City Council - public_hearing

He asked me, how much more do we need for electric or water? This year we're going to need electric. We're going to need water. For sure, we're coming up short. I know on both. So we determine where we can take that money, what line can we take it from. And then we come here, a lot of it will come out of the contingency. I don't have the numbers here for the previous years. I mean, that's not why I was here. I'm here to answer questions, which unfortunately this one I can't.

It looks like you took some money out of your fund balance this year as well.

We did.

And where did that go? Where did that go? If you were spending all your contingency, then you're spending money out of your fund balance as well?

The fund balance number we get from Mr. Robinson. He gives us what the fund balance is each year. So that's what number goes into the budget. Yeah, again, I don't have all this in front of me, which I should, I guess. The previous year, If it's not in here, then it's not been entered into the system. I know we've transferred out of the contingency, because we come here before you to do that. You have to authorize all our transfers for the comptroller. He's not here tonight. He could answer these questions, but he said he wasn't going to be here tonight, so I can't answer that question clearly. But I know we do come in and we transfer money. We're going to be here for, again, electric. We're going to be here for water and any... I don't know about any other lines right now. He was at our meeting this afternoon and reviewed the lines, and he knows there's going to be some transfers we're going to need. Chuck comes to our board meetings as our fiscal advisor, so...

So would the answer to your question, Robert, be if there was money that, if the fund balance at the end of 2025 increased, if the unexpended fund balance increased, that would tell you if contingency was used versus other deltas in the budget line, right? I'm just thinking of a way to shortcut the answer without going through every line.

That would, well, that would tell us overall, yes. It wouldn't tell us, yes, it would tell us overall if there was money left, yes, yeah. So, and I know. Versus, well, unless it was some other way.

At least for the fund balance question, I believe part of that had to do with the sewer credit study that was authorized.

Yes, so the.

Back in May.

That was part of the expenditure, yeah.

The money that was authorized for the sewer credit was not out of fund balance, it was out of the reserve funds that were set aside for the joint sewer board. So it wasn't the fund balance. The fund balance is refunded to all the municipalities every year. It means you have a separate capital reserve that doesn't. Correct, and that's where the money, the 350,000 we transferred for the flow credit study came out of that account. The monies that are left over at the end of the year are refunded back to the owners and the participating municipalities, which I don't have it, but last year was in the neighborhood of $2 million.

which is which is well and good but that's that's it's that's two million dollars we overpaid essentially and it comes back to the city coffers but that doesn't necessarily get reflected on ratepayers because we've already set those so we're collecting more money from our constituents than we necessarily need to

sorry at the end of the year when the plant refunds the money for the for the for the final bill when you get the money when the city gets the money the village gets the money what you do with it whether you just put it in your sewer fund or what you do with it is up to you if you want to give your your residents a break then you could pass that on down but i don't know if i've ever seen that happen but that's that's giving

money back to the future people maybe and not the people that were charged or the time that it was, it's better not to extract the money in the first place. Which brings us back to the budget and where there are, how much wiggle room is where and I look to, you know, I, again, if it was a $2 million refund last year, then somehow there was $2 million floating around in the budget. at the end of the day.

Yeah, the exact numbers, I'm not sure some of the money that was left at the end of the year, we transferred the reserve fund. We're going to have to continue to build reserves. We've got three digesters, two of which are going to need major overhauls. So we continue to put some money aside for for those overhauls because it's probably well over a million dollars each just for an overhaul.

So but all right.

Again, at the end of last year there was approximately $2 million refunded to the municipalities. And yet we're sitting here with a budget that if you take out the non-operational savings, which we had a decrease in our debt services and our local system costs, I believe as well, whatever. It was about $750,000. So the budget eats up all of that savings and that makes for an overall operational increase of about 1.25 million, I think. So it's a 13% operational increase in the budget when the municipalities got refunded $2 million last year. So I'm not trying, I don't think I'm trying to nitpick, I'm trying to say there's stuff in this budget that won't happen. It's been over, and the sewage treatment plant is so important and we don't want single points of failure and it can't go out of service, but there must be wiggle room in here if that much is left over being refunded to municipalities every year. And I would like to be able to take some of that into account during our budget season that's coming up. Which means being smarter about how we allocate money over here. Not trying to short the plant on stuff it needs, but recognizing that there is a significant amount left on the table at the end of the year.

Right, well, there's so many variables, you know, the plant has to operate with. If just one thing from listening back there, the 120,000 for all three in the same year, maybe we, you know, do them, you know, 40,000 a year times three years, then repeat when it's due again.

Sure, so that brings us to the comprehensive facility plan, which is supposed to be maintained by the future planning committee. Do we have such a document?

beginning of last year, the beginning of this year, beginning of 25, I delivered a five-year plan, both the village and the city, and we're working within that five-year plan.

So in the bylaws, There's a future planning committee that is supposed to, semi-annually, sorry, so that's twice a year, review the comprehensive facility plan. Does this exist, and does it have these things in it? And how we're looking at maintenance schedules. And I'm not meaning to direct this at you in particular, Bruce, I'm just, as a general,

Like, it's not on your head here, I'm just... No, no, no, I understand that. And I provided that document today for a different reason, but the five-year plan is what we put together. It was delivered, like I say, to both mayors and the boards, and we're looking at that now to see what we need to change in that five-year plan. because it's the second year of the plan, what we got done, and where we're going from there. As far as the reference that's in there, I can't answer that because I've not seen that document. It was before my time.

I can find out if we have that document. This is supposed to be a living document that is reviewed semi-annually. I agree. And if that's not the way it's being done, maybe the five-year plan is what is being used, but... Also, that's not taking into account the shorter things, like we're looking at the multiple maintenance contracts. So one of my questions would be, all right, which one should we have done last year and which one can we put off one more year to stagger these out and smooth the budget?

Right. I agree with that. And then, you know, Howard can, you know, can give us a better idea on that as far as if there's anything else we can push off a year. That's what you're looking for. Move some of this money to the next year or two years.

Smoothing things where they can be smoothed. But just overall, You have wiggle room in a lot of lines, it seems like. And then we have a contingency on top of that, which going into this, given what I was given to review, I would say, oh, we haven't touched contingency in years. Why are we operating contingency? Which that might not be the case, but I should have had updated budget documents then.

So. Well, if we cut numbers down too short, on any of them, we'll be here all the time asking for transfers. We can't transfer money from line to line, as you know. We have to come to the city to do that.

Right, but I wouldn't mind a few extra budget transfers every year to not have a $2 million refund at the end of the year. To cut that in half would be great. I would take a quarter of that as good progress. Okay.

So, to echo... Sorry, I didn't, I hijacked the whole meeting. No, I think it's valid. I mean, I'm new here, too. I started in January, congratulations. I would like to see some more consideration given to some more philosophical and strategic planning. I mean, we can go line by line and compare cost of Post-it notes and things like that, but that doesn't really help an overarching philosophy of how we, How we manage so, you know, I think Councilmember Cavanaugh is correct in saying that we want this to work and we want you know the regulations to be appropriate and we want you to have the Supplies that you need and the equipment that you need and electricity cost a lot of money and all of that But I think for me staffing might be a good example to consider something We're considering in the village to how much more are we paying? for overtime and for extra salary costs now than hiring and staffing appropriately, and how can I help?

That would be you. No.

I can tell you that the plant staff and the business manager, they work hard on their budget. They start at the end of May, and then once they're done, then the board sits down and we go through it, and we ask them about all the same numbers, and yes, if our plant engineer feels that this needs to be done this year, it's his expertise. then we'll go for it. But yeah, I agree, the jobs need to get done within that year. If we're gonna give them $50,000 for a pump, then let's get that pump on order so it's on the shelf or updated.

And for me, part of this is certainly a learning experience, but we do have to translate this into regular English for the people that we are responsible to. So that'll be a longer conversation, though.

Yes, that would be. I'm not sure what else I can help you with here. Again, I don't know about the contingency. I don't have those numbers here in front of me because that's not something from previous years. It should be on the sheet, but I don't.

We can get an update, right? We can get an update. Thanks. Thank you, Mr. King. Okay.

I know the budget format you have here in front of you was generated from Munis by the city. Why it doesn't show a budget being changed, we could check with Mr. Robinson and see if that could be corrected.

Councilman Cavanaugh, are we looking to request that we get those updates or some sort of notification on the semiannual review going forward? Is there an ask there?

I mean, yes, there's an ask there, but I don't like there is there is there is room in this budget I am fairly certain but where to find that room I mean so contingency is obviously the one of the easier places to look but if it's being spent even though we've not seen that it's being spent that's a concern and then again you know if there is you know things like the safety coordinator has been empty for more than a year like we can leave it oh we can leave it there we can leave it open but not fund the position until we find somebody you know we can fund those as needed maybe same thing for one of the mechanics until we find somebody

Keep going.

I guess I was asking relating to the kind of the board oversight and the board following its own bylaws piece, what we're actually asking for.

I think that's follow up on our part now. Pushing for some more action maybe from our board members.

Communication from the board.

Communication, yeah.

So it seems like they're not actually doing the semiannual, so I guess we'll need them to tell us when they start doing it so that we know what dates to be contacting them.

Or at least what they're doing in place of that, which sounds like just this five year plan, which is okay, but not what is being called for, so. just anyway um any thoughts doug no i i mean i i do agree and if you provided direction to the board like i think they would uh satisfy whatever that well i mean so again my my my three points would be looking at this doc looking at this i would say There's $200,000 easily in contingency that hasn't gotten spent in the last couple of years, but that might not be true. I would say we have positions that have been open for a while that can be unfunded until you find somebody. And if we need to transfer later to fill them, great. But if not, that's somebody we've dealt with. And my other one would be electricity, but that hasn't been fixed really. So when we've eaten our increases around the city already and are not anticipating double-digit percentage increases you folks are still anticipating double-digit electricity increases going into next year so that would be where I would I would look to bring in the numbers without causing a million different budget transfers later but I'm not confident in any one of those solutions right now I mean, and so I'm looking to guidance from you. As the person who does the budget transfers, I don't mind.

They're necessary.

Thoughts, fellow electeds? Has there ever been a comprehensive facility plan that you guys are aware of, referencing any?

Yes, I believe that Bruce had done one in 2025. He was chair of the committee. And it was distributed out. And I know that he started in June of this year reconvening that committee to reexamine that document again.

Okay.

The comprehensive facility plan is part of the overall flow management plan, so it has to exist. Can you speak into the mic? The comprehensive facility plan is part of the overall flow management plan, so it has to exist.

Okay. Just so you know. So I think that it has to exist, but if there was a way for you to reference where in that plan any of the budget changes What what objective they're they're achieving? I think that just makes it so much easier to justify it Like if you're the part of that plan is to reduce single points of failure And any downtime then it's like okay here you're being responsive to the facility Comprehensive plan and that's why we have this conveyor Because we recognize a single point of failure And that's why we have it in the budget And we're trying to address it over a certain time frame. So I think that would just be easier for communication from the folks that actually work there with the boards that are overseeing it. Just to be like, this is why we're doing this, because it's part of this plan, and that's how we justify it. I think that's... That's how I see this being a smoother process. And if we all recognize this, if it's all agreed to, the comprehensive facility plan, and that it's thorough and comprehensive, as the name is, I think that helps. It's going to help us with budgeting and just general oversight. So that's what's going through my brain right now. But we can move forward, or somebody else can take the floor.

Well I have a suggestion. Before we go on to the next steps I wanted to see if we are in favor of a break. We've been here for almost an hour over an hour and a half. So if we want to take like a 10 or 15 minute break Break. Is that a five? Five, oh yeah, five, 10, five. Break, just use the bathroom. There's some pizza downstairs.

There's a bathroom up here and there's bathrooms downstairs. And there's bathrooms in the hallway.

Yep, there's bathrooms in the hallway. Lots of bathrooms. There's water, stuff downstairs. There's also some pizza.

So if you guys, we can take a five, 10 minute break.

I'll make a motion, second. Motion and a second. Any discussion regarding the break? We said five minutes. The time now is 7.31, so I'd say 7.40 we'll be back. Yep, you're welcome. All in favor? Aye. Thank you.

I'll have a piece of pizza. I'm starving. I'll have a piece of pizza. I'm starving.

Where's the pizza? Downstairs. Oh, downstairs, yeah.

What do you think?

What is the objective right now? I'm confused.

Oh, you know, every year we go through this line by line, and we usually cut money out of every line. We did nothing this year.

Well, why don't we, like, if we get two, if it was two million surplus from the previous year.

That's why I asked about the fund balance.

So, yeah, I don't, why don't we keep it as last year's budget? Keep it the same as last year and don't do an increase.

Because of the fuel costs and the diesel.

The fuel costs and the personnel costs.

Yeah. But I don't know.

I still don't raise the budget well. The contingency bothers me. They spend the contingency like it's water.

Thank you. Amen. Thank you.

Thank you.

I know I left my water in the car.

I don't like the acoustics in here.

Like I have trouble hearing what Robert's saying.

Oh, it's 740.

I was just saying to Robert on... Okay, that's what he was talking about. Why is that zero if they give $2 million out? Why is this line zero if they give $2 million out? You know what I mean?

Yeah.

There's gotta be a way to show that refund somewhere.

But why don't we just ask? We need more information at this point, so.

On that part at least.

Yeah.

So Keegan, can we pass this thing tonight?

I can't stand meetings that don't start on time.

I can't go check on my mother yet, and it's getting dark.

She's going to start freaking out.

Well, I just, to me, some of the items looks like they just arbitrarily pulled a number, you know, like the chemicals.

Yeah.

I'm gonna have one of my associates research it. Because I think that can save you a lot of time. Yeah.

We shouldn't be doing a little bit of it.

We're not big enough.

Some of these huge Dutchess.

Well, aren't they all state-bid? Yeah.

All right, let's get this party started. You can start.

Turn the power on first.

Moving on to state retirement.

So this would be 580000A, State Retirement for Salaried Employees, 148705. Those numbers are supplied by the Comptroller's Office, New York State. We are 18.2% of the City of Binghamton employee calculation.

So I was... Surprised so are we looking at some major. Changes to our state retirement contributions to the city, but we have a lot of 2, 6, employees understand that you don't get the plan. So you're not seeing that. But not that big adjustment that we have to swallow. Yeah.

And right below that for the hourly would be, again, a modest increase for 2027 to 346,979. Of course, those numbers we don't have control over. Social Security, again, calculated as a percentage of salary amounts for... Salaried employees, 68,800, 2027, which is a slight decrease from 2026. And for the hourly, 180,814, which is a slight increase from 2026. Workers' compensation. Our contract was just renewed with Workers' Alliance. And we went down a little, so. For the salaried line, it comes in at 23,200. For the hourly employees, 56,300. So for the total compensation package would be 79,500 for 2027, which is down from 82,700 for 2026. We have safe employees.

Is that because of vacancies?

That's because of our occurrence rate was able to afford us that reduction. Unemployment insurance remains unchanged at $1,000. Disability insurance, and I'm gonna admit up front that I need to sit down with Mr. Robinson on this one. Because we have a negative account balance. We have more money than we know what we're doing with in disability insurance, although it's not large. But the proposed budget for 2027 is down by $2, so $40. for salaried and down from 56 to $50 for hourly employees. Health insurance. The first line being salaried employees. Proposed 2027 of $200,000. That is a slight decrease from 2026, but it was calculated based on the actual expenses over the last three years of that line. So the same goes to 2027. Or excuse me, the same goes for the hourly employees in 2027. Our proposed budget is $600,000 and was examining the three-year expenses. I think I worked with our vendor and added about a 16% predicted increase when we developed this. Health insurance buyout, which is a contractual component. budgeted the same, $15,000 for salaried employees, and the next line, $20,000 for hourly employees. 58002C, which is our retiree health insurance, that has an increase is going up to $121,000. And we use the same insurance program as the city of Binghamton does. Other benefits. On the first line, the sick time buyback salary. Same $15,000. That's an end of the year expense. For the hourly employees, again, the same budgeted line of $15,000. I know that you might note it that the extended or the encumbered part is 7,500. That's retirees that have accrued throughout the year. Vacation buyback for salaried employees Again, that's the end of the year is the majority of those. Budgeted at $15,000, no change. And the same with the hourly employees, $20,000, no change. And that is the budget presentation portion. Okay.

Did you do any changes to the organizational chart or did you just?

He said were there any changes to the organizational chart?

I don't think there was any changes. Okay. It's all the same.

Okay.

Is there anything?

So, I mean, I think there's some unresolved questions on what we're looking at for contingency here. I think there's room in this budget. I would, I would like to see roughly a half a million dollars out of this budget, based on what's been refunding municipalities previously. I would, off the top of my head, not off the top of my head, after thinking about this for a while, looking at again leaving these positions in the budget but defunding them for now and just the ones you fill you fill and you know that that you're drawing from that overall personnel money but and you can you know fill them as you need them and if you fill two out of the three or four positions, then you come back and say, hey, we need that other money now. We're searching for, you know, we filled two of them. We're looking for two of them. I would say the safety person maybe and pick two of the hourlies, one a mechanic and one whichever. I don't, but whatever those amounts come out to, roughly. That would get us to about 225 there. Not planning for worst case in chemicals, just taking 50K off of there. 50K off the maintenance agreement projects because I think there's probably gonna be some money in there between all of those, all of those undertakings is gonna be a little bit. And then the big question would be contingency, has it really been spent or not? And I would be, looking to only leave 50 or $100,000 in there, if it hasn't been touched. If we come back and, oh yes, it has been spent, it has been spent, then my opinion changes. But that's my opinion, that's what I would like to see. So, thoughts?

Yeah, of course.

I went back through my files. Technology is great. In looking at the sheets that we use, that the board uses for tracking the budget, which is the same numbers, different format than what you guys use. But I went back, I looked in 2024, the contingency fund, we expended $51,750. In 2025, again, according to the data I have, 19,340 in 2025. I thought I also saw one in here. For 2026, we haven't touched it yet. but we will be. And again, we go down by, you know, the lines we try to take from lines that we're not gonna expand before we touch the contingency, because in a real pinch, that contingency all in one lump sum is a quick in and out to get it, you know. If we need a pump from, you know, Australia or something, we need a lot of money, we need it quick. Their contingency is one line, we can get authorization from you folks, and away we go. Until we put money into the specific line where we need it, obviously, you know, we can't touch any other money. You know, we can't just say, oh, well, the money's there, order the part, and then we come to you folks, because you could say no. So it's... But that's, and I did check. I reached out to somebody and checked. They're not sure about even the existence of the comprehensive plan you're talking about, but we do have the five-year plan that we put together, and that you should all have. If you weren't on the board a year ago, then possibly your predecessor, the mayor should have it.

You should have it, and the board.

I believe I put them in a little red folder back when I delivered them to the clerks.

Is there an appetite to do amending tonight? Get some questions answered and come back? Or just bite the bullet?

Do you wanna, would you like to do that? You wanna get some questions answered and then come back? Or how would everyone's feel?

Well there's a lot of unanswered questions, right?

Okay, so you wanna wait and find out the answers to the questions, correct? Is that what you're saying, Mary? Okay, I guess before we do that, is there a list, like I guess, so that way when we come back we can get those, if we can get that, settled right now like with a list of any questions that need to be answered because then after that we could make the amendments and then vote on the budget because we have till september 24th is that the date for the lawyers okay yes it's september 24th we have to vote on it by then So I guess what we'll do, if anybody has questions, we'll get the questions out of the, I mean, see what everybody has questions on. And then after that, we'll set up another time for everyone to meet. So that way we can make the amendments and then vote on the budget before September 24th, if that's okay.

I'm happy to condense them, kind of be the.

Yeah, so yeah. And she'll condense them.

And I'll CC all of you.

I think to Councilman Kavanaugh's point, I think sharpening the pencil. I mean, in the years past, we've gone line for line and we've cut as we've gone line for line. We've all saw it. Most of us have sat through that before. This year, we didn't cut anything. We just listened and we asked questions.

Well, we didn't make any amendments yet, so that's why there's no cutting yet.

I really think, to Mr. Cavanaugh's point, the pencils need to be sharpened and come back and present us with something more applicable to our appetites in terms of funding.

Mr. Trustee Walker, is there a line in here that you think that you want them to focus on so that way they can come back to it?

I think Mr. Kavanaugh spoke well about it and I'm good with that.

Mr. Councilmember Cavanaugh, is there a line that we could have them go on?

Again, depending on what the real answers are to contingency, I would roughly here, if we were going through and doing this right now, I would say take $190,000 out of contingency, $72,000 from the salaried personnel line, 148,000 from the hourly personnel line, 50,000 out of chemicals, and 50,000 out of maintenance agreements.

If you can read my chicken scratch.

back of the envelope plan, if we were going and doing it right now. But I think having all this out here, getting some questions answered, and then reconvening is probably the more comprehensive way to do this.

When do you guys meet at City Council next?

Pardon?

Next week. Next Monday and Wednesday. Monday and Wednesday.

Just because you have to have the joint meeting together, you could vote on the amendments separately. you're allowed to do that under the IMA so and I know these guys meet on the 15th for next Tuesday so if theoretically all of the answers could be given to both boards before the next meetings we wouldn't necessarily need to reconvene as a complete group if you wanted to you're welcome to I just want to make sure everybody knows their options all right thank you good to know that yeah thank you I think I'm mr. Cavanaugh's point to knowing

You don't have to keep referring to me.

No, no, you made a good point. Knowing where some of those contingency transferred went and happened would be good for all of us to know.

Okay.

And we could definitely get that information.

Okay.

Anybody else?

Oh, so the other thing I would like you to look at is electricity rates under your new constellation agreement versus your projections under the old costs. There may be some easy savings there.

Bruce, the cutoff is to have this combined meeting is the 10th. The combined legislators shall vote to approve or amend the budget at a joint or separate meeting on or before September 24th. The cutoff is the 24th.

Anything, anybody else? Still thinking about the planning document. I think maybe the simplest thing is to have those documents provided with the budget and org chart and all those things. at the same time in prep for this meeting going forward just to add that. I mean it'd be great if we looked at it twice a year but realistically this is the time of year where it's front of mind for us so it probably just makes sense to make that part of the process going forward to just include that document.

I never mind more emails with more information and stuff. landing in my inbox even if I don't need to write the moment it's nice to be able oh I think we got an email about that and look back so you know we appreciate the monthly reports I know what turbidity is now and things and like you start to yes so true start to learn it's good I like the nature photos the nature photos are also good yeah okay anybody else

All right, I will make a motion.

Do you wanna set a tentative deadline for, do you wanna try to have this all, all the information in by the end of this week so that we can be voting on? Yeah, that's kind of, can we get that, all this information?

On our end, our standard process is that Wednesday, which is tomorrow, is the day that requests for legislation come into council so that a draft agenda can be formed on basically Thursday and approved by the.

Yeah, I think with this, we have to make sure that all of our questions are answered. Yeah. And then after that, because it has to match the document with the amendments in order for us, excuse me, in order for us to vote on it, it has to match, like the, so everything, so they'll have to look at it, we'll have to look at it. So we could set, like, for the information to come in by Friday, and then hopefully we could vote on it.

Because by Friday evening, it's gonna get posted in a packet for our Monday meeting. Yeah, but we're not gonna do anything for, oh, go ahead.

So we have to post by Friday for work sessions on Monday, but we could do it with a business meeting.

Yeah, that's the goal, to do it on a business meeting. Since we're already voting on it, it could just be another line of something.

So yeah, that's fine. Just making sure I have a plan. You're welcome.

well yeah that's yeah I don't thank you so this is why they pay you I don't know if I don't know if we had had a conclusion but does that seem like a reasonable timeline for you guys to have Friday okay and then We will all be able to review it. You said yours is on, your meeting's Tuesday? Tuesday. Tuesday, okay. Yeah, that's fine. So we can try to get this done next week during our regular meetings? Yes.

The Village's standard deadline is Thursday, but Friday would be fine, I would imagine, in this circumstance.

Okay, all right, and can I make a motion to adjourn? So moved. Take a motion. Oh, go ahead, you. So moved. Second. Thank you, a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye.