NEWBURGH – City Manager Joseph Donat submitted his proposed 2020 Newburgh budget Tuesday night that includes massive cuts to public safety employment, benefits and overtime.
Of the city’s $47.9 million, he said approximately 70 percent of that expense will go to salaries and benefits. To compensate for that, the proposal he has proposed cuts to public safety in the areas of: personnel, longevity, benefits, retirement and employment taxes. For the city’s police department, this would have a $925,500 cut in funding from 2019 and a $930,700 cut for the fire department.
In terms of what that means for actual employment cuts for both departments, it would result in a reduction of 14 percent, or 12-13 employees, for the police department and a reduction of 16 percent, or 11-12 employees for the fire department.
There would also be a 20 percent cut in overtime funding for both departments collectively and cuts would also translate to other public departments including DPW, water and sewer and code compliance, where a current hiring freeze would be maintained.
Donat said this puts the city in a very difficult position and although it isn’t ideal, it was necessary to present city officials and the public with a realistic overview of their current financial situation.
“This is not the budget that I wanted to propose and quite frankly, it’s not the budget I thought I’d be proposing ten months ago when I took this job; however, it’s a budget that needs to be proposed,” said Donat.
President of Local 589 Newburgh Firefighters Brendan Hogan said it is not a new occurrence for city firefighters to show up every budget season to fight for adequate funding, but this time the situation is especially dire and including other public safety and public works departments.
Despite the situation, Hogan is hopeful they will be able to find a way to make it work with the city, as they have done for the last 10 years.
“I’m really hopeful that we will work it out like we did last year and a few years before that, and 10 years ago,” said Hogan. “I won’t give up hope yet.”
The city’s firefighters have relied heavily on SAFER grants until last year, and their chances of acquiring another are very slim.
Even with the proposed cuts, which would result in an, overall, approximately 49 percent cut to public safety funding, the city would still need to exceed the state’s two percent tax cap.
Legally, before the city can exceed the state’s tax cap, they must hold a public hearing on the matter. A resolution was proposed to hold such a meeting on October 28th; but, given the circumstances, was tabled until the next City Council meeting to allow for more time to come up with solutions to the public safety cuts and to gain more public input before moving forward.
