A new law passed unanimously by the Albany Common Council is aimed at alleviating citywide staffing shortages.
15th ward councilor Tom Hoey says Local Law L will allow the city for the next three years to hire employees from neighboring municipalities and bordering counties for classified and non-classified jobs, including police and firefighters.
"The only thing that is exempted is department heads. They will be still required to live in the city, and once the law of the bill is signed by the mayor, becomes law and will be implemented within 30 days. And we really need this for the dispatchers, I think we're down to 18 right now out of a possible 39," Hoey said.
The legislation sunsets at the end of 2028.
City hall says Democratic Mayor Kathy Sheehan will sign the measure without pushback. But Sheehan says the council itself bears some of the responsibility for aggravating staff shortages.
“The council passed basically a moratorium on building market rate rental housing in the city of Albany, and it makes it very difficult for our employees to find housing. We're asking them to take a closer look at that statute and make some changes to it. But even if they make changes today, it is going to be a year to a year and a half before new market rate housing gets built,” said Sheehan.
10th ward councilor Owusu Anane says the panel has been working diligently to alleviate short staffing in the city workforce.
"Which, quite frankly, has increased the workload on our existing workforce, as well as cause higher overtime calls for the city. And you know, the past couple of years on this council, we thought that the reason why a lot of people didn't want to work here or morale was down was because of the pay and we passed the pay study legislation. We've increased it, but we are still having some challenges with hiring. And I believe that this is a step in the right direction. I believe that this is a this legislation is a common sense approach to make it more flexible potential applicants to apply for positions, then diversity requirement being too much of a barrier. This legislation also still gives priority to city residents for jobs that require competitive exam. This bill requires the city to create a preferred certification list, and those who live outside of the city will not be considered for those roles until that list is exhausted,” Anane said.
13th ward Councilor Ginnie Farrell says the next city budget must have a provision that gives a financial incentive to people that already live in Albany.
“With the cost of housing rising so dramatically, it's hard for people to make the choice to relocate when they can't even buy a house or afford to buy a house that's even close to the house that they have, perhaps outside the city of Albany. So I do completely understand the need for flexibility,” said Farrell.
2nd ward Councilor Derek Johnson is hopeful that Local Law L doesn't end up excluding Albany residents from city jobs.
"I hear all of the conversations, but we don't need to have incentives. We just need to fix what's going on in the city of Albany. The violence and issues that we're dealing with as a city is making people rather reluctant to move to the city of Albany,” Johnson said.
Sheehan disputes concerns raised by 6th ward Councilor Richard Conti that Local Law L could lead to existing workers choosing to move out of Albany.
"We cannot be blind to the fact that we’ve made it very difficult for people in the city who are not very low-income to be able to afford housing in the city of Albany so I think we’ve gotta keep an open mind about it. I have not heard from employees looking to move out of the city, and I don’t think that that’s the intention, but we have a real challenge hiring a workforce and part of the challenge, it is of our own making," said Sheehan.
