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Albany Mayor Dorcey Applyrs, pictured marking her first 100 days in office on Monday at Nine Pin Cider Works in Albany, said, \u201cI am rebuilding the city\u2019s financial approach in real time, using current data, realistic revenue assumptions, and clear cost controls.\u201d<\/p>\n
Will Waldron\/Times Union<\/p>\n
Albany has big fiscal problems,<\/a> as you may have heard. The city faces a $15 million gap for its 2025 budget and the shortfall could grow significantly this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Well, Mayor\u00a0Dorcey Applyrs and other city officials hope the state comes to the rescue. And to be sure, such a bailout will almost certainly happen;\u00a0 nobody expects Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and other state Democrats to let Albany\u2019s new mayor twist in the wind.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m optimistic,\u201d said state Sen. Pat Fahy, a Democrat from Albany. \u201cThere\u2019s a recognition that the capital city can\u2019t be allowed to fall apart.\u201d<\/p>\n The current thinking is that Albany will receive a $35 million package, including $20 million already budgeted by Gov. Kathy Hochul, plus an additional $15 million.<\/p>\n Make the Times Union a Preferred Source on Google to see more of our journalism when you search.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Add Preferred Source<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n To be clear, that won\u2019t be enough to fully rescue the city, given that the initial $20 million is accounted for in the 2026 budget.\u00a0The looming gap, now pegged at $22 million, exists nevertheless.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Will the city receive more? Should it?\u00a0<\/p>\n You can argue that the budget problems are a problem of the city\u2019s own making, at least in their severity. That they seem to have caught the mayor and so many other officials off guard suggests nobody was minding the store. Seriously, much of the budget hole should not have been a surprise.\u00a0<\/p>\n According to the mayor\u2019s office, $8.7 million of the 2025 budget gap resulted from expiring federal aid and grants, reduced speed-camera collections, and less-than-anticipated revenues from the tax agreements handed to developers.\u00a0<\/p>\n That part of the gap, then, was either predetermined or entirely predictable, and it\u2019s inexcusable that the 2025 budget was built on such a flimsy foundation. To me, at least, a reasonable conclusion is that former Mayor Kathy Sheehan didn\u2019t want to spike taxes in her final year or when an ally \u2014 that would be\u00a0Applyrs\u00a0\u2014 was running to succeed her.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n As Common Council member\u00a0Deirdre Brodie noted, budgetary warning signs were increasingly obvious late last year. And yet Applyrs, who has said the gravity of the problem was not evident until recent weeks, nevertheless started her administration by giving out raises, creating new jobs and\u00a0hiring<\/a> a pricey lobbying firm.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cFamilies don\u2019t buy TVs when they don\u2019t know if they can afford groceries,\u201d Brodie said. \u201cI think city leaders need to hold themselves to the same standard.\u201d<\/p>\n Applyrs promises that the mistakes of past budgets won\u2019t be repeated.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI will not make decisions based on assumptions that no longer reflect reality,\u201d she said. \u201cI am rebuilding the city\u2019s financial approach in real time, using current data, realistic revenue assumptions, and clear cost controls.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the mayor will be looking for as much state help as possible.\u00a0<\/p>\n Of course, when arguing for increased state financial help, Albany officials note that much of the city is state-owned and tax-exempt. That puts the city in a continual revenue squeeze, they argue, that isn\u2019t of its own making. The problem is exacerbated by Albany generally receiving<\/a> less direct state funding, on a per-capita basis, than other cities.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s also true that the value of taxable property in Albany is unusually high for an upstate city, boosted by the presence of state government and untaxable assets such as the University at Albany.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n According to the state comptroller\u2019s office<\/a>, the taxable value of Albany property in 2025 was $7.5 billion.\u00a0<\/p>\n Syracuse, by contrast, is 50 percent larger by population but has a lower taxable value, $6.9 billion. Troy has half of Albany\u2019s population and a taxable value of $2.8 billion, significantly less on a per-capita basis.\u00a0<\/p>\n By that measurement, Albany is in a privileged position, not a disadvantaged one. It\u2019s a benefit to be the capital, not a drawback.<\/p>\n That isn\u2019t an argument against more state aid or a bailout, but let\u2019s concede that the case is more complicated than city officials care to admit.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n And that\u2019s before we consider the $400 million in economic development money<\/a> that Hochul has directed to Albany for economic revitalization<\/a>, an acknowledgement of the city\u2019s struggles and the importance to New York of a livelier capital.<\/p>\n Other cities would kill for such a gift, figuratively speaking, but, weirdly, the money makes it more likely that the state will rescue Albany. In a way,\u00a0Albany has the state over a barrel.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n