As you are all aware, the Common Council is still having meetings during most evenings up until Tuesday nights vote. The Council must vote on our own version of the 2010 budget on Tuesday to reserve the right to override the possible VETO by the Mayor at the regular scheduled meeting Dec 15th.One of the last budget meetings we had at City Hall was no less tense than the previous meetings. The chief negotiators for
the three Unions and some commentary by DPW Super, Mike Schupp provided little in the way of altering the expected lay-offs.What was intriguing was the progress being made in the KPBA regarding their offerings to the Council and the Mayor. If all goes according to planned, the police department is set to lose less personnel than expected.
The issue of merging dispatchers came up again as did the suggestion of turning one of the Fire Houses over to volunteers. There has been little follow-up on either of those ideas. (to my knowledge anyway)
Many of you are aware that Charlie Landi has been a constant reminder of the financial crisis that we face, he does so while reminding everyone of the possible option of Municipal Bankruptcy. To the level that we now have copies on what that process is...in detail.
We also had quite the conversation regarding City Bus. What the revenue/expense numbers are, how it's funded, whether to purchase the large buses every year and if we should turn the whole operation over to UCAT.Alderman Hoffay took the charge, backed up by Bill Reynolds, pressing the issue that City Bus is a no win situation, with less funding offered by the Fed to cover costs. The loss in 2010 and 2011 will only deepen and truly warrants further discussion.
Should we offer our bus service to the County? Raise the fares from $1 to $2?
Another point that hadn't been addressed is the non-aligned staff and the expected pay increases slated for next year. I think we should ask for the same pound of flesh from that group as we are asking of the union membership. I've got that list with me and plan on asking John Tuey (who is on that list) to put those numbers together for Monday night's meeting.
Question for my readers: What do you think about giving the Civil Service and Human Rights duties to the County? I'm sure they could find room in that huge office building on Fair Street.
23 comments:
Turning human rights and civil service over to county is an excellent idea and it makes perfect sense, Mike. That way Human rights is no longer apointed by the mayor, which is outragious!
I agree, Dept. heads and non-aligned people from economic development and community development and the rest should be asked to give concessions. Mike Schupp from DPW was given a 5,000.00 raise for crying out loud, what is up with that? Mike, you seem to want to be fair and you deserve credit for that!
Its probably Illegal
2;40, your statement is confusing. IT IS NOT ILLEGAL to have the county absorb your Human rights or Civil service dept.
Good lets do it then 5:09. The County also has an economic developement office. But this is Kingston home of the friends and family employment agency.
mike its a good thing turn over human rights and civil servive and down size economic development since finkle isnt having any success in bring jobs to the city and restore thr rec staff before its to late
yes mike city bus should be offer to the county. the city doesn't have money to pay for this service.
Turn them both over to the county. Then the county politics owns them. Probably not perfect either but anything seems an improvement over what exists in stupid Kingston.
When I stated earlier at 2;35 I was referring to you Mike Madsen being fair, not mike Schupp. I'm hearing Schupp is a bit self serving at DPW, and his idea the other day in freeman is ridiculous referring to permit for leaves.Lead by example and give back 5,000.oo dollar raise Mr. Schupp.
Open all departmentheads contracts. Lets see how eager they are to give back all their perks. Non aligned personel too. They have no concract and can show the unions that they mean business. But aren't they mostly members of the "FRIENDS AND FAMILY PLAN".
Observations from attending these meetings:
Givebacks from the departments are limited and the Council needs to get tough and ask even more detailed questions. Cut from the top, save all around. And please, stop charging the taxpayers for previous mistakes. They can't afford it either.
That makes sense to move them over to the County,the Mayor keeps telling us we have to do more with less.But then the City politician wont get to hire under the Friends and Family plan so they will NEVER DO IT! Sorry Mike but you've been in the game long enough to know I'm just telling the truth.
Remember a few years ago when Dan Mills left the Community Dev director position? The Mayor said he would do a nation wide search to replace him. So he headed up to Twalfskill to start his search.
Surprise! He found Mike Murphy! WTF?
Why is the Mayor avoid the real issue here--we need to close a firehouse.
What directly affects quality of life? Crime and youth recreation activities.
The police are already stretched to accomplish their mission of abating crime. We citizens cannot afford to lose any cops.
Recreation programs keeps kids busy with productive activities--Kevin Gilfeather should be already thinking of new programs to keep children interested in activities for next year.
Do we really need 3 firehouses? NO. Watch every time that KFD dispatches the hook and ladder and a pumper truck to a medical call.
Do the mayor and common council think that is a good utilization of taxpayer funds?
By the way Mike, I know the research has been done. How much money could we save by closing a firehouse?
City of Kingston's Human Rights dept. is a part time position. Which human rights dept. are you talking about? To me it would have made sense in the past to have a Human Resources dept. in the city of Kingston which would have included, Human Rights and Civil Service. But since we don't have that now why not turn over the Civil Service to county level and keep part time Human Rights in the city. As to Kingston's economic and developement office... Turn that over to Ulster County too. The Mike M and Steve show needs to be cancelled.Like in television, if the ratings are not there, they get cancelled!!! In alot of blogs I have read ,the public is calling for Mike and Steve to go. Why isn't the city council listening? Don't forget, you were elected by the people of Kingston and the council is not paying attention to that fact.
If the decision is to turn City civil service over to the County at least you would have the office staffed the day before Thanksgiving. The City office was closed. Ever hear of covering an office with split shifts? Nice extended holiday at taxpayers' expense.
The Council will not listen when it comes to the "FRIENDS AND FAMILY PLAN". We will continue to lose sevices until this plan is stopped.
I give up. It's not over till the fat lady goes on a diet and the taxpayer sings. Do the layoffs and the cuts. Get rid of Finkle and Murphy. Turn Human Rights etc. over to the county.
What infantile brand of logic tells you politicians you can spend more than you have?
Mike - your right on with consolidation - add assessor, planning and engineering, purchasing and payroll to the list.
It is my opinion that the City version of the Human Rights Commission is not doing the job that it should be. And - having applied for a position [volunteer] on the City HR Commission - I am relatively convinced that there are some problems in the [so to speak] "ointment."
To begin with, the City HR Commission Meeting I decided to sit in on went into "executive session" [making me and my husband leave the room...] shortly after I got there...
Then, although I emailed the HR Commission head my resume [in regard to potentially serving on the commission] multiple times - at different email addresses that were provided - the head of the City Commission allegedly [or in facto?] wasn't receiving these [a City Hall email problem?] - so I had to physically drop my resume, etc. off...
I was turned down [although I don't recall receiving specific notice of this] for a place on the City's Human Rights Commission - in part, due to the fact that I have a Blog - and they feared I would violate Commission "secrets."
I accepted this; as frankly - I prefer my blog - where I CAN speak openly and freely - to a Human Rights Commission that finds it necessary to keep secrets [where are the bounds here?] from the public...
Will the County - if this is transferred over - handle this differently? I hope so.
After all, Human Rights cover a wide range - but Constitutional Rights [Freedom of Speech; Freedom of the Press; Freedom of Religion; Freedom to Peacefully Assemble and Protest; etc.] are up there on the top of the list.
Just my take. To which I would add that I'm personally impressed by what some of the County leaders have been doing [i.e. Hein, Auerbach..] of late...
NS
Addendum: Please note that this is not a personal attack in regard to any City of Kingston Human Rights Commission member - as I have developed a certain respect for some of them - and I don't really know any of them very well...
Speaking of Human Rights, there has been some complaints filed recently from several employees at treatment plant against Alan Winchell, the SECOND senior plant operator. He has a hard time comunicating with employees and has threatened and tried to abuse his position to intimidate. Sound familiar? The Human Rights division needs to put thier foot down with this kind of behavior coming from supervisors. The city is in a compromised position with past behavior already from supervisors going unchecked with dysfuntional behavior. If our Human rights dept. can't do the job RIGHT, than maybe it is time to turn it over to the County.
How much money is generated by the sewer tax?The water department operates with the money raised from the water bills we all pay and my sewer tax is more than my water bill! This should be used to lower our taxes!!
Well seems to me that the Alderman didn't do very much with this budget with all of there meetings and only $99,000 being cut.
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