“If you recall, the state had withheld 20% of our revenues in 2020 and if you fast forward now to today we’ve actually received 15% of that 20% reduction and we will be also receiving the remaining 5%, so for 2020 we will not have a variance from a state aid perspective in the revenue.”

Sales tax revenues were up over $310,000, which was a 4.78% increase from what budgeted. And Police and Fire salaries with benefits were over budget by $1.1 million in 2020.

Thompson said concerns for 2021 include that the city remains at 99.15% of its Constitutional Tax Limit.

“The OPEB (Other Post-Employment Benefits) liability, the GASB-75 Actuarial report which estimates the total healthcare costs is up to $172 million this year. At the end of 2019, it was only at $160 million so it actually increased by $12 million so still a very, very large number there.”

Thompson added the Police and Fire contracts have expired and all other bargaining unit contracts are up for negotiation this year as well. He said the city has had a surplus for the last 4 years, which is very helpful for the fund balance.

City Comptroller Ryan Thompson reported the city received $6.8 million in sales tax for 2020. As a result, despite 2020 being a pandemic year, the city set a record for sales tax revenue in a fiscal year, beating the previous year’s record total by nearly $100,000. Thompson said the total was due to a strong fourth quarter, when the city’s sales tax revenue came in 7% higher than the fourth quarter of 2019.

The final sales tax revenue for 2020 was also nearly 5% higher than what the city had budgeted – meaning the revenue came in at an estimated $320,000 over budget.

City Finance Committee Chair Kim Ecklund said the increase was mainly due to strong online sales and a 2019 change in state law that mandate sales tax collection.

“It’s great news and I think part of the reason why we’re seeing the increase is due to Internet sales now being taxed,” Ecklund said. “I think that’s definitely helping, especially during COVID when that seems to be the way to go for most people, and i think we’re seeing some of the rewards from that.”

In June of 2019, a new requirement that internet marketplace providers collect and remit New York state and local sales taxes on behalf of their out-of-state vendors took effect. Also the state has been slowly rolling out a gradual increase in minimum wage, which some economists have said would help to increase the amount of retail sales across the state, spurring sales tax growth.

Meanwhile, in other city news, Mayor Eddie Sundquist announced the appointment of Dan Stone, current city arborist, to take over as City Parks Director. He is replacing John Williams, who retired from his position last week after 20 years.

Jamestown mayor Eddie Sundquist discusses several issues involving the city of Jamestown, including previewing the 2021 executive budget, getting an update on the current year’s spending plan, the recent appointments to the city’s Human Rights Commission, along with several other issues.

Eddie Sundquist

With the city budget now halfway complete, Thompson reported several of the city revenue lines are running well below budget.

“It’s obviously not surprising we are running below budget and also against the prior year,” Thompson told the city council during Monday’s remote council meeting. ”

According to Thompson, Board of Public Utilities‘ PILOT payments trail budget expectations by about 5%, or $100,000 through for the first two quarters of the year. BPU Electric, Water and District Heat are also below budget, while Waste Water and Solid Waste are running slightly ahead.

Other notable revenues that are trailing prior year include parking meter and violations, which are down 48% ($97,000 below budget); fines and court fees, which are down 60% ($30,000 below budget estimates); and mortgage tax, which is down 11% ($9,000).

Thompson also said he received a last-minute report from the county on the sales tax revenue figures for the second quarter, and those numbers also show a significant drop, though not as bad as what had been expected.

“We are going to be down 13.4% (for the 2nd quarter) compared to the last year, which will put us down about 2.5% on a year-to-date basis, compared to last year, so it’s not down as nearly as much as we had originally anticipated,” Thompson said.

For the 2020 $36.6 million budget, the city had planned to receive $6.5 million in sales tax revenue for the year.

Thompson added that state financial aid for road and street construction – known as CHIPS funding – was also cut by 20% due to the financial challenges in the state budget brought on by COVID-19, but the city has already adjusted its road construction plan for the year to accommodate for the reduction. He also added the state has not yet disclosed whether the city’s general municipal aid will be reduced, or by how much. That aid includes $1 million in additional supplemental money the city is set to receive from the state financial restructuring board.

As for expenditures, Thompson said salary accounts are in line with the city budget for the first six months the year and the city is on track
to deliver Phase 1 of the City Budget Financial Restructuring plan that was approved by the city council last month. However, he also said there are a few departments that we will need to monitor closely going forward. In the month of June, the Fire Department experienced significant overtime costs as a result of multiple fires. Also, the city has three unbudgeted retirement buyouts, one in the Assessor’s office and two upcoming in the Police Department.

As compared to the same time-frame last year, health insurance claims are down about 8%. Because claims are so volatile on a month to month basis, Thompson said he remains cautiously optimistic the city will be within budget for the full year.

Last week Jamestown Mayor Eddie Sundquist released details of the plan, which includes several adjustments to the 2020 City Budget. Sundquist is asking the Jamestown City Council to review the adjustments and approve the changes.

• READ FINANCIAL RESTRUCTURING PLAN

“Based on our estimates, the City of Jamestown now faces a potential budget shortfall between $2,000,000 to $4,750,000. These estimates are due to a projected 10%-30% decrease in sales tax revenue, a 20%-30% reduction in New York State aid, and a general loss in miscellaneous City revenue (permits, parking fines, etc.),” Sundquist said in a media release from last Wednesday.  “We want to be very clear that these are estimates given current financial information, and like all things during this pandemic, subject to change depending on federal or state funding, budget realignments, or further changes in law.”

WRFA spoke with Jamestown City Council president Tony Dolce on Thursday. He said that the city council’s finance committee helped to create the restructuring plan – which actually focuses on three phases – with the first phase involving a $1.16 million cut to the budget.

“We were very adamant about balancing the needs. We do have services we want to protect, but we also realize there is going to be a significant loss in revenue that will be coming in,” Dolce explained. “To reiterate, there are no full time layoffs [as part of phase one]. Most of the savings come from cuts in each department. Things like overtime in each department, equipment, and services that are not needed right now.”

The first phase of funding cuts doesn’t involve layoffs for any of the city’s full time workers, but does call for the elimination of some part time positions that mostly involve summer help in the Parks Department, primarily with Deithrick Park, since there will be no baseball being played this summer due to COVID-19 and the cancelation of the Jamestown Tarp Skunks’ inaugural season.

If necessary, the council could later this year actor on Phase Two and Phase Three of the plan, which would involve layoffs of city employees. But Dolce says that all hinges on how the revenue comes in later this year.

“It’s kind of as-needed. But we did put a plan together. In case we have to [make additional cuts] we need to be ready to say, ‘Okay, we need to go to the next level’ or ‘Here’s another option.’ So we laid that all out there so at least we’re ready to go if and when it is needed,” Dolce said.

Monday’s special Council meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. and will be live streamed on the city website. A work session is also scheduled to take place at 7:30 p.m.

The plan includes several adjustments to the 2020 City Budget. Sundquist is asking the Jamestown City Council to review the adjustments and approve the changes during a special meeting next Monday.

• READ FINANCIAL RESTRUCTURING PLAN

“Based on our estimates, the City of Jamestown now faces a potential budget shortfall between $2,000,000 to $4,750,000. These estimates are due to a projected 10%-30% decrease in sales tax revenue, a 20%-30% reduction in New York State aid, and a general loss in miscellaneous City revenue (permits, parking fines, etc.),” Sundquist said. “We want to be very clear that these are estimates given current financial information, and like all things during this pandemic, subject to change depending on federal or state funding, budget realignments, or further changes in law.”

Members of the Jamestown City Council and administration held a work session meeting via Zoom on Monday night, April 20.

JAMESTOWN – As governments around the world continue to deal with economic uncertainty caused by COVID-19, local government across the country are also beginning to plan for the uncertainty that lies ahead.

On Monday night the Jamestown City Council joined city administration in a streamed work session and spent a great deal of time discussing COVID-19 and how prepared the city is to deal with the economic fallout.

• WATCH THE FULL COUNCIL MEETING AT JAMESTOWNNY.NET

The 2019 year-end budget summary for Jamestown, provided by city comptroller Joe Bellitto on April 20, 2020.

Mayor Eddie Sundquist told the council members that he’s talked with other mayors from around the state as well as members of his finance team and the exact impact remains unknown.

“We really do not know what this COVID-19 crisis is going to do to our city’s budget. We are projecting anywhere from a $1 million to a $4 million deficit,” Sundquist said.

Total spending for the city’s 2020 budget that was approved last November is $36.6 million. But while the city will likely see a noticeable – if not significant – budget deficit this year, a silver-lining is that the city also saw a budget surplus from 2019.

City Comptroller Joe Bellitto Monday night also reviewed the final unaudited budget numbers from 2019, pointing out that the city finished the year with a surplus of $1.4 million.  He said the biggest contributor to that surplus was the city’s health insurance costs being lower than anticipated.

“During some years we’ve had some terrible years with health insurance, but for the past three years we’ve finished in very good shape with our self-insured health insurance program. We’ve started to see some success with our wellness program that was instituted several years ago,” Bellitto said, while adding, “We can’t put total emphasis on that because people have had sicknesses and surgeries [in the past], but in total I think we’re really starting to see some positive changes.”

The 2019 surplus brings the city’s undesignated fund balance up to $3.8 million. But Bellitto cautioned that while the city does have some money in the fund balance reserve that it could use to deal with a likely budget gap, there’s also several non-COVID-19-related concerns that could quickly eat away at it.

“Miscellaneous revenues for the city pretty much remained flat. Our future healthcare liability remains at $162 million… a very staggering number. We talked about our retirement cost is still large, about $3 million, and that has been leveling off. But rates may increase next year based on how the stock market finished on March 31, which was the end of the state’s fiscal year,” Bellitto said.

Bellitto also noted that the pending appellate court decision regarding the contract arbitration ruling with the city police union could have an impact on spending, depending on whether or not the court rules the public safety union does in fact deserve a retroactive salary increase. That 4th Appellate Division in Rochester is currently reviewing that case and could have a decision in the near future.

Another big unknown is the city’s sales tax revenue moving forward. The council learned last night that first quarter sales tax revenue will likely be on track compared to past years, but any of that gain will likely be lost due to the economic shutdown that began near the middle of March.  The first quarter sales tax revenue will be known by the end of this month or early May.

Mayor Sundquist said unless the federal or state governments provides additional aid to the city because of the pandemic, city officials might have to consider taken steps to close any budget gaps, which could include layoffs, although he added that isn’t something he will pursue if he can help it.

Jamestown City Comptroller Joe Bellitto (standing) shares the final sales tax figures for 2019 with the Jamestown City Council during its Feb. 10, 2020 work session meeting.

JAMESTOWN – The city of Jamestown had another “very good” quarter for sales tax revenues during the final quarter of 2019.

A comparison of the quarter-by-quarter sales tax revenue for the city of Jamestown for both 2018 and 2019.

City Comptroller Joe Bellitto updated the Jamestown City Council this past Monday night, saying the city’s fourth-quarter payment of $1,663,443 was $94,371 more than the amount it received during the same time period one year earlier.

With the final quarter now in the books, the city now knows how much sales tax revenue was actually brought in during 2019. The total sales tax revenues received was $6,715,249. That’s $515,000 (8.3%) more than the $6,200,000 that was initially budgeted in the 2019 city budget. It’s also $280,913 (4.4%) more than what the city collected in 2018.

According to Bellitto, the average annual increase for sales tax in Jamestown during the past decade was at about 2.2%, meaning the 2019 increase more than doubled that 10-year trend.

Bellitto also said the increase in sales tax for the year follows a state wide trend. Last week the state comptroller’s office reported sales tax was up by 4.7% statewide in 2019.

With the 2019 sales tax figures reported, one of the final key pieces of the 2019 city audit is now in place. That audit will likely be completed and reported to the city council in the early summer.

Meanwhile, for the 2020 adopted budget, city officials settled on $6,500,000 as the anticipated projected sales tax revenue for the year. The first quarter report of the new year will be delivered to the city council in early May.

The Jamestown City Council during its October 2019 Voting session on Oct. 28, 2019.

JAMESTOWN – It’s going to be busy night Monday at City Hall as the Jamestown City Council holds its monthly voting session and considers a number of resolutions to vote on.

• VIEW THE AGENDA AND RESOLUTIONS FOR NOV. 25

Highlighting the 7:30 p.m. meeting is the finalization and vote on the 2020, $36.6 million Jamestown City Budget.

Jamestown City Councilman Tony Dolce (R-Ward 2)

The council will likely use a $150,000 savings identified in the budget earlier this month to decrease the city’s tax levy. According to City Finance Committee Chairman Tony Dolce, the cut to the tax levy would result in a reduction in the tax rate of about $0.22 per thousand.

“It would be a slight, decent tax decrease. It would put us under the constitutional tax limit. It’s not really enough money where we can go out and spend and add a bunch of things back to the budget, but on the other hand, for a long time we’ve been on this threshold and it would be nice to give something back,” Dolce said during last Monday’s council work session.

The current tax rate for city tax payers is $23.85 per thousand assessed value. If all the $150,000 in savings is applied toward reducing the tax levy next year, the new tax rate would be $23.63 per thousand. That’s an annual savings of $22 for property valued at $100,000.

The James Prendergast Library had been hoping the city would restore additional funding for their budget beyond the $60,000 earmarked in the mayor’s budget proposal, but it appears there isn’t enough support among the nine-member city council to make that happen.

ANNEXATION RESOLUTION TO BE CONSIDERED

In addition to voting on the city budget, the council is also scheduled to act on a resolution “regarding Dow Street Annexation request by City of Jamestown Board of Public Utilities.”

Eddie Sundquist

Last week the BPU voted to continue the effort to pursue annexing the property, dedicating over $100,000 in funding from the electric division toward legal costs associated with the lawsuit. Now the city council must give its approval on moving forward with the annexation.

However, mayor-elect Eddie Sundquist has said he would prefer the city council hold off on considering the annexation until after he takes office in January and has said he will appear before the council tonight and request it table the annexation proposal.

“I’ve already asked the current city council  respectfully to table the [annexation] resolution until after the first of the year and I will also be publicly asking them that at the next council meeting,” Sundquist said on Friday morning when discussing his transition effort. “I think there needs to be time to talk to residents and community members about whether this action is something we should continue to take.”

The city council will also act on approving the purchase of a number of vehicles for the city’s DPW fleet as part of the $12.6 million Smart City Capital Investment program that was approved earlier this year.

Monday’s council meeting begins at 7:30 p.m. in city council chambers with a short work session scheduled for 7 p.m. in the mayor’s conference room. Both meetings are open to the public.

Fenton History Center director Noah Goodling (standing) meets with the Jamestown City Council during its Nov. 18, 2019 budget work session.

JAMESTOWN – The Jamestown City Council will likely use recently discovered savings in the 2020 City Budget to reduce local property taxes rather than boost funding in other areas of the spending plan, including providing more aid for the James Prendergast Library.

On Monday night the city council held its public hearing on the $36.6 million budget with only person speaking out. City Resident Doug Champ offered two ideas on how the city could save money in the future – shifting storm water maintenance to the Jamestown Board of Public Utilities and privatizing leaf pickup. In addition, he also urged the council to help the library by restoring additional city aid for next year while also appealing to the three members of the city council who work in public education, saying that the library is a valuable educational resource for the entire community.

Jamestown resident Doug Champ speaks to the Jamestown City Council during its Nov. 18 budget hearing.

“Our library is a catalyst of ideas. People who can’t afford – and I stream everything. I pay $70 a month for my internet service – they can’t afford that. There are people that can’t afford to buy a book. So I ask you to augment the mayor’s budget, which has $60,000 for the library. I would like to see you as a city council add $40,000 to that for a $100,000 total,” Champ said.

Following the public hearing, the city council continued its budget deliberations by meeting with officials from the Prendergast Library and the Fenton History Center.  Prendergast Director Tina Scott reiterated the news from earlier this year, saying the library is expecting to lose $110,000 in state aid next year because it the city has dramatically cut its local share of taxpayer supported library aid.

“Unfortunately, what we had warned the city about for many years now has come to pass,” Scott said. “Because or [local] tax support has been cut by more than 5% over two years, it triggers the ‘maintenance of effort’ clause in library law, which cuts our state funding. [The state] cut 25% already this year and next year we stand to lose all of it.”

Scott also pointed out that 98% of the public libraries in the United States receive more community support as a percentage of their budge than the Prendergast receives from Jamestown.

Prendergast Library director Tina Scott talks with the Jamestown City Council on Nov. 18, 2019.

This year the city dedicated $50,000 in funding for the library, a decrease of $300,000 from just two years earlier. Next year the mayor’s budget calls for giving the library $60,000, but the library says that is no where near enough to ensure the state aid for the library can also continue. As a result, Scott said the library is looking at a $126,000 deficit in next year’s budget.

Unlike other recent budget years, this year the city council does have some adjustments it can make beyond what was proposed by Mayor Sam Teresi and that includes the option of boosting library aid.

It was announced earlier this month that next year’s city budget could have as much as $357,000 in savings to its health insurance costs. During that announcement both the mayor and city comptroller Joe Bellitto recommended the council be conservator and only project about $150,000 in savings, meaning that could be applied to other areas of next year’s budget. But despite the financial challenges facing the library and other departments in city government, Teresi recommended using the savings toward a tax cut.

Following last night’s meeting with the library officials the city council held its regular work session and during that meeting, city councilman and finance committee chairman Tony Dolce (R-Ward 2) said he was in agreement that the money should be used to cut the tax rate.

“If we just took that conservative amount of $150,000 and budgeted toward next year’s budget, that would give us a tax decrease of $0.22 per thousand. That would get us down below the constitutional taxing limit, just below 99%. So it would be a slight, decent tax decrease,” Dolce said.

According to Mayor Teresi’s budget presentation in October, the current tax rate for city tax payers is $23.85 per thousand assessed value. If all the $150,000 in savings is applied toward reducing the tax levy next year, the new tax rate would be $23.63 per thousand. That’s an annual savings of $22 for property valued at $100,000.

Joining Dolce in voicing support for the property tax cut were council members Maria Jones (D-Ward 5) and Tom Nelson (D-Ward 6). However councilman Andy Liuzzo (R-At Large) said he would instead prefer to see the money go to support the library and help it for one more year. However, it didn’t appear enough of his fellow council members supported that idea, although he does have the option to bring it forward again as a formal amendment before the council holds its budget vote next week during its monthly voting session at 7:30 p.m. on Nov. 25.

Meanwhile, the library could still see its financial challenges addressed in the future if it can convince enough residents to support a public vote on creating an annual library property tax levy. During next May’s school budget vote, a proposition will appear on the ballot calling for the establishment of a $350,000 levy for the library. If approved, that levy would remain in place in perpetuity or until residents voted again to change it.