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Date: 7/5/2023
HOLYOKE — In its final hearing and overview of Mayor Joshua Garcia’s proposed fiscal year 2024 budget, the City Council approved a budget of over $163 million following a final round of cuts during its June 26 meeting.
The council, in a 10-3 vote, approved the FY24 budget, with At-Large Councilor Kevin Jourdain, Ward 5 Councilor Linda Vacon and Ward 2 Councilor Will Puello being the three “no” votes. The council made just over $150,000 in cuts, which brought the FY24 budget total to $163,739,827.
This was the fourth budget hearing the council has opened over the last month for review of the mayor’s proposal. The council has been joined by department heads across the city, and Garcia, throughout the hearings to finalize the city’s budget.
The council took the June 26 meeting as a final page-by-page review of the entire budget, which allowed for councilors to list a line item and motion to reduce or change the item. The City Council cut a handful of lines in total during its final review and could not boost any figures.
Before the final vote, Jourdain explained his reason for voting no was related to the increased tax levy in the FY24 proposal.
“I am extremely concerned that you’re looking at this levy of between 4.5-4.75% tax levy increase by voting for this budget. I know the mayor says that down the road he hopes that he’s going to have other things come our way so that we won’t actually have increased taxes by that amount. That to me is not a sustainable number, though,” Jourdain said. “I can’t in good conscience vote for this tonight and say that I’m in favor of a 4.75% tax increase on the residents of Holyoke.”
Jourdain reiterated that if this high of a tax increase was needed to balance the budget he could not vote in favor of it. He also added once ARPA funding from the federal government ends, the city will need to be better equipped to deal with this process. In total, the tax levy will increase $2.7 million based on projects.
“We have to find other ways to make this budget balance other than on their backs. I don’t think they — in these inflationary times — could take another 4.7% hit in their property taxes,” Jourdain said.
At-Large Councilor Joseph McGiverin was in favor of the FY24 proposed budget and said it was overall a fair budget. He added that looking at the tax levy, Garcia, for the second year in a row, is not taking full advantage of the tax increase, therefore “it’s giving a break to homeowners.”
“I think Mayor Garcia has been very transparent and very fair and he’s proven that to us and I think working with him is a key so therefore, I support the budget as amended this evening,” McGiverin said.
At-Large Councilor Israel Rivera said he was voting for the budget to continue momentum forward in the city’s collaborative efforts. Rivera added for too long in Holyoke, not having the available monetary resources has created issues with finances.
“I ran on the premise of ending the bottlenecking, so yes, I will vote on some things that cost a little more and may sound a little more progressive, but at the end of the day I have to do something different than what’s been done for the last 20 years, so that’s why I’m voting yes,” Rivera said.
At-Large Councilor Peter Tallman said he would be voting for the budget as well, and added that he believes this is the best partnership of work between the council and mayor in years. Ward 6 Councilor Juan Anderson-Burgos added he was also in favor of the budget and while it’s normal to have disagreements amongst the council, he thought the Garcia’s budget proposal was “a very thoughtful budget.”
Jourdain clarified his “no” vote was nothing against Garcia, it was just based on the numbers provided and that he was against the tax levy increase.
“There’s some factors here that are much bigger than the mayor. Is he doing an extremely thoughtful job? Absolutely. And him and I speak all the time and we’re very close on a lot of these things,” Jourdain said. “But the fact of the matter is, there’s going to be some difficult decisions in the road ahead.”
Council President Todd McGee spoke before the final votes were cast and echoed similar sentiments shared across the council about the great collaboration the city had during this budgeting season. He credited the mayor, the department heads across the city and the City Council for showing up and putting in the work to get to this point.
“To me that screams volumes to the residents and taxpayers of Holyoke. This council was fully vested in watching this budget and making sure,” McGee said. “There are problems, Councilor Jourdain pointed some of them out, but it is a moving target that will change over time. What that’ll be, unfortunately, we’ll have to wait and see.”
With the budget passing, one notable figure out of the FY24 budget is the school district’s budget. The school district totals $91,604,478 of the budget, while the remaining $72 million is budgeting for city expenses.
Jourdain was quick to point out during the discussion that the school budget was still largely based on estimates, as the state budget has yet to be passed, and due to that he had no proposed cuts at the moment.
Other final department numbers of note include $14,249,273 for the police budget and $10,513,769 for the Fire Department.
The first notable cut made in the final budget hearing was for $125,000 for a new city position of chief financial administrative officer. Jourdain led the discussion by saying that while he was “very warm” to the idea of the position, there was still much to be done in making it a reality.
“Unfortunately, we have to figure out what we’re going to do with all that. It could require a charter change, at a minimum it’s going to require a series of ordinance changes,” Jourdain said. “We’re just not ready there yet for this.”
Jourdain added that with the position not having been officially created yet by the city, it made sense not to fund the position at this time. Rivera agreed with Jourdain’s point about the process in establishing the position, but asked the mayor if the city was theoretically able to establish this position in the near future, could the fund stay in place and still be utilized once the position is up and running.
Garcia said it would come down to how quickly he could achieve consensus with the council to get the position created and then funded through other means. With the item ultimately being removed, if Garcia and the city are able to establish the position sometime in the next fiscal year, funding to finish out the fiscal year for the position would be moved from a separate line item within the budget, if supported.
“Councilor Jourdain is right, it’s not like I can hire someone [at the start of FY24]. There’s still some steps to take. The big important one right now is to get the position created in ordinance and the support of the body to approve funding when there is a proposal in front of you,” Garcia explained to the council.
At-Large Councilor Tessa Murphy-Romboletti was the lone “no” vote on the proposed cut and referenced frustrations with the pace at which things are accomplished in the council. She said while she understood there are necessary steps in creating the position, she also thought eliminating the line item could prolong the whole process.
McGiverin and Ward 3 Councilor David Bartley also agreed the position made sense for the city but not until they took the proper steps in establishing it.
Another cut was attempted for a similar reason, this time in the engineer portion of the budget as Vacon proposed cutting $63,340 that would go toward a grant writer position in the engineer’s office.
Vacon said the proposal came as the position had yet to be established in the office, so the funding did not seem necessary until someone was hired.
McGiverin said he understood Vacon’s point but felt he was willing to take the chance with this position.
“This position is much needed in the DPW, we’re losing out on a lot of money because nobody is looking for the money or writing the grants or working with the state and so forth to get it,” McGiverin said.
He added it was not as complicated adding this position as it would be in the situation discussed to create a chief financial administrator officer. Vacon ultimately pulled her amendment request and the line item for the grant writer position remained.
The final cut made came in the Veteran’s Services portion of the budget, where Jourdain proposed cutting $10,000 on direct veterans’ benefits. Jourdain explained the cut was not coming from an anti-veteran or military service position, but based on past year’s allocated total versus the amount used.
Jourdain said last year’s allocation for this line item in the budget was $300,000 that ended up not being all used and at least $60,000 was transferred to be utilized somewhere else in the city.
“For whatever reason we’re not spending anywhere near the amount of money we need to,” Jourdain said. “I would love to spend all this money but for whatever reason they’re not using the money we’re giving and its kind of too bad because the state does reimburse 75% of every dollar from this account.”
McGiverin said through his discussions with the office of Veterans Services he learned there was a influx of veterans, many homeless in the past year which impacted the estimates needed from the department. He did add he supports the cuts, though, and that “one way or another” they would receive any additional cash needed that was originally proposed.
Vacon reiterated that this cut was not anti-veterans and was just about addressing the estimates versus what is actually being spent.
To review the mayor’s proposed FY24 city budget and eventual final copy of the approved FY24 budget, visit Holyoke.org.