Albany Water Taxes Going Up


By DIA, Section News
Posted on Thu Jan 03, 2008 at 02:01:46 PM EST

From Councilman Calsolaro.
UP, UP, AND AWAY!

I just came back from the Albany Water Board meeting. Here’s the Good News – Albany has the best tasting water in the state! Now, “for the rest of the story”, or in other words, the BAD NEWS.

A) The Board’s financial consultant recommends the following:

Residential customer water/sewer rate increase of 6% (about $30 per customer per year, so they say);

Large users (Tier 1 and 2) rate increase of 20%, plus “aggregate properties” or consider separate properties owned by same entity as one user (I smell a lawsuit here);

Vacant buildings rate increase of 20%;

Unmetered users rate increase of 50%.

B) Annual Debt Service, presently about $3 million a year, balloons to between $5 and $6 million a year in 2009! Why? One reason, the ill-advised leasing of Six Mile Water Works (Rensselaer Lake) for $7 million a few years ago at the urging of Mayor Jennings. Now those bonds are coming due. So, another rate increase in 2009 is almost assured just to pay the increase in debt service.

The Public Hearing on the rate increase is tentatively scheduled for Monday, January 28 at 7:00pm, Common Council chambers, City Hall.

The public must come out and let the Mayor and the Water Board know that they will no longer tolerate the fiscal mismanagement of the city. The taxpayers are the ones who bear the burden of decisions like leasing a body of water that is not potable, and is located just a few hundred yards away from a dump, so that the Mayor could balance the budget a few years ago without a 20% real property tax increase.

So, for 2008 the city has given us a series of very Happy New Year presents: a real property tax increase of 4.5% (for many city residents it was much higher, 40, 50 and even 80% in some cases due to the reassessment); a proposed water rate increase of 6%, and in some cases 20% to 50%; and proposed borrowing in 2008 by the city of over $20 million! I can’t wait to hear the Mayor’s State of the City address telling us how financially well-off the City of Albany is. The spin-cycle will be on HIGH for this one.

The city of Albany has been losing population for decades. The percentage of city residents living at or below the poverty level has been increasing and stands at about 27% according to the most recent U.S. Census figures. The middle class will no longer be able to afford to live in Albany if the present trend of financial mismanagement under Mayor Jennings continues. The only people who will be able to afford to pay the ever-increasing city and school taxes and water rate increases will be those in the upper income bracket and the remainder of the city’s residents will be made up of those unfortunate persons who must depend on government subsidies to feed and shelter themselves and their families.

If Jerry Jennings decides that this is his last term as mayor, what a legacy he will leave us: high taxes, high water rates, the perception that Albany is an unsafe city, and a doubling of the number of abandoned buildings in the city since he took office, to name just a few of his accomplishments.

Dominick Calsolaro

Common Council Member – First Ward
Happy New Year!

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Albany Water Taxes Going Up | 7 comments (7 topical, 0 hidden)
Screw them (none / 0) (#1)
by alfrednewman on Thu Jan 03, 2008 at 02:20:47 PM EST
I am going to start collecting rain water to flush my toilets.  
"What? Me worry? " "whatmeworry.alfred@gmail.com"
Water on the Tube (none / 0) (#2)
by Roscoe on Thu Jan 03, 2008 at 04:02:08 PM EST
Last night on the news the water rate increase was discussed briefly and incoherently. Few of the facts in Calsolaro's post were presented. A list of local rates in nearby communities made Albany's rate look good. Large user rates were not discussed.

There was no dicussion of the one-shot a few years ago, in order to balance a budget inflated by Jenning's patronage/supporters.  There was a clip of Cross looking and sounding ditzy, and a clip of Jennings doing his usual John Gotti blush pancake deadpan.

All of those patronage appointments have sure done a good job for this city.

Throw them all out.

Some good in it, at least (none / 0) (#3)
by AlfredMoisiu on Thu Jan 03, 2008 at 06:47:36 PM EST
The large increases are mostly affecting the suburban towns that buy water from the city and the scumbag investors that own abandoned buildings.

I'm not sure what you pay for a boarded up building with no meter now, but the more the better as far as I am concerned.

The other thing that Calsolaro/DIA consistently miss is that Albany's budget is driven by public safety personnel costs. And those costs will continue to mushroom, since troopers are making as much as state commissioners and municipal police and fire salaries will need to go up to compete. The golf courses, one shot deals, etc are distractions -- you could sell off the water system to a private company, close the dump and lay off 75% of non-police/fire employees and still be in the same financial hole.

All of the upstate cities are in similar states of decay, since businesses don't want to deal with urban inconveniences and the middle class doesn't want their kids going to school at places like Albany High.

fuzzy math (none / 0) (#4)
by DIA on Fri Jan 04, 2008 at 08:03:09 AM EST

The other thing that Calsolaro/DIA consistently miss is that Albany's budget is driven by public safety personnel costs. And those costs will continue to mushroom, since troopers are making as much as state commissioners and municipal police and fire salaries will need to go up to compete. The golf courses, one shot deals, etc are distractions -- you could sell off the water system to a private company, close the dump and lay off 75% of non-police/fire employees and still be in the same financial hole.

The thing I like about people like you, Alfred, is you are doers.  Always willing to provide solutions.  Never the type to make vague excuses and say "there is nothing anyone could do".  

Want to do a revised budget based on your proposals and show us how if we layed off 75% of the non police and fire employees we would still be in the same financial hole?   You can do math, right?  Or would that be a distraction from your real goal of saying there is nothing anyone can do to fix albany's fiscal mess?

Solutions (none / 0) (#6)
by AlfredMoisiu on Fri Jan 04, 2008 at 06:19:02 PM EST
I didn't say that there isn't anything that can be done about Albany -- my point was that the root fiscal woes of upstate cities lies beyond their borders.

Things that you don't like to talk about like binding arbritration on collective bargaining agreements and the exodus of business from Upstate is why all update cities are in the state that they are in. Think Albany's bad? Try Buffalo.

Schenectady did exactly what I said (severely cut non-public safety expenses)

The City of Schenectady over the years has been able to offload most of its operations to Schenectady County. In other words, Niskayuna and Scotia is paying for it.

And while Schenectady "lowered [property] taxes", they are still very high and were partially replaced by instituting mandatory user fees (ie. taxes) on things like garbage pickup. But to get to that point, Schenectady had to hit rock bottom to the point that creditors were a few months from demanding that a state financial control board control spending. And unless new development increases the taxable base, budgets and taxes will continue to creep up.

Salaries, job security and fringe benefits for public safety employees are guaranteed by contracts and will continue to increase at a high rate because the market demands it. You're not going to get away with paying an Albany Patrolman $48,000 when the Trooper sitting next to him makes $65,000.

You say that I don't have any solutions. And you're right -- I'm not a magician and cannot conjure up money. New York is a fucked up place.

[ Parent ]

First thing (none / 0) (#5)
by alfrednewman on Fri Jan 04, 2008 at 10:00:55 AM EST
That should be done is that every city department and authority should have an independent audit and inventory done.

Second thing that should be done is for an independent company come in and do an efficiency audit.  

It seems to me that every level of the public sector thinks has lost sight of the fact that they are supposed to provide services to the citizens, NOT JOBS.
"What? Me worry? " "whatmeworry.alfred@gmail.com"

Reserviour Gaurds (none / 0) (#7)
by nycowboy on Mon Jan 07, 2008 at 11:33:50 AM EST
Why do we are paying 5-10 people, 24 hours a day to guard the Alcove and Basic Reservoirs?

We don't actually know how money is being spent to guard the reservoirs at taxpayer expense, as the Albany Municipal Water Finance Authority's budget is not online. I could call, but I'm too lazy.

Guarding the Basic Reservoir is especially absurd -- this time of year the city isn't pumping any water out there, and even if a terrorist blew up the low-stress dam up, it wouldn't hurt a single person down stream.

The biggest threat the Basic Reservoir faces is cows wadding through the Basic Creek on a farm just upstream from it, and run off from nearby farms and run off the former Town of Westerlo landfill.

Even with the Alcove Reservoir it would be pretty safe without guards. How do you poison 12 billion gallons with something potent enough that is not killed by chlorine or sun exposure?

There are no regular guards for the Tomhannock Reservoir, the primary source for water in Troy.

Okay, I can see Robert Cross' argument here. Terrorists are going to attack Albany, the Capitol City, assuming they don't get lost on the NYS Thruway, and not some silly city just up the River.

Albany Water Taxes Going Up | 7 comments (7 topical, 0 hidden)
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