City Manager's 2010 budget proposal is a call to action

It will be impossible for the City of Geneva to sustain year after year of zero per cent property tax increases AND retain its current administrative structure AND current service-delivery model. City Manager Matt Horn sent that message loud and clear to Council and the citizens of the City of Geneva in his 2010 budget proposal.

In our view, Horn’s challenge is not a threat to raise taxes, but a call to action. Council must respond with bold, decisive choices following directly from the mission, vision, and priorities for the City it has already declared. In other words, it’s up to Council to now walk the walk, after talking the talk.

Horn’s proposed budget holds property taxes to a zero per cent increase for 2010, through a series of interdepartmental line items, and by refusing to bond for capital projects and foregoing an installment to the equipment amortization fund. In effect, he is allowing Council until the next budget cycle (which should begin the day after the 2010 budget passes) to deal with the long-term, structural challenges to the budget.

And the challenges are many. New York State faces massive debt, thanks to unrestrained spending and severe cuts in revenue attributable to the recession. State aid to the City, never guaranteed, is, therefore, in even more doubt. In addition, cities across New York State will likely receive, in 2011, a bill to cover shortfalls in the State pension fund to cover the costs of benefits for retired City workers.

And though the City will realize some cost savings for health insurance coverage for current employees in 2010, thanks to a change in plans offered, this does not eliminate all benefit increases. Even with some measure of health care reform at the federal level, policy premiums are projected to rise. The City can also expect further declines in sales tax revenue, the second highest source of revenue after property taxes.

Those are the challenges. But Horn, undaunted, says Council has already developed a framework to address them; the “strategic imperatives,” passed by Council in 2008: (1) “value for taxpayers,” i.e. giving tax payers their money’s worth in services; (2) “enhancing neighborhoods,” i.e., following through on the neighborhood initiative; (3) “engaged governance, i.e., better communication and deliberation; (4) “economic development,” i.e., investment and job creation.

His budget document, page after page, hammers home the priorities. The question is, “Exactly how will those priorities address the challenges?” That is for the City Council to wrestle with.