Thinking About the City Budget

This morning, the Board of Estimate and Apportionment (BEA), which is made up of the mayor, the Common Council president, and the city treasurer, met to discuss the city budget and the anticipated budget shortfall this year as a consequence of the pandemic. The BEA met previously, on August 19, a meeting that Gossips missed, but what was decided at the meeting was reviewed today. Here are the actions from that meeting:

• A hiring freeze has been imposed for all city departments until the end of 2021
• Updated 10 percent cuts were requested from all departments
• Expenditures of more than $1,000 must be approved by the BEA

Today's meeting began with an executive session, during which the members of the BEA discussed appropriating $23,000 from the general fund to pay a consultant who will manage the City's efforts to achieve ADA compliance. It will be remembered that last year the City entered into a settlement agreement with the Department of Justice in a lawsuit brought by three Hudson residents over the City's lack of ADA accessibility.

The updated budget cuts were the major topic of discussion at today's meeting. Mayor Kamal Johnson had directed the department heads to propose budget cuts that did not involve laying off or furloughing any workers. The budget cuts for 2020 now being considered, two thirds of the way through the year, amount to:

• $49,000  Police Department
• $20,000  Department of Public Works
• $24,000  Fire Department
• $25,000  Youth Department
• $3,000  Treasurer's Office
• $11,000  Clerk's Office

It was determined that nothing could be cut from the budgets for the mayor's office, the Common Council, or the code enforcement office. The total cuts amount to $132,000. At the last Common Council Finance Committee meeting, city treasurer Heather Campbell projected a revenue shortfall for 2020 of between $1.3 and $1.9 million. All the budget cuts proposed amount to only a tenth of the best case scenario of lost revenue. Johnson concluded: "None of this is enough. We'll have to go to the fund balance." He indicated that he was still hoping for a bailout from the federal government.

Council president Tom DePietro suggested that the fund balance could be built back up by the sale of City-owned property. DePietro caused a bit of a brouhaha last week when he suggested at the Common Council Fire Committee meeting that the time may have come to sell the Hoysradt firehouse on Warren Street. The J. W. Hoysradt Hose & Chemical Company resisted consolidation back in 2005, when the Central Fire Station was built, and there is no indication that sentiments have changed. Nearly 50 percent of Hudson's volunteer fire fighters are members of the Hoysradt company. In today's meeting, DePietro stated emphatically that Hoysradt "is not on the chopping block." 

DePietro seemed to have other properties in mind--properties owned by the City that stand vacant and properties the City leases to others. He mentioned specifically the house at the Churchtown Reservoir, which was once occupied by a DPW employee who was charged with "watching the water." Campbell spoke of the leased buildings, noting that there was an issue with the City being a landlord "when we are not charging market rate rent." DePietro said he had a list of City-owned properties and suggested that the sale of property be discussed that the next meeting of the BEA, which will take place on Wednesday, September 9, at 11:30 a.m.

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