Outgoing Plattsburgh Mayor Chris Rosenquest issued his proposed 2025 budget in October and the Common Council agreed at its last meeting to dedicate their twice monthly work sessions to reviewing the plan. During Thursday’s meeting several department heads were quizzed about their budget requests.
The $64 million budget was delivered to the council on October 8th following a process that began in August between the mayor’s office and department heads.
The Common Council began reviewing departmental budget requests on Thursday.
Projected expenses in the City Clerk’s office are expected to decrease 24 percent overall in the new budget. But zoning code changes are anticipated by the end of 2024 and City Clerk Sylvia Parotte explained that is why contract services rose 52 percent.
“We’re hoping that the zoning goes through. That’s going to be a new law that’s going to affect every portion of the code and I only increased it by $20,000 and that’s probably not accurate. It’s probably going to be substantially more,” explained Parotte. “You’re touching every part of the code with that zoning, except for the charter part. So, it’s a major overhaul.”
Public Works Superintendent Michael Bessette explained the decreases in some of the department budget numbers.
“There are three administration categories. There’s water, sewer and street maintenance. And what we did is we took a look at the overall costs for those items and spread them out evenly,” Bessette told councilors. “We did that last year and then the Mayor this year, he’s probably looking at trends is what I’m assuming what he did, and he made the decision to cut down those numbers.”
Mayor Rosenquest further explained.
“The offices and department heads are provided a 5 year look back of the budgets. So when the department heads provide a budget based on their assumption about how much they’re going to consume, I take a look at that budget. I look back five years, take a look at the five-year average and then I make the adjustment accordingly,” Rosenquest noted.
Ward 5 Democrat David Monette asked for clarification on the five-year strategy.
“You had mentioned taking averages of the past actuals. When you come out with the mayor’s 2025 what’s the, can you explain that?” asked Monette.
Rosenquest: “Yeah. Sure. If you remember the sheet that we provided that looked like that?” Rosenquest inquired.
Monette nods, “Yeah, yeah.”
“So that yellow column is what the department head provides my office,” Rosenquest says, “And I look at that and I say why in the heck is this 150 percent larger than it was the average and they say this is why: I need this, this, this, this and this. So, there is a dialogue that happens. Sometimes I say look you’re not going to replace five vehicles, you’re going to replace one and kick the rest off for the next four years or whatever. So there’s a dialogue there.”
“Okay,” Monette concludes.
Councilors also reviewed Environmental Services and increases for water resources under that section.
According to the City Charter the Common Council may adopt the budget with or without revisions by January 15th. Rosenquest is leaving office after serving one term.
