NEWBURGH – The Newburgh City Council continues to explore avenues to avert a budget crisis that could possibly lead to a 39 percent layoff of police and fire staffing, as well as exceed the state’s mandated tax cap.
Tuesday evening, following a public hearing on the possibility of going over the tax cap, the council held two impromptu votes and presented a number of possible solutions to offset the lack of funding that would result in public safety staffing reductions.
Mayor Torrance Harvey said following the meeting they continue to explore options. “The key phrase was to trim the fat in the budget so we can minimize these cuts with police and fire,” said City of Newburgh Mayor Torrance Harvey. “I say for the record, over and over, public safety is our priority. No one on this council wants to lay off a firefighter or a police officer,” he said.
The council voted to not fund shot-spotter, a technology used by police to target shootings within the city, for 2020. This would result in approximately $195,000 that could be reallocated to staffing in the budget. They also voted to raise the public water fees only five percent, rather than 10 percent. Although the fund balance for public water is in a surplus at the moment,
City Manager Joseph Donat said there is an inevitability for a major increase during 2020 that the fund balance would not be able to cover. The five percent increase would be modest and make the impending additional increases more manageable, but the council is still making a resolution to have a public hearing on the matter before the 2020 budget vote.
Other possible solutions were to impose a one percent salary tax on those who work in the city but do not live there, eliciting contributions from the many non-profits within the city that receive city services, but do not pay taxes and having the county and state cover the costs of injury, as well as resulting disability, for emergency responders who are hurt in other neighboring municipalities as a result of shared services.
It’s unclear as to how many jobs, some, or all, of these potential savings could fund. The council will vote on the final 2020 budget Thursday, November 21. The public hearing on the water increases has yet to be announced.
