,000 in temporary services. Yes. And you're looking at next fiscal year to add an additional position to your office. Yes. I would Well, it is two positions, one full-time, one part-time. I already have one part-time employee. That's Debbie Summers over here. I would like to add a full-time auditor one and a part-time auditor one.

And what what is the value ad for the taxpayer?

I think it is I think that what we are able to produce in our office is a value ad for our community. We're able to give everyone a stronger understanding of what is behind policy decisions and we like to look at implementation. We like to see how implementation works. We like to see how good ideas are being implemented where we have opportunities for revenue generation where we have opportunities for cost savings areas where I know we certainly all agree and we'd like to do now that we have such an established body of work with a number of audits and many reports on a host of issues published. We want to be going back and looking at the followup on many of the recommendations we've put forward and I know Matthew uh can share some of his vision for that as well.

Yeah. So to the with these two positions by adding an additional auditor and a part-time auditor we would have two auditing teams. So we can have uh similar audits and reports happening simultaneously or we can take on these larger scale audits um similar to the ones that the council is requesting. Um so that is the uh value ad that this could provide. You know if we're having mandates of our office they do need to be funded. Um so that's really what we're requesting here. Alex, right now you have oop, sorry. You have how many part times and how many times? I have one part-time. What do we have?

I have in my full times we have Matthew as deputy city auditor. We have Mike Guggurt who is an auditor 3. We have my secretary uh who is also new to city government, Raj Biswas, and that is the full-time compliment in the office. And we have Debbie Summers as our part-time auditor one. and I have a great team and I'm immensely grateful for them. I think that again overall if we can expand capacity there's more folks to work on more issues.

Yeah. And I would like to say also add that the department of audit we're largely looking at performance audits and that really is that value for money question that we keep addressing. Um we've recently been expanding our work into the budget analysis. Um we've been doing this for the past two years. We will release that report soon. um also a city budget workbook um to be used by lawmakers and the public as well. Um so that's really that additional capacity is to do more finding that value for money, providing recommendations, looking at impacts of state and federal decisions on Syracuse um and many other things that could benefit the public. Christine Whiteside is no longer with you.

She has moved on to greener pastures. I'm very excited for. She started her own business and she's kind of doing her own uh she does some event planning and fundraising consulting and um I am not a morning person. She is. She gets up at 4:00 a.m. goes to the gym, walks her dog, is done working by 1:00 in the afternoon and walks her dog again. And I'm very happy for her. She's she's doing really great. She's doing great on her own. Can Can I ask a question, Alex? Um, when you hire for your office, is it the are these jobs posted or are you just allowed to hire whoever you want? They're posted. Okay.

I I can make the decision of who to hire for. I ultimately can decide, but they are they are publicly posted.

Okay. And I'll say when we were recently hiring for both the deputy role and the secretary role um for those who don't know my previous deputy Kyle Madden has also moved on to greener pastures as the policy chief in the new democratic majority of the county legislature. Um when we were hiring for both of those roles we met and spoke with a number of impressive qualified candidates. I think that there is, you know, really enjoyed going through that process, but I'm incredibly happy with the folks that we landed on and I hope you all take time to get to know both of them because I think that they are, we are lucky to have, you know, bright, successful folks like these people who want to come in and be part of city government. So, I do hope you take the time to get to know them. an auditor of

Yes. I don't want to call you by your first name because, you know, I want to be formal. I answer to a lot worse than that, too. But you're looking for an auditor. Are you looking for a certified public accountant that could handle certain things like an audit for us? So, for the auditor one job title, being a CPA is not a requirement. I do not for the salary of an auditor one which is about starts in the low 50s you probably would not be able to get a CPA at that price. Okay. Um I would love to have a CPA in the office with the salary ranges that we are given. You would not be able to hire a CPA at those at those salaries.

Can we go to the um your proposed budget on that? Yes. Contractual and other expenses. Yes. Cuz I'm looking at the adopted, the projected, and the estimated. It's going it's a wide range. 25,190, 16,920, and 49120. Sorry. Where you're seeing contractual the professional the professional services for outside legal counsel. That's familiar, right? Contractual and other expenses. actual and other expenses that rolls up to that level.

Oh, okay. So, yes, the uh the big r the Okay, I I see what you're looking at. Contractual and other expenses, you know, that's the big piece of that is our outside legal counsel. That's $25,000. that is something that we are mandated to have in the city charter thanks to a charter amendment that was passed by the voters in 2023. So that is kind of the that is the bull work of that. But additionally we have under professional services we have funding for membership and organizations like the uh New York State Government Finance Officers Association that is that all rolled up into that?

Yes. The 49. Yes. If you're looking at the gray line here, everything below that kind of adds up to that. Okay. Okay. And by the way, I would uh like to also take this opportunity uh speaking of some of the funding in here for professional professional development to congratulate my staff because over the last two years, we met the yellow book requirement for 80 hours each of continuing professional education. And I am very very pleased and impressed with everyone for putting in the time and effort to learn and keep up with the skills of you know auditing government accounting and the work of our profession.

Everybody else sit. Yeah. Right. Well, gentlemen, thank you for your time. Thank you. Negative emotions.